Olga Nikolayevna Kalinkina

President of Perm Regional Department of the International League for the Protection of Culture Russia, Perm

Culture and Civilization: Problems and Prospects

Culture is the Firebird that worldly wise men cannot catch, as it only surrenders to those pure at heart.

Helena Roerich

There is no problem in the modern epoch more pressing and vital than the problem of correlation between the two phenomena – culture and civilization, which both swiftly transform the environment. They are considered as factors of creative life organization, as means for human self-realization, as inexhaustible source of social innovations. Notions of "culture" and "civilization" mark the crucial points of growth on the endless way of human cognition. For this reason, people try to reveal their potential and methods of their most efficient use. Famous scientists and cultural figures devoted their research to the issue of correlation between culture and civilization, but still no univocal approach to this problem has been found.

Some of them consider civilization and culture separately, as phenomena that oppose each other and alternate, and exist independently. Thus, for German philosopher and culturologist O. Spengler process of evolution involves change of society development stages: one of them manifests itself in the flowering of creativity and spiritual perfection – this is the period of culture; it is displaced and replaced by the period of society stiffness, creative impoverishment and spiritual devastation, i.e. civilization. So culture and civilization, in Spengler's opinion, cannot exist in the society simultaneously, but they replace each other from time to time.

Disciples of another approach tend to identify culture and civilization, and use and perceive them as equivalent and interchangeable. In such case, primary importance is assigned to civilization; it is considered to include functions of culture among others, so culture becomes an insignificant element and is regarded just as means of amusement.

Still there is another point of view: advocates of this point believe that culture and civilization should be distinguished, and civilization is only expedient when it is spiritualized by the leading principle, by culture. I. Kant was the first to introduce the distinction between culture and civilization in his "Conjectural Beginning of Human History". For Kant, civilization begins with adoption of rules of human life and behaviour. Kant believed that "civilized man" would not cause trouble to another man taking into account his personal peculiarities. He is polite, well-mannered, tactful, attentive, in a word, he respects Man in another. By Kant, the ultimate degree of culture development is connected with development of abilities and moral perfection of a human, which spring solely from understanding of and respect for moral law, but not only from inclination to compliance therewith. Such approach to the problem of culture and civilization is both interesting and actual for the modern society, which had lost cultural principles in many respects. Kant foresaw rapid development of civilization and felt anxiety about that. He thought that culture moved forward much slower than civilization, and suggested that there might appear a gap between civilization and culture. Such pernicious disproportion, in Kant's opinion, brings many troubles to the people of the world, because civilization without spiritual dimension gives rise to the risk of technical self-destruction of the mankind.

Helena Roerich (thinker, public figure, wife of the famous artist, scientist and writer Nicholas Roerich) noted: "Civilization is one thing, whereas Culture is absolutely another. Civilization can be established in a few decades, but accumulations of culture are gathered over centuries and millennia by the greatest effort of outstanding minds and geniuses. Culture and injustice are antipodes. Thus, we may say that the world nowadays is inhabited by multitude of civilized savages and only by a few cultural citizens" [1]. Nicholas Roerich thought that civilization and culture had separated in their essence, whereas culture must spiritualize civilization, and they both are destined to improve life.

Modern mankind is proud of its civilization. Yes, many goals are achieved. Without doubt, civilization contains powerful potential of scientific and technological advance, contributes to improvement of the standard of living and more comfortable existence. We cannot imagine how can we do without electronic means of communication, global information systems and means of transportation. At the same time, all these achievements themselves do not mean cultural, spiritual flowering. In fact, having all the above-mentioned benefits of civilization, we witness loss of culture and sublimity, and such loss leads life to stagnation and disorder. Nicholas Roerich said that the true culture of thought is developed by the culture of spirit and heart, which man can cultivate in himself by the following of a great ideal. Famous thinkers, scientists and devotees whose names and deeds have survived through ages, were the great bearers of culture. It is they who are called "leaders of mankind". With all their lives and creative work those Titans of the Spirit paved the true way for evolution, and the mankind can elevate and spiritualize civilization if it follows that way and develops its inner culture. Great poets, painters, musicians and scientists being the conductors of high energies saturate human minds with new images and new ideas. They penetrate into otherness with their thought, showing the mankind its evolutionary perspectives. Not a single narrow specialist, no matter how high is his professional skill, can be considered a cultural leader, because the present requires synthesis of knowledge more and more. Science integration process spreading swiftly right before our eyes requires person to be more than just well-educated: the person should have refined perception and apprehend the synthesis, and therefore strive for culture, which allows to comprehend the in-depth essence of phenomena. Nicholas Roerich gave profound and succinct definition of a cultural person: "An ignorant person must become civilized first of all, then educated, after which he becomes intelligent. Then comes refinement and realization of synthesis, which is crowned by the acceptance of the idea of culture" [2]. Thus, speaking about culture is one thing, and understanding the true meaning of culture and being a cultural person is quite another. Artificial intelligence that conceals lack of culture does nothing but corruption. Empty words if they are not backed by real deeds do not convince and bring harm; they disappoint audience and deprive people of faith. "True culture and intelligence acts, composes, but not sighs, not prattles the memorized speeches! Speeches devoid of enthusiasm, which alone moves mountains" [3], - Helena Roerich wrote. Thus, culture cannot be expressed by vacuous outer actions devoid of noble aspirations, because culture lives in the heart of a man. Cordiality is one of the most important qualities.

The whole course of historic development of the mankind proved that civilization without culture is fruitless. States have used all their powers and resources for development of civilization, which "showed them its horrific deadly face in mechanization of life and human heart" [4]. Culture keeps on calling to human hearts, but deadly technocracy has formed more than one generation of "civilized barbarians" [5], who do not want to understand the true meaning of art, of divine knowledge, in a word, of everything that lies at the root of evolution. "Mass culture" term has specially been invented for them. We witness mechanic civilization with its achievements displaces subtlety, beauty and harmony, and only training of heart and broader thinking based on heroism, friendliness and beauty will allow to form new generation striving for divine knowledge and self-perfection.

Civilization without culture is devoid of its essence, devoid of the soul. Technocratic orientation of civilization turns vivid development down to ossification, creativity – to routine, and sublime aspiration – to momentary needs. Such civilization is characterized by supremacy of intellect, with no heart and no soul. Therefore culture and basics of humanism must be protected worldwide, if people want to live and to prosper. Today, the mankind suffers from many negative traits of civilization non-spiritualized by culture; such traits manifest themselves in tendency to standardized thinking, in implanting of unified truths and values (mainly Western ones), and in formation of socially loyal and law-abiding member of society content with the welfare he is provided.

If we consider the problem of correlation between culture and civilization from the synergetic point of view, culture seems to be an open complex system able to receive energies from without and to redistribute them. On the one hand, this manifests in its interaction and dialogue with other cultures (horizontal interaction); on the other hand, that very system (which apprehends itself as a part of the Universe) is able to open up to divine Cosmic energies (vertical interaction). Civilization closed up on itself and having lost connection with the divine spiritual levels turns into closed system that will come to an end sooner or later.

Thus, culture and civilization are naturally connected to each other and should not be considered as the two parallel processes that go independently. Material resources of the modern civilization provide for individual's comfortable everyday life, so the person gets better opportunities for creative work, spiritual growth and cultural perfection, but these opportunities should be used wisely. Only the broad-minded person can see that modern society is in the bifurcation point, and there are only two ways from that point: one of them leads to life, and another one – to self-annihilation. This results in tremendous responsibility that lies on us all for the state of science, culture, education, as development of those spheres of life is aimed at fulfilment of the person's creative potential and comprehension of the highest meaning of existence of a man on the planet. "Not shaky civilization that sometimes forgets about humanity, but beautiful Culture, unquenchable light on the ways of ascension let be our common achievement" [6].

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1 Рерих Е.И. Письма. В 9 т. Т. 7. М.: МЦР, 2007. С. 95.
2 Цит. по: Рерих Е.И. Письма. В 9 т. Т. 1. М.: МЦР, 1999. С. 198.
3 Рерих Е.И. Письма. В 9 т. Т. 8. М.: МЦР, 2008. С. 356.
4 Рерих Е.И. Письма. В 9 т. Т. 7. М.: МЦР, 2007. С. 226.
5 Там же. С. 95.
6 Рерих Н.К. Листы дневника. В 3 т. Т. 3. М.: МЦР, 2002. С. 304.

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