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GLOBALIZATION AND NATIONAL CULTURE
A. Gafurov
The process of globalization and homogenization leads to the creation of a unified world community in which common norms, institutions, and cultural values are formed. The sense of the world as a uniform place appears. Globalization can be called a process of total integration. Nonetheless, it differs fundamentally from all forms of integration that have existed in previous world history.
Globalization is neither unification with the assistance of military force (although military force can be used as an auxiliary means), nor a willing alliance. Its essence is fundamentally different: it is based in the idea of benefit and material well-being. The drive to develop science and education, as well as the international nature of science and technology has aided in the appearance of new technologies, which, in turn, have made the "shrinking” of the world possible.
A nation creates and preserves its culture as a symbol of the realization its rights. The nation, as a cultural reality, manifests itself in various spheres such as customs, directionality of volition, a value system, language, literature, art, poetry, judicial process, religion, etc. The nation should see its higher purpose in the existence of the nation per se. It should be forever concerned with the consolidation of governmental sovereignty. Preservation of a distinctive character and its consolidation is primarily reliant on the activeness of internal forces and from expression of a national internal energy. A culture of a community does not constitute the simple sum of the cultures of separate individuals, it is supra-individual and constitutes the aggregate of values, creative outputs, and behavioral standards of a community of people. Culture is the only force shaping man as a member of a community. The culture of preservation of national characteristics is richer if it interacts with many peoples of the world.
Personal freedom, a high degree of social cohesion, social solidarity, etc, - these are the basic values that ensure the resiliency of all minorities and realize their national ambitions and ideals. Social life is primarily intellectual, moral, economic, and religious life. It encompasses all the characteristics of the shared life of people. Not one culture can exist without society, but also not one society can exist without culture.
In the culture of every community, certain systems of values and a corresponding hierarchy are the norm. The world of human values, affected by violent changes, has become very volatile and contradictory. A value
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system crisis implies not the complete destruction of values, but change in their internal structures. The values of a culture have not perished, however, they have taken on a different ranking. In any point of view, the appearance of new elements results in reshuffling of all the remaining elements in the hierarchy. Each culture is a means of man’s creative selfrealization. Therefore, the perception of other cultures enriches us not only with new knowledge, but also with new creative experience. This includes within itself not only the objective results of people’s activity (machinery, engineering structures, results of scholastic attainments, works of art, legal and moral guidelines, etc.), but also the subjective human forces and abilities realized within activity (knowledge and ability, production and professional skills, the level of intellectual, aesthetic, and moral development, worldview, methods and forms of people’s interactive relationship in the frameworks of a collective and society).
By virtue of the fact that man by his nature is a spiritual and material creature, he requires both material and spiritual resources. For the gratification of material needs, he creates and requires food, clothing, and shelter. He creates technology, materials, buildings, roads, etc. For the gratification of spiritual needs, he creates spiritual values, moral and aesthetic ideals, political, ideological, and religious ideals, science, and art. Therefore, human activity is conveyed through all channels as both material and spiritual culture. Therefore, man can be considered as initial systemically important factor in the development of culture. At the same time, man creates, reproduces, and uses it as a means for his own development.
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