CC BY
22
Философия
УДК: 740
DOI 10.21661/r-113116 В.П. Климов, Г.П. Климова
Вкус в полипарадигмальной системе
Аннотация
Современная культурная ситуация характеризуется неограниченным разнообразием духовных структур, идей, теорий, стилей и направлений. Влияние культурного артефакта, усиленного информационными технологиями, искажает ценностные эстетические ориентации личности, включая вкус. Индивидуальный опыт во вкусе становится предельно социализированным. Вкусы, прежде дифференцированные (эстетический, художественный, массовый, элитарный и т. д.), становятся гомогенными. В статье авторы пытаются доказать, что направленное сохранение и развитие элитарной культурной ориентации может стать продуктивной эстетической рефлексией.
| Ключевые слова: гомогенный вкус, полипарадигмальная система, культурные рефлексии.
V.P. Klimov, G.P. Klimova
The taste in a polyparadigmal system
Abstract
Modern spiritual situation is determined as a transfer from a united cultural paradigm to a poliparadigmal cultural space. It is characterized by an unlimited diversity of unlinked spiritual structures, ideas, theories, styles and direction. Polyphony, eclecticism, subjective assembling, inlaid, and omnivorous are perceived as a norm today. Total impact of cultural specimen, intensified by an industry of informational technologies deform valuable aesthetic orientations of a personality, including taste. Individual experience in the taste becomes unified and social. Tastes differentiated before (aesthetic, artistic, mass, elite, etc.) became homogenous. Cultural reflection may be a purposeful preservation of elite valuable cultural orientation.
Keywords:the taste, polyparadigmal system, cultural reflection.
Modern spiritual situation is determined as a transfer from a united cultural paradigmal cultural space. It is characterized by an unlimited diversity of unlinked spiritual structures, ideas, theories, styles and direction.
The world of science and technology in the 20th century has actively influenced the development of art, particularly scientific discoveries helped to bring about new kinds of art, "known as technological". New forms of art have significantly influenced (more traditional) art. Under the influence of technical innovations our abilities, feelings, perceptions, understanding and specific features of dialogue are transformed [6, p. 123].
If in the past means of mass communication were viewed only as means of communicating information ("indifferent" to its content), today we see that they possess the capability of transforming the paradigm of human consciousness.
A model of a dialogue communication (artist+artresult -recipient), where an author stays more independent then
the recipient, makes it possible for him to "grow up" to his level of creative and artistic thinking and demands as a minimum, take hold of a common culture, is replaced by an oppositional communicative model: author -the channel of communication + information - recipient. This model is monological one. "Initiator of a message" is in front of adequate understanding of him by a recipient. This is the structure of texts in mass media. The artists' independence again makes him an elitist. There is no communication-dialogue because of the author's "deafness". Motivated by the "final" will of the addressee, who is waiting in state of immediate understanding, the author does not have a desire to search out" any further (Bakhtin) [6, p. 124].
The "classical" polyphonic type of artistic thought comes about on the basis of a dialogue and has the characteristics of unfinalizability and metaphoricity. It's a characteristic of a dialogue as a "universal phenomenon", prevalent throughout all human speech, all relation and manifestation of human life, i.e. everything that has sense
Philosophy
and meaning. Current conditions determine the monological articulation of ideas (but not the image of ideas), "thought about thought", "experiences of experiences". In this case, "co-creation" that contemporary art demands are inaccessible to the consumer. What is also relevant is the lack of time for social activity. Orientation on "momentary contact" of engagement and reception of "desired result", "suddenness" is not suitable for him. The "consumption" of art determines its compensatory, hedonistic and escapist functions. The emotional expectation ("Tumak" - M.M. akhtin) of art does not take into account emotional duration, but is experienced as an instant of sensation, be it pleasant, sweet, or frightening, it represents a change of scenery, a distraction from dull reality [6, p. 125]. The diversity and variability of aesthetic predilections and preferences are accompanied by a multiplicity of forms and types of beauty and cultural patterns, which render futile all attempts to determine universal and unchangeable canons and criteria are senseless [4, p. 112-125].
Nowadays, during the post-modernist era, traditional art no longer plays such an experience. Postmodernist culture, as the culture of consumer society, is hedonistically orientated and ignores not only human aesthetic needs and tries not only to fulfill them but attempts to continually intensify, develop and exploit them. It is well important role in this respect. The cause of this state of affairs can be found in certain fundamental changes that take place both within and over and above arts. On the one hand, a strong all-aesthetizying tendency of reality. On the other hand, one notices a strong tendency towards aesthetization of social environment. Certainly, there still exists traditional art which provides its recipients with authentic aesthetic satisfaction. It has a target audience with determined tastes. It is, nevertheless, beyond any doubt that contemporary high art is no longer the main source of aesthetic experience.
Postmodernist culture, as the culture of consumer society, is hedonistically orientated and ignores not only human aesthetic needs and tries not only to fulfill them but attempts to continually intensify, develop and exploit them. It is well known, that without increased consumption economy cannot be developed. Thus it is an imperative that people consume progressively [4, p. 112-125].
The contraction of the role of the intellectually demanded high art in satisfying man's aesthetic needs does not mean that artistic means of satisfying such needs have been given up. This is a period of explosive development of certain types of popular art, as well as pseudo-artistic (art-like) forms of popular culture, such as commercial art, fashion shows, video clips, illustrated calendars, postcards, etc.
One may have doubts if these various forms of popular art and culture are really capable of satisfying man's true aesthetic needs because they are usually geared to rather primitive aesthetic needs and vulgar taste. There is a much greater variety and even much greater equalitarianism in the area of aesthetic tastes and needs than among artistic tastes and needs and its displace. Nobody has a right to decide which kinds of aesthetic needs are valid and which are not. Not only sophisticated and refined aesthetic needs but also their simpler forms are valid.
The tendency to ignore and deprecate popular and quasiartistic products of mass culture by aesthetics,
the theory of culture and aesthetic education is theoretically mistaken because of the permanent situation in which the aesthetic sensibility of many people is not being developed because their aesthetic needs are being satisfied at a relatively primitive level.
The art labeled as "postmodern" is much more pluralistic than that, and this is its peculiarity. Obviously a need for an aesthetic life as a condition of private perfection and self-creation is objective. An elite vision of a work of art will be characterized by radical novelty achieved by a continual aesthetic research of novel "experiences and language". It is the only way that one can enrich human life by such aesthetic aspects as "self-enlargement", "self-enrichment" and "self-creation" [4, p. 112-125]. The total impact of cultural spectrum, intensified by an industry of information technologies deform valuable aesthetic orientations of a person, including taste. Modem spiritual situation is determined as a transfer form, a united cultural paradigmal cultural space. Unlimited spiritual models, ideas, theories, styles and trends are not correlated, sometimes, with each other and are not connected to any certain value beginning. The culture is decentralized, paradigmal. Today's stage is characterized by the originating and simultaneous existence of numerous polar phenomena of culture, which have different forms of function and spreading, and consequently different levels of value orientations. The destructive homogenycal work of the mechanisms of totalitarian unification led to a different mode of culture.
Polyphony, eclecticism, subjective assembling, mosaic and omnivorous are perceived as a norm today. The imperative of tolerance, the patient attention and dialogue (debate-agreement) are appearing to be the leading cultural imperative. Information technologies have changed the time of culture development in such a way, that its' all three modules -the past, the present and the future - have turned to be coexisting. The future merge with the present and the past reveals itself not as a store of cultural monuments but as a synchronic part of common cultural space, where all the voices and all the meanings "waiting for their revival" (M.M. Bakhtin) are equal [1, p. 365].
Postmodern ethics coexistence and tolerance do not except the only thing - expansion, aggression, uncontrollable domination of the only voice, the only idea, the final conclusion and the only point of view. Subjectively, present culture determines the tolerance as confusion, chaos in points of view, thoughts, positions and also reveals a number of evident contradictions. The problem of polyparadigmality is viewed as a problem of spiritual, author's self-determination and self-identity. If a voice (position) of an author is not audible, not important if an idea is temporary, a conclusion is not final, a "point" is conditional and cannot be the last one, it means that this cannot create the distinct sound cultural space [5, p. 325].
Bakhtin's dialogues implicitly contain the problem of polyparadigmality. This is a position of the third person in a dialogue. The dialogue is not binary, is not tautological, "the one who understands is inevitably becomes the third person in a dialogue" and the author of the expression bears in mind the existence of the upper recipient (the third one), whose absolute understanding is
i
Философия
meant either in metaphysic distance or as his presence in a distant historical time. However, if upper recipient exists in boundless distance and nothing restrains the moment to him, and a real recipient is not evident or not ready to understand, it means that any step in this direction that is -expression, text, action [1, p. 305] becomes limited.
The previous distinct cultural paradigm could be compared with the matrix of tree and polyparadigmally, one might compare it with grass-rhizome matrix (terms of G. Deleuza and P. Guattary) [3]. What really matters in the matrix of tree is its center, its trunk (the main body, the base, ideology of the cultural paradigm), its roots that are under the ground. Branches and leaves are more or less meaningful additions. The fall of branches or leaves does not affect the selfness of the tree (death of an author, of a piece of art, the change of spiritual orientations, as well as taste differences). They are derivative, given before. The tree exists by itself. Its structure contains a certain principle, law, that puts in order the system of connections between center and border, author and upper recipient, taste and objects of its manifestation [2, p. 101].
Matrix can be described not only as unification but also multiplication, not totality but plurality. Breaks, zigzags, multiplication are the main parameters of the given matrix. In terms of globalistics, when conceptions are being destroyed there comes the time of marginal, autodidactic theories and ideas, moral favors and artistic-aesthetic dilettantism. In marginal mind (it manifests itself in art as well) "the differences between the high and the base, the forbidden and the permitted, the sacred and the ignorant in language lose its powef'. In reality, there is a destruction of spiritual and world views of hierarchies and oppositions of the matrix of tree. The marginal culture subjected to rhizome rules inevitably turns out to be growing through the cracks of power (tree) and rapidly destroys it by means of irony, provocations., parody and other ruder forms of humorous culture (material-body base) for which there is no prohibitions and limits [1, p. 301].
Step by step rhizomathic structure is becoming a reality of culture: and according to its rules polyparadigmal space of modern spiritual situation is being built.
Semantically speaking, "taste" is a complex notion. It's crucial for all the forms of discourse in aesthetic consciousness of a society or an individual, as well as the sign of their cultural level. The concept of "taste" is operative in art criticism and aesthetic theory, especially in the theory of esthetic experience and value judgment. It is also common in the developmental psychology of children [7, p. 167].
Aesthetic taste is taken to be shaped culturally and historically, affecting and being affected in everyday life. Historically determined, the content of aesthetic taste is subject to various political, ideological and religious interpretations. The concept of taste reflects metaphysics espoused by a culture [7, p. 168].
Taste is operative in any aesthetic experience consisting, according to most scholars, of "attention arrest", "affect" and "judgment", especially for the latter two, because it is exactly taste that affects the judgment. Our perceptions, choices, actions and relations are ultimately aesthetic. Our body is aesthetic, since its real object is beauty, and its means is art. Our taste manifests itself in our choices
regarding arts, communication, ways of life, and manners. It affects our ability to react to beauty and ugliness. Being the mixture of the rational and the sensuous, and being historically determined, taste is subject to progression as much as it is capable of deviation [7, p. 169].
When we speak of taste in polyparadigmal system, we should mention qualitative differences of the conditions of its development. Taste is made up not only vertically (a so-called tree structure) but also horizontally. And this, as a matter of fact, excludes its development. High aesthetic and artistic tastes were developed from corresponding values and patterns which possessed value-superfluous and selective features (taste has a good memory). The process of their assimilation had the characteristics of evolution, succession, healthy conservatism.
Taste is acquired from all social and environmental settings, though the character of its manifestation is immanent and individual. The taste of a recipient for the results of aesthetic and artistic activity entered into dialogue with the elite taste of professional art reflected in their works. The latter as a rule possessed a clear-cut author's conception. The artists' attitudes found a response in target audiences with differentiated value orientations, without preliminary determination of an external evaluative attitude.
Differences in ideas and tastes were a source as well as an agent of conflict and controversy, which in the end had a productive character. Nowadays, the market commands to meet the demands of the recipient de facto but not the demands of a project, forecast or ideas. Besides, the process of creativity is more and more substituted with technologies which decrease the importance of authors' individuality.
Aesthetic or artistic production is often created contrary to the authors' views and tastes. The artistic works of various quality, including pot-boiler, dilettantism and kitsch are spreading in such a number and at such speed, that even when their extravagancy, garishness and epatage adjust rapidly, they no longer possess all these features. Tastes that have been differentiated before become homogeneous. Individual experience in taste becomes unified and social. When there is no sharp reflection, controversy, clear conception and author's subjectivity as well as creative perception, taste, actually, loses the basis for its further development and is no longer existent as an independent characteristic feature of the spiritual part of person's life as well as society. Under existing in Russia conditions, an extensive assimilation of standardized and Americanized production and technologies leads to a number of contradictions as for instance - the differences of national mentality, taste or age adaptation to the western patterns and artistic trends as well as stimulation of marginal processes in Russian culture in its development of new forms and genres. In these conditions, the most dangerous thing is a decrease in traditionally high level of elite (professional) valuable cultural orientations including professional artistic criticism and developed (elite) aesthetic taste. Cultural reflection may be a purposeful preservation of elite valuable cultural orientations.
Taste is a sense of quality. This definition may possess different meanings as well as an aesthetic one. The qualitative aspect of taste can be considered in two ways - "a sense of
Philosophy
quality" or "a sense as special quality". Its criteria are basic traditional principles of spiritual culture: truth, kindness, beauty, or to be more simple in defining them: "what is good itself".
It is true that in the beginning of the XXth century the philosophers began to talk about "humanity" which was helpless before Universum, that human measure was not suitable for ontological perspective. But at the same time they advocated the view that one should think and act in such a way as though human measure was the one of Universum, manifesting, in terms of paradox (as paradox would have it) the cult of rationalism, taste, moral principles, etc. As it turns out, "the Black Square" of Malevich and all his suprematic compositions possess perfectly accurate although encoded proportions thereof a square rout from "the golden section" is the basis. Squares of figures, diagonals, groups of elements, etc. are all divisible by this rout. It is precisely this hidden
inner harmony that exerts its charming influence over a sensitive audience.
Finally, we reach a conclusion that elite classic patterns and tastes capable of gradual although persistent moral and aesthetic resistance (opposition) in the end give us a chance (opportunity) to help society to overcome (with dignity) certain contradictions and problems of the native cultural development. And we hope that the idea of the status of high taste as a part of spiritual life of society connected with efforts aimed at elitarization of aesthetic patterns, commands investigators' attention and further contemplation of the problem.
Литература
1. Bakhtin M.M. The aesthetic of the word creation. - Moscow, 1979.
2. Bakhtin M.M. The creationship ofFransua Rable and folk culture of the middle ages and Renaissance. - Moscow, 1965.
3. Deleuze G., Guattari P. Rhizome. - Paris, 1976.
4. Dziemidok B. Aesthetization of everyday life and de-aesthetization of art: The problem of fulfillment of aethic needs in postmodern culture // The Urals International Journal of Philosophy. - Ekaterinburg, 2000. - 1 (2). - P. 112-125.
5. Kharitonov V.V. Bakhtin's dialogics and the problem of polyparadigmality of modern spiritual situation // M.M. Bakhtin: An aesthetic legacy and modern times. In 2 vol. Part 2. Saransk, 1992. - P. 324-330.
6. Klimova G. Specifics of the dialogue in modem art // An aesthetic of M.M. Bakhtin and modem times. - Saransk, 1989. - P. 123-125.
7. Klimova G. Paradoxes of the totalitarian taste in the aesthetic interpretation of K.S. Petrov-Vodkin // The Urals International Journal of Philosophy. - Ekaterinburg, 2000. - 1 (2). - P. 167-169.
