Many Faces of Culture in the Modern World

Abstract

The development of global culture cutting across all spheres of human spiritual life unveils the existing intercultural tensions and presents new challenges. Being a mass phenomenon, it qualitatively transforms the relations between different types of culture, thereby having a strong impact on national culture and promoting its massification. The paper proves that distinguishing of two aspects (ethnic and national, on the one hand; mass and elite, on the other one) makes it possible to reveal the dialectically ambivalent nature of modern culture. Special attention is paid to the ratio of mass and national cultures. Particularly, it is emphasized that the multifaceted identity of a person, which has become an integral feature of the modern time, serves as a foundation of consumption in both types of culture that employ myth to construct identity and strengthen their adaptation resources. It is stated that national culture accumulates all tendencies and contradictions that are typical for the society, including commercialization, which indicates that its adaptation function is enhanced under these conditions.

Keywords

• global culture
• mass culture
• elite culture
• national culture
• globalization
• identity
• myth