The essence of the spiritual life of society. Social Studies: Spiritual Life of Society. l spiritual consumption
5. Spiritual life of society
An important aspect of the functioning and development of society is its spiritual life. It can be filled with rich content, which creates a favorable spiritual atmosphere for people's life, a good moral and psychological climate. In other cases, the spiritual life of a society may be poor and lacking in expression, and sometimes real lack of spirituality reigns in it. The content of the spiritual life of a society reveals its truly human essence. After all, the spiritual (or spirituality) is inherent only in man, distinguishes and elevates him above the rest of the world.
The main elements of the spiritual life of society. The spiritual life of a society is very complex. It is not limited to various manifestations of people's consciousness, their thoughts and feelings, although with good reason we can say that their consciousness is the core, the core of their personal spiritual life and the spiritual life of society.
The main elements of the spiritual life of society include the spiritual needs of people aimed at creating and consuming the corresponding spiritual values, as well as the spiritual values themselves, as well as spiritual activities to create them and, in general, spiritual production. The elements of spiritual life should also include spiritual consumption as the consumption of spiritual values and spiritual relationships between people, as well as manifestations of their interpersonal spiritual communication.
The basis of the spiritual life of society is spiritual activity. It can be viewed as an activity of consciousness, in the process of which certain thoughts and feelings of people, their images and ideas about natural and social phenomena arise. The result of this activity is certain people's views on the world, scientific ideas and theories, moral, aesthetic and religious views. They are embodied in moral principles and norms of behavior, works of folk and professional art, religious ceremonies, rituals, etc.
All this takes the form and meaning of the corresponding spiritual values, which can be certain views of people, scientific ideas, hypotheses and theories, works of art, moral and religious consciousness, finally, the very spiritual communication of people and the resulting moral and psychological climate, say, in the family, production and other collective, in interethnic communication and in society as a whole.
A special type of spiritual activity is the dissemination of spiritual values in order to assimilate them by the largest possible number of people. This is critical to enhancing their literacy and spiritual culture. An important role in this is played by activities associated with the functioning of many institutions of science and culture, with education and upbringing, whether it is carried out in a family, school, institute or in a production team, etc. The result of such activities is the formation of the spiritual world of many people, and therefore, the enrichment of the spiritual life of society.
The main driving forces of spiritual activity are spiritual needs. The latter appear as the inner urges of a person to spiritual creativity, to the creation of spiritual values and to their consumption, to spiritual communication... Spiritual needs are objective in content. They are determined by the entire set of circumstances in people's lives and express the objective need for their spiritual mastery of the natural and social world around them. At the same time, spiritual needs are subjective in form, for they appear as manifestations of the inner world of people, their social and individual consciousness and self-awareness.
Of course, spiritual needs have one or another social orientation. The latter is determined by the nature of existing social relations, including moral, aesthetic, religious and others, the level of spiritual culture of people, their social ideals, their understanding of the meaning of their own life. Multiplied by the will of people, spiritual needs act as powerful incentives for their social activity in all spheres of society.
An essential aspect of the spiritual life of a society is spiritual consumption. We are talking about the consumption of spiritual goods, that is, those spiritual values that were mentioned above. Their consumption is aimed at satisfying the spiritual needs of people. Items of spiritual consumption, be it works of art, moral, religious values, etc., form the corresponding needs. Thus, the wealth of objects and phenomena of the spiritual culture of society acts as an important prerequisite for the formation of various spiritual needs of a person.
Spiritual consumption can be to some extent spontaneous, when it is not directed by anyone and a person chooses certain spiritual values according to his taste. He joins them independently, although this happens under the influence of the entire way of life of a given society. In other cases, spiritual consumption can be imposed on people by advertising, means mass culture and so on. There is a manipulation of their consciousness. This leads to a kind of averaging and standardization of the needs and tastes of many people.
Rejecting any manipulation of personal and group consciousness, it is necessary to recognize the conscious formation of needs for genuine spiritual values - cognitive, artistic, moral, and others - as expedient and, in principle, progressive. In this case, the consumption of spiritual values will act as a purposeful creation and enrichment of the spiritual world of people.
The task is to raise the level of the culture of spiritual consumption. In this case, the consumer needs to be brought up by familiarizing himself with a real spiritual culture. For this, it is necessary to develop and enrich the spiritual culture of society, to make it accessible and interesting for every person.
The production and consumption of spiritual values is mediated by spiritual relationships. They really exist as a person's relationship directly to certain spiritual values (he approves or rejects them), as well as his relationship to other people regarding these values - their production, distribution, consumption, protection.
Any spiritual activity is mediated by spiritual relationships. Based on this, it is possible to distinguish such types of spiritual relations as cognitive, moral, aesthetic, religious, as well as spiritual relations that arise between a teacher and a student, an educator and those whom he brings up.
Spiritual relationships are, first of all, the relationship of a person's intellect and feelings to certain spiritual values and, ultimately, to all of reality. They permeate the spiritual life of society from beginning to end.
Spiritual relations established in society are manifested in everyday interpersonal communication of people, including family, industrial, interethnic, etc. They create, as it were, an intellectual and emotional-psychological background of interpersonal communication and largely determine its content.
Public and individual consciousness. As already mentioned, the central moment of the spiritual life of society (its core) is the public consciousness of people. So, for example, a spiritual need is nothing more than a certain state of consciousness and manifests itself as a conscious motivation of a person to spiritual creativity, to the creation and consumption of spiritual values. The latter are the embodiment of the mind and feelings of people. Spiritual production is the production of certain views, ideas, theories, moral norms and spiritual values. All these spiritual formations act as items of spiritual consumption. Spiritual relationships between people are relationships about spiritual values in which their consciousness is embodied.
Public consciousness is a combination of feelings, moods, artistic and religious images, various views, ideas and theories that reflect certain aspects public life... It must be said that the reflection of public life in public consciousness is not some kind of mechanical-mirror image, just as a natural landscape located along its banks is reflected in the mirror-like surface of a river. In this case, in one natural phenomenon, the features of another were purely outwardly reflected. The public consciousness reflects not only the external, but also the internal aspects of the life of society, their essence and content.
Public consciousness is of a social nature. It arises from the social practice of people as a result of their production, family and household and other activities. It is in the course of joint practical activity that people comprehend the world around them in order to use it in their own interests. Various social phenomena and their reflection in images and concepts, ideas and theories are two sides of people's practical activities.
As a reflection of the phenomena of social life, various kinds of images, views, theories are aimed at a deeper knowledge of these phenomena by people for their practical purposes, including for the purpose of their direct consumption or their other use, say, for the purpose of aesthetic enjoyment, etc. e. Ultimately, the content of social practice, of all social reality, comprehended by people, becomes the content of their social consciousness.
Thus, public consciousness can be interpreted as a result of joint comprehension of social reality by practically interacting people. This is the social nature of social consciousness and its main feature.
One can, perhaps, agree to some extent with the proposition that, strictly speaking, it is not man who thinks, but mankind.
An individual person thinks insofar as he is included in the thought process of a given society and humanity, i.e.:
Engages in the process of communicating with other people and masters speech;
Involved in different kinds human activity and comprehends their content and meaning;
Learns the objects of material and spiritual culture of past and present generations and uses them in accordance with their social purpose.
By assimilating to one degree or another the spiritual wealth of his people and humanity, mastering the language, being involved in various types of activities and social relations, the individual person masters the skills and forms of thinking, becomes a thinking social subject.
Is it legitimate to talk about the individual consciousness of a person if his consciousness is directly or indirectly conditioned by the society and culture of all mankind? Yes, that's right. After all, there is no doubt that the same conditions of social life are perceived by individuals in something more or less the same, but in something different. Because of this, they have both general and individual views on certain social phenomena, sometimes significant differences in their understanding.
The individual consciousness of individuals is primarily individual characteristics their perception of various phenomena of social life. Ultimately, these are the individual characteristics of their views, interests and value orientations. All this gives rise to certain characteristics in their actions and behavior.
In the individual consciousness of a person, the features of his life and activities in society, his personal life experience, as well as the features of his character, temperament, the level of his spiritual culture and other objective and subjective circumstances of his social existence are manifested. All this forms the unique spiritual world of individuals, the manifestation of which is their individual consciousness.
And yet, giving due to individual consciousness and creating opportunities for its development, it should be borne in mind that it does not function autonomously from social consciousness, it is not absolutely independent of it. We must see his interaction with public consciousness. It is true that the individual consciousness of many people significantly enriches the public consciousness with vivid images, experiences and ideas, contributes to the development of science, art, etc. At the same time, the individual consciousness of any person is formed and develops on the basis of social consciousness.
In the minds of individual people, there are most often ideas, views and prejudices that they have assimilated, albeit in a special individual refraction, while living in society. And the person is the richer spiritually, the more she has learned from the spiritual culture of her people and all of humanity.
Both social and individual consciousness, being a reflection of the social being of people, do not blindly copy it, but have relative independence, sometimes quite significant.
First of all, public consciousness does not simply follow social being, but comprehends it, reveals the essence of social processes. Therefore, it often lags behind their development. After all, a deeper understanding of them is possible only when they have taken mature forms and have shown themselves to the greatest extent. At the same time, public consciousness can outpace public life. Based on the analysis of certain social phenomena, one can discover the most important trends in their development and thereby foresee the course of events.
The relative independence of social consciousness is also manifested in the relation that in its development it is based on the achievements of human thought, science, art, etc., proceeds from these achievements. This is called continuity in the development of social consciousness, thanks to which the spiritual heritage of generations, accumulated in different areas of social life, is preserved and further developed. All this shows that public consciousness not only reflects the social life of people, but has its own internal logic of development, its own principles and traditions. This is clearly seen in the development of science, art, morality, religion, philosophy.
Finally, the relative independence of social consciousness is manifested in its active influence on social life. All sorts of ideas, theoretical concepts, political doctrines, moral principles, trends in the field of art and religion can play a progressive or, on the contrary, reactionary role in the development of society. This is determined by whether they contribute to his spiritual enrichment, consolidation and development, or they lead to the destruction and degradation of the individual and society.
It is important to take into account the extent to which certain views, scientific theories, moral principles, works of art and other manifestations of social consciousness meet the genuine interests of the peoples of a particular country and the interests of its future. Progressive ideas in all areas of social life are a powerful factor in development, for they contribute to a deep understanding of the present and foresight of the future, instill confidence in people's actions, improve their social well-being, and inspire new creative actions. They form the very spirituality, without which society and individual people normally live and cannot act. Everything suggests that the role of social consciousness in the life of modern society is very significant and is constantly increasing.
The structure of public consciousness. Public consciousness is a rather complex phenomenon. Various aspects can be distinguished in it, each of which is a relatively independent spiritual formation and at the same time is connected with its other aspects both directly, directly and indirectly. Ultimately, public consciousness appears as a kind of structural integrity, the individual elements (sides) of which are interconnected.
Modern social philosophy distinguishes in the structure of public consciousness such aspects (elements) as:
Ordinary and theoretical consciousness;
Social Psychology and Ideology;
Forms of public consciousness. Let's give a brief description of them.
Ordinary and theoretical consciousness. These are, in fact, two levels of social consciousness - the lowest and the highest. They differ in the depth of understanding of social phenomena and processes, the level of their understanding.
Everyday consciousness is inherent in all people. It is formed in the process of their daily practical activity on the basis of their empirical experience or, as they say, everyday life practice. This is in many ways a spontaneous (spontaneous, i.e. spontaneous) reflection by people of everything, so to speak, of the flow of social life without any systematization of social phenomena and the discovery of their deep essence.
In those cases when people are deprived of a scientific understanding of some phenomena of social life, they talk about these phenomena at the level of their everyday consciousness. There are a lot of such cases in the life of every person and group of people, because we do not think about everything scientifically.
The lower the level of education of people, the more they talk about the phenomena of social life at the level of everyday consciousness. But even the most literate person does not think about everything scientifically. So the area of functioning of the ordinary consciousness is very wide. It allows with sufficient reliability, at the level of "common sense" to judge many phenomena and events of public life and to make generally correct decisions at this level, supported by everyday experience. This determines the role and significance of everyday consciousness in the life of people and in the development of society.
The everyday consciousness based on everyday life experience contains a great many useful information that is absolutely necessary for orienting people in the world around them, for their production and other activities. This information is about properties natural world, labor activity, family and everyday life of people, their economic relations, moral norms, art, etc. Folk art is still almost entirely based on the everyday ideas of people about the beautiful. At the same time, one cannot but say that everyday consciousness is full of illusions, very abstract, approximate, or even simply erroneous judgments and prejudices.
In contrast, theoretical consciousness is the comprehension of the phenomena of social life by discovering their essence and the objective laws of their development. This applies to the economic, social, political and spiritual spheres of society. Because of this, it appears as a higher level of social consciousness compared to the ordinary one.
Theoretical consciousness acts as a system of logically interrelated provisions, therefore, as a certain scientific concept concerning a particular phenomenon of social life. Not all people act as subjects of theoretical consciousness, but only scientists, specialists, theorists in various fields of knowledge - people who can scientifically judge the corresponding phenomena of the development of society. It often happens that this or that person scientifically judges a relatively limited range of social phenomena. He reflects on the rest at the level of ordinary consciousness - “common sense”, or even just at the level of illusions and myths.
Ordinary and theoretical consciousness interact with each other, the result of which is the development of both. In particular, the content of everyday consciousness is enriched, which includes more and more scientific information and judgments about various phenomena of social life. In this respect, the modern everyday consciousness of people differs significantly from that which was, say, one or two centuries ago.
Both levels of social consciousness - everyday and theoretical - play their role in the life and activities of people and in the development of society.
Social psychology and ideology. A kind of structural elements of public consciousness are social psychology and ideology. They express not only the level of understanding of the existing social reality itself, but also the attitude towards it on the part of various social groups and national-ethnic communities. This attitude is expressed primarily in the needs of people, that is, in their internal motives for mastering reality, for establishing certain conditions of social life and for eliminating others, for the production of certain material and spiritual values and their consumption.
The attitude in social psychology to the phenomena of social life is expressed not only in the needs and interests of people, but also in their various feelings, moods, customs, morals, traditions, manifestations of fashion, as well as in their aspirations, goals and ideals. We are talking about a certain mood of feelings and minds, which combines a certain understanding of the processes taking place in society and the spiritual attitude of subjects towards them.
Social psychology acts as a unity of emotional and intellectual attitudes of people to the conditions of their life, to their social being. It can be characterized as a manifestation of the mental makeup of social groups and national communities. Such is, for example, social-class and national psychology. The latter can be embodied in the national character of the people. The mental structure of classes and other social groups also finds expression in their social-class character, which largely determines their activities and behavior. Ultimately, social psychology manifests itself "in the form of convictions, beliefs, social attitudes towards the perception of reality and attitudes towards it."
Social psychology, like ordinary consciousness, is a manifestation of the consciousness of large masses of people, including classes, nations and entire peoples. In this sense, it acts as a mass consciousness, all its properties are inherent in it.
You can point to some of the basic functions of social, or social, psychology. We will call one of them value-orientated.
It lies in the fact that the prevailing social psychology of classes, nations, peoples forms the value orientations of people, as well as the attitudes of their behavior, based on the assessment of certain phenomena of social life by social groups.
Another function of social (social) psychology can be characterized as motivational-incentive, since it encourages masses of people, individual social groups to act in a certain direction, that is, it generates a corresponding motivation for their activities. In this sense, influencing social psychology means contributing to the emergence of certain motives for the activities and behavior of people, their volitional efforts aimed at realizing their social interests. Many of these motives arise spontaneously in the process of constant influence on the consciousness of people by the objective conditions of their life.
Everything suggests that in the course of the implementation of state policy, whether it concerns the entire society or some of its spheres, it is necessary to take into account the social psychology of various social groups and strata of the population. After all, the socio-psychological motives of their actions are a very significant factor that promotes or, on the contrary, hinders the implementation of this policy.
Ideology plays an important role in the mechanism of motivating people's social activity. In it, as in social psychology, the objective needs and interests of various social groups, primarily classes, as well as national communities, are expressed. However, in ideology, these needs and interests are realized at a higher, theoretical level.
Ideology itself acts as a system of views and attitudes, theoretically reflecting the socio-political system of society, its social structure, needs and interests of various social forces. It can clearly express the attitude of certain classes, political parties and movements to the existing political system of society, the state system, and individual political institutions.
The fact that ideology acts in the form of theoretical concepts indicates that it should scientifically illuminate the process social development, to reveal the essence of political, legal and other phenomena and the patterns of their development. However, this does not always happen.
To a greater extent, scientific content fills the ideology of those social subjects whose interests correspond to the main trends in the development of society and coincide with the interests of social progress. In this case, their interests coincide with the genuine interests of the majority of members of society. Therefore, they do not need to hide their interests, at the same time there is a need to understand the laws of development of society, the interaction of the objective and subjective conditions of its functioning. Hence the interest in the scientific analysis of social phenomena, in the comprehension of the truth. So if the driving force of ideology is social interest, then its cognitive guide, in this case, is truth.
Not every ideology is scientific. In a number of cases, their real interests are hidden in the ideology of certain classes, since they are at odds with the interests of the progressive development of society. An ideology is being created, the purpose of which is to paint a deliberately false picture of the processes taking place in society, the alignment of social-class forces, distort the goals of their activities, etc. In other words, a conscious mystification of reality occurs, one after another appears social myths, and even a multitude of those to obscure the consciousness of the masses and in these conditions to realize the interests of those forces that this ideology serves.
Ideology is of a social-class nature. This, however, does not mean that it always expresses only the narrow system of views of a certain class. First, in the ideology of a particular class, there may be positions shared by representatives of other classes and strata of society. Because of this, it becomes, to some extent, their common ideology. This expands its social base. Secondly, ideology expresses not only social-class, but also national, as well as general human interests, say, the interests of preserving world peace, protecting the natural environment on our planet, etc.
Nevertheless, the core of ideology is those of its provisions; which express the interests of one class or another, consistent or divergent with the interests of other classes. Ideology can be scientific and unscientific, progressive and reactionary, radical and conservative. Everything depends on its social and class content, forms and methods of its implementation.
Unlike social psychology, which is formed more spontaneously than consciously, ideology is created by ideologists quite consciously. The role of ideologists is played by certain theoreticians, thinkers, and politicians. Then, through the appropriate mechanisms (various systems of education and upbringing, means mass media and others) ideology is being introduced into the consciousness of large masses of people. Thus, the process of creating an ideology and its dissemination in society is conscious and purposeful from beginning to end.
It can be considered normal if the ideology that meets the interests of the majority of society is more widespread. It happens, however, that ideology is imposed on the masses, even if it is alien to their true interests. Many individuals and groups of people can fall into error and be guided by an ideology that is objectively alien to them. Thus, they move to the positions of other forces, often to the detriment of their own interests.
The strength of the influence of a particular ideology is determined by the position in society of those classes and social groups whose interests it expresses, as well as by the depth of its development, the forms and methods of its influence on the masses. Its influence is often deeper and more stable than social psychology. Expressing not only the current, but also the fundamental interests of classes and broader masses of people, ideology is capable of exerting a long-term impact on the nature of their social activity.
Of course, ideology is formed under the influence of all objective and subjective conditions for the development of society, including social psychology. At the same time, it has a significant impact on social psychology.
Under the influence of ideology, the emotional mood of certain social groups and their mentality can significantly change, in a word, the entire system of socio-psychological motives of their actions. The attitudes of ideology can fit into the socio-psychological motivations of the actions of social groups and give them a certain direction. As a rule, ideological attitudes induce people to serious social transformations. Some exceptions to this only confirm the general rule.
Forms of public consciousness, criteria for their differentiation. In modern social philosophy, such forms of social consciousness are distinguished as political, legal, moral, aesthetic, religious, scientific and philosophical consciousness. Each of them reflects the corresponding aspects of social life and, as it were, reproduces them spiritually. At the same time, the relative independence of all forms of social consciousness is preserved, which in one way or another affect the political, economic and other processes taking place in society.
What are the criteria for identifying and differentiating between the forms of social consciousness?
First of all, they differ in the object of reflection. Each of them mainly reflects one or another side of social life. This is the basis for their differentiation. So, in the political consciousness more fully than in any other, the political life of society is reflected, the main aspects of which are the political activities of people and the resulting political relations between them. The legal consciousness reflects various aspects of the legal life of society associated with the development and practical application of certain legal norms and legislative acts. Moral consciousness reflects the moral relations existing in society. And the aesthetic consciousness, one of the manifestations of which is art, reflects the aesthetic attitude of people to the world around them. Of course, each of the forms of social consciousness reflects, directly or indirectly, other aspects of the life of society, for they are all closely interconnected. However, it reflects “its” object and assimilates spiritually more fully than others.
The forms of social consciousness differ and, therefore, are also differentiated among themselves according to the forms and ways of reflecting the corresponding aspects of social reality. Science, for example, reflects the world in the form of concepts, hypotheses, theories, and various kinds of teachings. At the same time, she resorts to such methods of cognition as experience, modeling, thought experiment, etc. Art, as a manifestation of aesthetic consciousness, reflects the world in the form of artistic images. Various genres of art - painting, theater, etc. - use their specific means and methods of aesthetic assimilation of the world. Moral consciousness reflects the moral relations existing in society in the form of moral experiences and views, which find their expression in moral norms and principles of behavior, as well as in customs, traditions, etc. Social life is reflected in its own way in political and religious views.
Finally, the forms of social consciousness differ in their role and significance in the life of society. This is determined by the functions that each of them performs. We are talking about the cognitive, aesthetic, educational and ideological functions of various forms of social consciousness, as well as the functions of moral, political and legal regulation of people's behavior and their social relations. It should also be said about such a function as the preservation of the spiritual heritage of society in science, art, morality, political, legal, religious and philosophical consciousness, as well as the predictive function of science, philosophy and other forms of social consciousness, their ability to foresee the future and predict the development of society. in the short and long term. Each form of social consciousness is characterized by a certain set of the above functions. In the implementation of these functions, its role and significance in the life of society is manifested.
All forms of social consciousness - political, legal, moral, aesthetic, religious and others - are interconnected and interact with each other, for those aspects of social life that are directly reflected in them interact with each other. Thus, public consciousness acts as a kind of integrity, reproducing the integrity of social life itself, which consists in the inextricable connection of all its aspects.
Within the framework of this structural integrity of social consciousness, the everyday and theoretical consciousness of people, their social psychology and ideology, as well as the above forms of social consciousness, interact.
Depending on the nature of the prevailing social relations at one time or another and the tasks solved in society, first one or another form of social consciousness - political, legal, moral, scientific or religious - may come to the fore.
At present, in connection with the reform of the political system in Russia, the role of political consciousness not only of statesmen and other political figures, but also of the broad masses of the people, has increased. The role of legal consciousness has also increased in connection with the active process of lawmaking during the transition to new social relations and the common desire of the people to build a legal state. Religious consciousness is noticeably spreading among the masses of people, its peacemaking role and importance in achieving the spiritual unity of the people are growing. Objectively, the importance of moral and aesthetic consciousness, corresponding moral and aesthetic values, designed to enrich the spirituality of the people and humanize relations between people, is increasing. It is important that these vital objective requirements find their fulfillment.
The complication of the processes of social development and the increase in their dynamism, the transition to new forms of life require an increase in the creative activity of people. This activity should be deeply conscious, based on clear goals and beliefs. Thus, the importance of all forms of social consciousness increases, within the framework of which various phenomena and processes of social life are comprehended and methods of active influence on them are developed.
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45. Culture and spiritual life of society. Culture as a defining condition for the formation and development of a personality Culture is the sum of material, creative and spiritual achievements of a people or a group of nations. The concept of culture is multifaceted and absorbs as global
Chapter V. Revolution and Spiritual Life
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2.5 Social consciousness and the spiritual life of society Analysis of the spiritual life of society is one of those problems of social philosophy, the subject of which has not yet been completely and definitely singled out. Only recently have there been attempts to give an objective characterization
MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
BELGOROD LEGAL INSTITUTE
on the topic: "Spiritual life of society"
Prepared by:
doctor of philosophical science,
professor Naumenko S.P.
Belgorod - 2008
Introductory part
1. The concept, essence and content of the spiritual life of society
2. The main elements of the spiritual life of society
3. Dialectics of the spiritual life of society
The final part (summing up)
The most important philosophical issues concerning the relationship between the World and Man include the inner spiritual life of man, the basic values that underlie his existence. A person not only cognizes the world as a being, striving to reveal its objective logic, but also evaluates reality, trying to understand the meaning of his own existence, experiencing the world as due and inappropriate, good and harmful, beautiful and ugly, just and unjust, etc.
Human values serve as criteria for the degree of both spiritual development and social progress of mankind. The values that ensure human life include health, a certain level of material security, social relations that ensure the realization of the individual and freedom of choice, family, law, etc.
Values traditionally attributed to the rank of spiritual - aesthetic, moral, religious, legal and general cultural (educational) - are usually considered as parts that make up a single whole, called spiritual culture, which will be the subject of our further analysis.
Since the spiritual life of mankind proceeds and repels all the same from material life, then its structure is in many respects similar: spiritual need, spiritual interest, spiritual activity, spiritual benefits (values) created by this activity, satisfaction of spiritual need, etc. , the presence of spiritual activity and its products necessarily gives rise to a special kind of social relations (aesthetic, religious, moral, etc.).
However, the external similarity of the organization of the material and spiritual sides of a person's life should not obscure the fundamental differences existing between them. For example, our spiritual needs, unlike material ones, are not set biologically, are not given (at least basically) to a person from birth. This does not at all deprive them of objectivity, only this objectivity of a different kind is purely social. The individual's need to master the sign-symbolic world of culture is for him the character of an objective necessity - otherwise you will not become a human being. Only this need does not arise “by itself,” in a natural way. It must be formed and developed by the social environment of the individual in the long process of his upbringing and education.
As for the spiritual values themselves, around which the relations of people in the spiritual sphere are formed, this term usually indicates the socio-cultural significance of various spiritual formations (ideas, norms, images, dogmas, etc.). Moreover, in the value concepts of people it is indispensable; there is a certain prescriptive-evaluative element.
Spiritual values (scientific, aesthetic, religious) express the social nature of the person himself, as well as the conditions of his being. This is a peculiar form of reflection by public consciousness of the objective trends in the development of society. In terms of the beautiful and the ugly, good and evil, justice, truth, etc., humanity expresses its attitude to the present reality and opposes it with a certain ideal state of society, which must be established. Any ideal is always, as it were, "lifted" above reality, contains a goal, desire, hope, in general, something that is due, and not existing. This is what gives him the appearance of an ideal entity, seemingly completely independent of anything.
Under spiritual production usually understand the production of consciousness in a special social form, carried out by specialized groups of people professionally engaged in skilled mental labor. Spiritual production results in at least three "products":
Ideas, theories, images, spiritual values;
Spiritual social ties of individuals;
Man himself, since he, among other things, is a spiritual being.
Structurally, spiritual production is divided into three main types of mastering reality: scientific, aesthetic, and religious.
What is the specificity of spiritual production, its difference from material production? First of all, in the fact that its final product is ideal formations with a number of remarkable properties. And, perhaps, the most important of them is the general nature of their consumption. There is no such spiritual value that would not ideally be the property of everyone! Still, you cannot feed a thousand people with five loaves of bread, which are spoken of in the Gospel, and with five ideas or masterpieces of art, material benefits can be limited. The more people apply for them, the less each one has. With spiritual goods, everything is different - they do not decrease from consumption, and even vice versa: the more people acquire spiritual values, the more likely they will increase.
In other words, spiritual activity is valuable in itself; it has significance, often irrespective of the result. This almost never occurs in material production. Material production for the sake of production itself, a plan for a plan, of course, is absurdity. But art for art is not at all such stupidity as it might seem at first: glance. This kind of self-sufficiency phenomenon is not so rare: various games, collecting, sports, love, finally. Of course, the relative self-sufficiency of such an activity does not negate its result.
List of used literature
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2. Weber M. Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism // Izbr. works. - M., 1988.
3. Kirilenko G.G. Philosophical Dictionary: Student Handbook. - M., 2002.
4. Crisis society. Our society is in three dimensions. - M., 1994.
5. Self-awareness of the European culture of the XX century. - M., 1991.
6. Spirkin A.G. Philosophy: Textbook. - M., 2001 .-- Chapter 18.
7. Fedotova V.G. Practical and spiritual mastering of reality. - M., 1992.
8. * Philosophy: Textbook for universities / Ed. V.N. Lavrinenko, V.P. Ratnikova. - M., 2001. - Section IV, chapter 21, 23.
9. Frank S.L Spiritual foundations of society. - M., 1992.
Literature:
The main
1. * Antonov E.A., Voronina M.V. Philosophy: Textbook. - Belgorod, 2000 .-- Topic 19.
2. * Kirilenko G.G. Philosophical Dictionary: Student Handbook. - M., 2002.
3. * Spirkin A.G. Philosophy: Textbook. - M., 2001 .-- Chapter 18.
4. * Philosophy: Textbook for universities / Ed. V.N. Lavrinenko, V.P. Ratnikova. - M., 2001. - Section IV, chapter 21, 23.
Additional
1. Weber M. Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism // Izbr. works. - M., 1988.
2. Crisis society. Our society is in three dimensions. - M., 1994.
3. Self-awareness of the European culture of the XX century. - M., 1991.
4. Fedotova V.G. Practical and spiritual mastering of reality. - M., 1992.
5. Frank S.L Spiritual foundations of society. - M., 1992.
In all social phenomena, spirituality is involved in one way or another, represented by various sides, types, etc. Therefore, the determination of the place and role of the spiritual factor in social phenomena and processes is a necessary moment of cognition of the laws of social life. The theoretical development of the problems of the spiritual life of society and its culture is most important for those spheres of practical activity in which spiritual elements play a noticeable, sometimes decisive role. The methodological significance of these concepts is due to their belonging to the system of fundamental categories of social philosophy, which reflect the basic phenomena of society as a whole and reveal the relationship between them. This role manifests itself both in the study of the historical process in general and in the specific study of individual social phenomena, when it is necessary to clarify the relationship between the subjective and objective sides.
ESSENCE OF SPIRITUAL LIFE OF SOCIETY AND ITS STRUCTURE
The life of society is a real life process of a social subject (person, social group, class, society), which takes place in specific historical conditions and is characterized by a certain system of types and forms of activity as a way of mastering and transforming reality by a person. V real life societies are connected and equally necessary both material, material, and ideal, spiritual. To characterize the spiritual in modern literature, the categories "spiritual life of society", "spiritual production", "public consciousness", "spiritual culture" are used. These categories are very similar in content, but there are certain differences between them.
Spiritual life of society - the broadest concept of all those mentioned. It covers multifaceted processes, phenomena associated with the spiritual sphere of people's life, the totality of their views, feelings, ideas, as well as the processes of production of social and individual ideas and their perception. Spiritual life is not only ideal phenomena, but also its subjects having certain needs, interests, ideals, as well as social institutions that are engaged in the production, distribution and preservation of spiritual values (clubs, libraries, theaters, museums, educational institutions, religious and public organizations, etc.).
Spiritual production is a type of labor activity, the essence of which is the creation of objects to satisfy the spiritual needs of people. It develops on the basis of material production and has common features with it. However, specific features are also inherent in spiritual production. The main among them are the following:
- a) if the result of material production is material values, the world of things, then the result of spiritual production is spiritual values, the world of ideas;
- b) if material production is aimed at creating directly significant values, then spiritual production is values that only in the end result become socially useful;
- c) if in material production an object is used as a material form, it is absorbed or added to something, i.e. disappears as an independent one, then in the process of spiritual production the informational use of the object takes place regardless of its material form, i.e. the object not only does not disappear, but can acquire a greater volume.
As an important component of social production, spiritual production acts as the production of social consciousness, in which the main content of the spiritual life of society is concentrated. This is the core, the quintessence of spiritual life.
Public conscience is a set of ideal images: concepts, ideas, views, perceptions, feelings, experiences, moods that arise in the process of displaying by a social subject of the surrounding world, in particular, public consciousness. In other words, this is an understanding of reality by the relevant social groups or society as a whole at this stage of their development (France of the era of Napoleon I; Soviet society of the 1920s or the period of the Great Patriotic War; Russian society after 1991). Social consciousness is not an empirically existing, independent spiritual formation, but a philosophical category that denotes the features of the display by social subjects of social and natural reality with the determining influence of social being, and social being is the real process of human life. Social consciousness and social being are the most general categories used to identify what is predominantly determining in social life. Outside these limits, their opposition is meaningless. Ideal, spiritual components in close intertwining permeate social life. Social consciousness is a particle of social being, namely, being is social, since social consciousness functions in it.
Public consciousness has an extremely complex, dynamic structure, which is predetermined by the structure of social life. This structure is usually analyzed in two aspects: epistemological (cognitive) and sociological. According to the epistemological (cognitive) possibilities and features of the reflection of social life, the levels of social consciousness are distinguished: ordinary and theoretical.
The sociological aspect of social consciousness is the moment of its activity, inseparable from the system of relations in which this activity is carried out. In this aspect, public consciousness is differentiated by spheres and is represented by social psychology and ideology. In addition, the forms of social consciousness are distinguished, which are forms of cognition of reality and, at the same time, spiritual and practical forms of understanding the world and man (Figure 14.1).
Scheme 14.1. The structure of public consciousness
The ordinary level of public consciousness is a reflection of reality within the framework of everyday life. This consciousness is often called common sense. Everyday consciousness is formed spontaneously, in the process of immediate life. It includes the empirical knowledge accumulated over the centuries, norms and patterns of behavior, ideas, traditions. These are scattered and not systematized ideas and knowledge about the phenomena that lie on the surface of life and therefore do not require substantiation and proof. The theoretical level of public consciousness goes beyond the empirical conditions of human existence and appears in the form of a certain system of views. He seeks to penetrate into the essence of the phenomena of objective reality, to reveal the laws of their development and functioning. Only theoretical consciousness can reveal natural tendencies and complex dialectics of the development of social life in all its complexity and versatility. The creator of theoretical knowledge is a relatively insignificant, professionally trained part of society - the scientific intelligentsia.
Is an ordinary consciousness necessary in the presence of a theoretical one? Yes, it is necessary. Theoretical consciousness is capable of altering, modifying, and domesticating everyday consciousness. However, no matter how knowledge and science develop, everyday consciousness will always be necessary. At the same time, the absolutization of everyday consciousness leads to the emergence of illusions and errors in public consciousness. It is important that sciences, including social sciences, remain at the theoretical level, so that scientific concepts are not replaced by everyday concepts and ideas, since in this case the knowledge system loses its scientific status.
Let us now consider the sociological aspect of the structure of social consciousness. With regard to this aspect, two spheres are distinguished in the structure of public consciousness - social psychology and ideology. Social psychology is a set of social moods and feelings, customs, traditions and public opinion, which are formed spontaneously, in the process of everyday life of society. Social psychology and empirical knowledge are at the same level of social consciousness. But in social psychology, it is not knowledge about reality itself that is dominant, but the attitude to this knowledge, the assessment of reality. Social psychology carries out the regulatory function of the immediate life of people. It reflects the psychological traits and sensory states of social groups and society as a whole. You can talk about the peculiarities of national, class psychology, the psychology of religious groups, etc.
Social psychology, with its emotional overtones, plays an important role in social movements, encouraging people to engage in a variety of activities. That's why statesmen, it is important for political parties, politicians to study the mood of people, to predict their reaction to certain events.
Ideology is a system of views, ideas, theories, principles that reflect social life through the prism of interests, ideals, goals of social groups, classes, nation, society as a whole. Ideology, like social psychology, is aimed at regulating social relations. There is unity and complementarity between them. Nevertheless, these spheres of public consciousness also have some differences, namely:
- 1) social psychology is a direct and spontaneously formed form of expressing the interests of a certain class or social group; ideology is created purposefully, by certain groups of people employed in the sphere of spiritual production;
- 2) in contrast to social psychology, ideology is an ordered and theoretically formalized system, i.e. in cognitive terms, it acts at the level of theoretical consciousness;
- 3) social psychology encompasses the entire set of views of people who have a homogeneous, i.e. undivided, character. Ideology is divided into separate types - political, legal, aesthetic, religious and other convictions of people;
- 4) social psychology manifests itself when deciding practical tasks everyday life; ideology is aimed at solving global social problems.
It is necessary to distinguish between progressive and conservative ideologies, reactionary, scientific, relatively true and unscientific, illusory. The nature of ideology depends on whose social interests it serves and how it relates to the needs of social development.
No ideology should acquire the character of a state, official, compulsory, or have a monopolistic character. It must proceed from ideological pluralism, the rivalry of different ideologies. As practice shows, the complete “de-ideologization” of society, i.e. the elimination of ideology from his life is impossible.
In the structure of social consciousness, the leading place belongs to its forms. Forms of public consciousness - relatively independent, more or less systematized spiritual formations, reflecting certain aspects of the objective world and social life. Each form of social consciousness reflects the world in all its integrity, but in accordance with its specificity and its purpose. The following forms of social consciousness are distinguished: political, legal, moral, aesthetic, religious, philosophical, scientific, etc.
There is no single feature by which it would be possible to distinguish some forms of social consciousness from others. Researchers studying the forms of social consciousness identify four basic principles that, taken together, could serve as such a criterion. They believe that the forms of social consciousness differ (Figure 14.2):
Scheme 14.2. The main signs of delineating the forms of social consciousness
- a) on the subject of display. Their subject is the so-called ideological, or superstructured social relations that develop with the direct participation of consciousness. In political views, for example, the relations of the subjects of political processes are displayed, in morality - the attitude of a person to a person, a collective, a society;
- b) by display forms. They can be theoretical-conceptual, normative-evaluative, artistic-figurative. Science and philosophy reflect being in the form of abstract logical concepts: matter, consciousness, motion, mass, attraction, inertia, acceleration, valence, etc. Morality and religion use normative evaluative concepts: good, evil, justice, conscience, etc. Art reflects reality in artistic images;
- v) according to the characteristics of their origin and development. The emergence and development of each of the forms is associated with certain social conditions and needs. The first undivided form of consciousness was mythology. It arose and was a single form of spirituality at the initial stages of the development of society. Mythology contained the embryo of all future forms and methods of spiritual mastery of the world. With the division of labor into material and spiritual, a differentiation of mythological consciousness took place. A system of morality, religion, art, philosophy, political and legal consciousness, science arose;
- G) according to the performed social functions. Different forms of consciousness serve different forms of social activity, satisfy different social needs and therefore perform different functions. Science and philosophy have a cognitive and ideological load. Political and legal consciousness expresses and protects the interests of certain social groups in matters of power, state and law. Morality acts as an unofficial regulator of relations between people in the non-material sphere, relying not on the force of law, but on the authority of public thought. Art satisfies the high spiritual and cultural needs inherent only in humans.
The forms of social consciousness not only differ, but also have common features. All forms have one object of reflection - the material life of society, social being; they all act as separate types of a single spiritual complex - social consciousness; all are formed and function at both levels (with the exception of scientific consciousness): both ordinary and theoretical (at the theoretical level, they are manifested more clearly). All forms are closely interconnected, mutually penetrate and mutually enrich each other.
In any modern society an extremely important form of public consciousness is political consciousness. This is a set of ideas, views, teachings, political attitudes, reflecting social-group, class relations in society, the center of which is a certain attitude towards power. The very concept of "power" is key to political consciousness. Political consciousness includes ideological and psychological aspects. The first is associated with ideology as a system of views, ideas that reflect the fundamental interests of certain social strata, groups, etc. The second aspect is associated with psychology based on unsystematic views, feelings, moods of certain subjects of political relations.
Closely connected with political consciousness sense of justice- a set of ideas and views regarding the legality or illegality of actions, the rights and obligations of members of society, the fairness or injustice of legal laws. Legal awareness ensures public order, regulates public relations, based on the requirements of proper behavior, from the point of view of the law, formulated and approved by legal institutions. Legal awareness at the level of the individual is the awareness and defense of one's rights by defining and observing the corresponding responsibilities.
The law cannot regulate all social relations without exception, it regulates only the most important of them from the point of view of the state. The rest of public relations are regulated morality(as well as customs, traditions, rituals, which are partly included in morality). Moral consciousness is the sum of the rules of socially approved behavior of individuals. It embraces reality in the form of moral norms - the requirements that a person must adhere to in accordance with the attitudes of society and from the point of view of his own ideas about good and evil. Moral requirements are not enshrined in any institution or institution. They are supported public opinion, the power of traditions and customs, established norms, assessments of society and social groups. Moral consciousness at the level of society is the requirements prescribed to the individual, which he must fulfill due to his social obligations. Thus, public morality is a way of adaptation to the social environment, a sphere of social necessity.
The needs of people in the perception and creation of the perfect, the sublime, which would give them spiritual pleasure, brought to life art and aesthetic consciousness. They arose, like other relations and forms of consciousness that correspond to them, on the basis of socio-historical, primarily production, practice of people. The specificity of aesthetic consciousness is determined by its object, artistic-figurative way of reflecting reality and functions. Aesthetic consciousness includes tastes, ideas, thoughts, ideals, views and theories that reflect the aesthetic value of objects and phenomena of objective reality, as well as objects and phenomena created by the person himself. Reality in the aesthetic consciousness is reflected through the concepts of the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the base, the comic and the tragic. This reflection takes place at the ideological and everyday psychological levels.
Religion and religious consciousness covering religious ideology and religious psychology. Religious ideology is a more or less clear system of religious ideas, views of the world. It is usually designed and developed by theologians. Religious psychology develops mainly spontaneously, directly in the process of reflecting the daily living conditions of people, includes unsystematized religious feelings, moods, customs, ideas associated with belief in the supernatural. An essential place in the ordinary religious consciousness occupies the process of religious worship, or cult, which is the most conservative element of any religion. In the process of such worship, a person succumbs to a significant and versatile spiritual, emotional, psychological influence.
Between religious and philosophical consciousness there is something in common. Both religion and philosophy are aimed at realizing the ultimate meaning of human existence, at the search for deep unity and connections between man and the world universe. But this awareness is carried out in different ways, in different ways. So, philosophy is theoretical, conceptual reflections on the problems of the meaning of human existence. This brings her closer to science. However, unlike science, philosophy serves not only the goals of theoretical knowledge, but primarily the goals of human self-determination in the world, the goals of achieving agreement between man and the world of his being. Therefore, the highest value of philosophical knowledge is wisdom as an experience and awareness of truth, personal comprehension of the meaning and knowledge of existence, the ways of human creative self-development. Religion, on the other hand, relies not on knowledge, but on religious faith and shows a person a spiritual and practical way of comprehending the meaning of life. It gives a person spiritual guidelines for achieving immortality, using specific forms of awareness of the unity of man and the Universe.
The science as a form of social consciousness is aimed at reflecting the objective laws and relationships of the natural and social world. It systematizes objective knowledge about reality in an intellectual-conceptual (rational) way. The result and its main value is truth. Science has theoretical and empirical (experimental and research) levels of research and organization of knowledge, relies on a specially created system scientific methods cognition and transfer of knowledge to people. How social institution science took shape in the 17th-18th centuries. By types, it is divided into humanities, technical sciences and natural history.
An important place in the structure of social consciousness belongs to its carriers: mass, collective and individual consciousness. Mass consciousness - the level of public consciousness, the subjects of which are human communities that make up the majority of the population. Mass consciousness arises from community socio-economic, ideological-political and cultural-ethnic conditions of life of many people and includes the most common, typical ideas, views, aspirations, ideals, moods and emotions, customs and traditions that are formed in the process of spiritual and practical development of the world and are directly included in everyday practical activities ... Mass consciousness - integrating manifestation of the interaction of individual and group levels of social consciousness. It is formed under the influence of scientific, theoretical and everyday consciousness, ideology and social psychology. Mass consciousness acts as a direct incentive force for the social actions of the masses, their socially transforming activities.
Individual consciousness - the spiritual world of each person. A person, as a social being, sees the world through the prism of a certain society - society, nation, class, era as a whole. The individual consciousness displays social ideas, goals, ideals, knowledge, beliefs that are born and exist in the social environment. Consciousness is a reflection of the social being of individuals, it always manifests itself in a social form. In one case, a person reflects the world and realizes his being in the form of mythological consciousness, in the other - philosophical, scientific consciousness, in the third - artistic, religious, etc. Consciousness as such, outside and independent of a specific social form, simply does not exist. Public consciousness is a form of the existence of individual consciousness in a social form, in the form of a certain aggregate result of human activity, in the form of a common property, the achievements of society (Figure 14.3).
Scheme 14.3. The ratio of public and individual consciousness
Public consciousness is not a simple aggregate of individual consciousness. Its peculiarity is that it, penetrating the individual consciousness, forming it, takes on an objective form of existence, independent of individuals and their consciousness. Public consciousness is embodied in various objective forms of the spiritual culture of mankind - in language, science, philosophy, art, politics and law, morality, religion and myths, in folk wisdom, social norms and ideas of social groups, nations, humanity. All these elements exist independently of individual consciousness and social life, they are relatively independent, have their own characteristics of development, are inherited, passed on from generation to generation. Each individual forms his consciousness by mastering social consciousness.
But individual consciousness (as well as social consciousness) is a relatively independent system, it cannot be absolutely determined by social consciousness. The spiritual world of a person has a personality-unique form. The individual features of an individual's consciousness are associated not only with the specific features of his life, but also depend on his neurophysiological structure, mental characteristics, genetic organization, on the level of his own strengths and abilities.
In their development, individual and social consciousness mediate each other: each individual develops his consciousness through the creative comprehension of the spiritual achievements of past generations and the present, and the spirituality of mankind develops thanks to the individual achievements and spiritual discoveries of individuals.
Spiritual life- a relatively independent area of social life, the basis of which is made up of specific types of spiritual activity and social relations that regulate it.
The structure of the spiritual life of society includes public consciousness as a content side, as well as social relations and institutions that determine the order and conditions of its functioning.
The spiritual life of a society must necessarily include a person's right to spiritual, freedom, to realize his abilities, to satisfy his spiritual needs. The spiritual life of society must be protected by law.
Spiritual culture- a part of the general system of culture, including spiritual activity and its products. Spiritual culture includes morality, education; education, law, philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, science, art, literature, mythology, religion and other spiritual values. Spiritual culture characterizes inner wealth a person, the degree of his development.
Elements of the spiritual culture of society are works of art, philosophical, ethical, political teachings, scientific knowledge, religious ideas, etc. Outside spiritual life, apart from the conscious activity of people, culture does not exist at all, since no object can be included in human practice without understanding, without the mediation of any spiritual components: knowledge, skills, specially trained perception. Not a single item material culture cannot be created without a combination of the actions of the "performing hand" and the "thinking head". With the help of only one hand, people would never create a steam engine, if the human brain did not develop together and along with the hand and partly thanks to it.
Spiritual culture shapes personality- her worldview, views, attitudes, value orientations. Thanks to it, knowledge, skills, skills, artistic models of the world, ideas, etc. can be transmitted from individual to individual, from generation to generation. That is why continuity in the development of spiritual culture is extremely important.
The spiritual world of man- This is the social activity of people aimed at creating, assimilating, preserving, disseminating the cultural values of society.
Spiritual people derive their main joys in creativity, in knowledge, in selfless love to other people, they strive for self-improvement, experience the highest values as something sacred to themselves. This does not mean that they give up the usual everyday joys and material benefits, but these joys and benefits are not valuable in themselves, but only act as a condition for achieving other, spiritual benefits.
Spirituality- this is spirituality, ideal, religious, moral aspects of the world outlook.
Lack of spirituality- this is the absence of high civic, cultural and moral qualities, aesthetic needs, the predominance of purely biological instincts.
The reasons for spirituality and lack of spirituality lie in the nature of family and social upbringing, the system of personal value orientations; economic, political, cultural situation in a particular country. If lack of spirituality becomes widespread, if people become indifferent to such concepts as honor, conscience, personal dignity, then such a people has no chance to take a worthy place in the world.
Adults often think about self-development and self-awareness, about issues of ethics and morality, spirituality and religion, about the meaning of life. What is the spiritual It can be said that this is a heap of his impressions and experiences, which are realized in the process of life.
What is spirituality?
Such sciences as philosophy, theology, religious studies and social studies deal with issues of spirituality. What is the spiritual life of a person? It is very difficult to define it. This is a formation that includes knowledge, feelings, faith and "high" (from a moral and ethical point of view) goals. What is the spiritual life of a person? Education, family, church trips and occasional alms? No, this is all wrong. Spiritual life is the achievements of the senses and reason, united in the so-called, which lead to the construction of even higher goals.
"Strength" and "weakness" of spiritual development
What distinguishes a "spiritually developed personality" from others? What is the spiritual life of a person? Developed, strives for the purity of ideals and thoughts, she thinks about her development and acts in accordance with her ideals. A poorly developed person in this regard is not able to appreciate all the delights of the world around him, his inner life is colorless and poor. So what is the spiritual life of a person? First of all, it is the progressive development of the personality and its self-regulation, under the "guidance" of high values, goals and ideals.
World outlook features
What is the spiritual life of a person? Essays on this topic are often asked to write to schoolchildren and students, since this is a fundamental question. But it cannot be considered without mentioning such a concept. as a "worldview". That the term describes the totality of a person's views on the world around her and the processes that take place in it. The worldview contains the attitude of the individual to everything that surrounds him. Worldview processes determine and reflect the feelings and thoughts that the world presents to a person, they form a holistic view of other people, nature, society, moral values and ideals. In all historical periods, the features of human views of the world were different, but it is also difficult to find two personalities with the same views of the world. That is why we can conclude that the spiritual life of each individual person is individual. There may be people with similar ideas, but there are factors that will definitely make their own adjustments.
Values and benchmarks
What is the spiritual life of a person? If we talk about this concept, then it is necessary to remember about the value reference. This is the most dear and even sacred moment for every person. It is these landmarks in the aggregate that reflect the attitude of the individual to the facts, phenomena and events that occur in reality. Values are different for different nations, countries, societies, peoples, communities and ethnic groups. With their help, both individual and public goals and priorities are formed. There are moral, artistic, political, economic, professional and religious values.
We are what we think about
Consciousness determines being - so say the classics of philosophy. What is the spiritual life of a person? We can say that development is awareness, clarity of consciousness and purity of thoughts. This is not to say that this whole process takes place only in the head. The concept of "awareness" implies some kind of active actions on this path. It starts with controlling your thoughts. Every word comes from an unconscious or conscious thought, which is why it is important to control them. Actions follow words. Voice tone, body language correspond to words, which, in turn, are generated by thoughts. Keeping track of your actions is also extremely important, as they will become habits over time. And it is very difficult to overcome a bad habit, it is much better not to have one. Habits shape character, which is exactly how other people see personality. They are incapable of knowing thoughts or feelings, but they can evaluate and analyze actions. Character, along with actions and habits, forms life path and spiritual development. It is the constant self-control and self-improvement that constitute the basis of a person's spiritual life.
