ANALYSIS OF CULTURE AS AN UNBALANCED SYSTEM

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ANALYSIS OF CULTURE AS AN UNBALANCED SYSTEM

Journal Title: Гуманітарний часопис - Year 2015, Vol 1, Issue 3

Abstract

Ivanova K. A., Balabay Ya. V. ANALYSIS OF CULTURE AS AN UNBALANCED SYSTEM Actuality of interpretation of culture as an unbalanced system is connected with the important role of unbalanced systems and processes in modern science. Rene Thom, Herman Haken, Vladimir Arnold, Ilya Prigozhyn, Isabelle Stengers paid a special attention to a phenomenon of unbalanced systems in the field of natural science. The aim of the article is to investigate a culture as an unbalanced system able to turn into chaos and experience some radical transformations, as well as a possibility of using of unbalanced systems study in humanitarian issues. It is of great importance to find out if it can be applied the concept of unbalanced systems and conceptual provisions of synergy to analysis of cultural phenomena. An introduction of understanding of the mechanisms and factors of unbalance in culture in connection with the problem of cultural change is also among the aims of the article. A system in a strongly unbalanced state is characterized by volatility for its own initial settings. While passing of instability points in various environments the transition to the state of complexity appears. A new structure appears with a chaos. Self-organization at a micro-level leads to complications of spatiotemporal patterns at a macro-level. A concept of bifurcation is of great importance in a sense of unbalanced state or variable parameter the system gets a threshold of stability on which it opens for several possible ways of change. It must be emphasized that synergetics isn’t connected with a dynamic balance. There is no idea of progress in synergetics. No attractor is not “higher” or “lower”. Bifurcation is associated with a notion of disaster, “the crest of a wave of disruption”. Synergetics doesn’t involve the transformation of quantity into quality in an explicit form. A fractal feature is one of the key “images” of synergetics which expresses an ability of a structure to reproduce itself in any scale. Society can be analyzed as a system which has balanced and unbalanced states. The development of some societies can be interpreted in terms of entropy production (resource depletion, reducing soil fertility). All the modern typology of cultures is associated with energy indexes (the theory of economic systems, the “challengeresponse” system and the concept of “post-industrial society”). An individual endowed with desire and will is a factor of fluctuations in a culture. The socio-cultural system can take an unbalanced state in which some fluctuations get a critical character, making the further development of the whole system unpredictable (for example, a role of a “great person” in history and culture). The concept of unbalance in synergetics is associated with the concept of entropy as a quest of system to the energy balance and energy dissipation outside. Reaching its final maximum entropy can isolate matter forming system, limiting the possibility of change. In this case, the system becomes balanced. At maximum entropy production is virtually the same as the content of the natural sciences – the more energy consuming society is closer to a state of balance. The less energy consuming society is more unstable in its status. In this sense society has no difference of any other physical system. In a case of complex analysis of culture the complexity of natural science investigation is complemented by the complexity of human behavior “endowed with intellect and will”. An individual as a rational being always tried to oust the chaos on a periphery of his life, putting an outside world under his control. However this desire to order generated not only a myth and a religion, but a science too, which can be a start of a chaos leading to unexpected and unpredictable new order. Unbalance of culture is a fundamental factor of a power imbalance between a production of energy at the level of cultural substrate (business culture and mental structures serving it) and an output of a power to a periphery. Accidental cultural level (individual and group values, art) can be seen as a mechanism for removing of excess of energy that supports the cultural individualism and destructs collective mental attitudes. The further analysis of culture as an unbalanced system will identify the areas of possible factors and cultural changes depending on order parameters which set by physical conditions of human existence. It lets to take into account the fact that people endowed with consciousness and will act in culture, but it helps to avoid tendentiousness of psychologism in interpretations.

Authors and Affiliations

Яна Балабай, Каріна Іванова

Keywords

The keywords: culture unbalanced systems cultural changes synergetics. Ключові слова: культура нерівноважна система культурні зміни синергетика.

EP ID EP563580
DOI -
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