TRANSITION OF CULTURE

Text topic: Culture and Society

Text author: Јелена Ђурић

The text points at the complex inadequacy of the meaning of the concept of “culture”. However, the dependency of this concept on the context does not diminish an important role of culture in influencing worldviews. Cumbersome economic and political conditions reflect on the state of culture, while the awareness of the state of culture allows deeper consideration of possibilities for social change. The principle of modern capitalist production stands in opposition to this, as it has its origins in trading books, as a production of culture. Since the production of culture is mainly profit oriented, it is an obstacle to the creative shaping of culture. This is even more a problem in marginalized cultures, such as the culture in Serbia, which is constantly exposed to the tides of transition – from the pre-modern age, into the tradition of Christianity, than across the atheistic modernization of communism to the globalization era. Hence, the actual transition of culture in Serbia has become a part of the global cultural transition. It is at the crossroads between the production of culture, with profit standing as central value, and the creation of culture that supports sustainable and humane life on Earth.