A cultured person, a well-mannered person, a civilized person, an intelligent person - these are the epithets for appealing when they want to characterize someone who behaves in society almost ideally from the point of view of generally accepted morality.
When the definition of "cultured person" is given, they first of all mean the following: does a person comply with the rules and generally accepted models of norms of behavior in society - a kind of philistine code of honor. In principle, this is the end of the “duties” of a “cultured person” for society.
Cultural person as a social object
It is important for society that human behavior is conditioned by the framework of decency and law. The society, in principle, is ready to agree that a person can be anything alone with himself or with his family, but after leaving the door of his home, a cultured person should trigger a toggle switch to turn on norms and self-control.
That is, in the ordinary mind, the concept of a cultured person is a person educated, observing rituals and etiquette: "in front of strangers", "in public", "in society." If a person who owns all forms of etiquette also has a higher education, then, as a rule, such a person rises in social status from the level of a simply cultured person to the level of an “intelligent person”.
The behavior of a person "outside the door" is not taken into account in this case. “Behind the door” you can burp and poke your nose, yell and bully your family members, or anonymously troll evil on the Internet, even if not for money, but only at the call of a “rushing soul”. But if such an individual gives way to an old woman in transport or holds the elevator door for a neighbor, everything - the status of a cultured person is guaranteed to him.
Culture as a set of fulfilled conditions
Back in the early nineteenth century, the words "culture" more related to agricultural science than extrapolated to humans. The word itself appeared in the Age of Enlightenment - at the end of the 18th century, but it took root gradually and for a long time. In Europe and Russia of the 19th century, they said - a civilized person, meaning approximately what is now being put into the concept of a cultured person. Back in the early 30s of the last century, Ushakov's explanatory dictionary interpreted the concept of "cultured person" as a "cultivated" person. Only in connection with world urbanization, when a separate “urban culture” began to lie around, as opposed to nature, did the concepts of civilized and cultural begin to blur. By the way, epithets began to be added to "cultural", forming phrases: cultural revolution, cultural level, cultural ties, cultured person, i.e. a pointer to certain achievements, the development of progress and personality.
Currently, linguistics interprets the word "culture" as "the amount of genetically not inherited information transmitted in society from generation to generation." Sociology is also ready to offer its own interpretation of the concept: "culture is a set of traditions, customs, social norms, rules governing the behavior of those who live now, and transmitted to those who will live tomorrow."
From a philosophical point of view, according to Spengler and Toynbee, culture is only a part of civilization. A cultured person is a person who is able to assimilate a large amount of information, analyze it, interpret it, and build cause-and-effect relationships. Of course, philosophers did not deny the role of education and self-control in the formation of a real cultured person.
Thus, a cultured person is a person who observes the basic norms of behavior of a civilized society, but correlates himself and society only in the proportion that allows him to remain a person and an individual, and not a “cog in the system”, “majority”, part of a “single fist” and "One people".
