THE PROGRAMMING ROLE OF CULTURE IN THE THEORY OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION

The article reviews the process of global evolution as a way of ascent of complex systems to higher levels of organizational complexity. Due to the fact that society features integrity and differentiation into different spheres of human activity, the author argues that it is a socio-cultural system. The author considers culture as a specific human activity and as a set of spiritual and material values, norms, ideals, patterns of behavior involved in the multifaceted process of programming the future. Human creates culture, and culture shapes human. The cultural and genetic code that is formed in society performs a unique function of selection, preservation and transmission of the cultural heritage of the people living in it. The sacrament of creating the new, according to the image adopted on an alternative basis, occurs precisely in culture. It crystallizes from the variety of values that were introduced in the course of history, dominated, arose and went into eternity. Preservation of what confirms the ideal image of the people in the memory is a most important function of culture. The article also proposes to consider the mechanism of the emergence of a new civilizational integrity, the strategy of sufficient development of modern society based on the coordination of its development with the laws of evolution of the biosphere, and also justifies the expediency of the approval of a new humanism as a necessary condition for achieving a secure future.