The ideal in the cultural system: a structural-functional analysis

Abstract

The article examines the specifics of the functioning of the ideal as a cultural concept defined as a polysystemic whole. The structural-functional analysis reveals the conceptuality of the ideal as a component of cultural practices and cultural system, which, performing the function of determining the future, has spatial and temporal characteristics and is embodied in the concrete, single. The content of the functional system within which the ideal is constructed is determined. The functional system has a goal-setting essence, the core of which is ideal images. The concept of “negentropy” is introduced, as the opposite of the concept of entropy, and which characterizes the ordering function of the ideal. The deconstructionist postmodern approach and the structural-functional approach to the definition of the ideal are contrasted. The author reveals the organismic nature of the ideal as intertwined and conditioned by human nature and human activity.