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Between Totalitarianism and Chaos: The Problem of Control and Art in Modern Culture

Received: 8 February 2022     Accepted: 21 September 2022     Published: 28 September 2022
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Abstract

Control is one of the fundamental phenomena of the world civilizational process. The semantics of this term, which goes back to the roots of the Romance language (controlle), means a list or scroll with written elements. It follows from this that control as a means of managing society in any form (from Egyptian temple farms to modern subcultures) appears with the advent of writing. It is noteworthy that dreams of an ideal structure of society in antiquity or the Middle Ages were associated with a large degree of control on the verge of a totalitarian society – for example, in Plato's dialogue “About the state” or in Thomas More's book “About the best state on the island of Utopia”. Consequently, in the history of civilizations, the limit of control has determined by its excess in society – this is the phenomenon of totalitarianism, when almost all manifestations of human existence are controlled. On the other hand, it is impossible not to see that the entire human history is a series of different wars – from intertribal to world wars. War in the civilizational aspect is the apotheosis of chaos, the archaization of society as an integral organism. And this is another border of control, where its presence is minimal, and where control appears as a benefit and a security condition. In different historical epochs, control could take various forms, especially interesting are the methods of control in the epochs before the invention of the printing press. Art has always reflected the development of control in society. Especially interesting are the images of control in modern cinema, including TV series and music videos, the audience of which currently significantly exceeds the number of viewers of the “big cinema”.

Published in American Journal of Art and Design (Volume 7, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.ajad.20220703.12
Page(s) 83-89
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Control, Chaos, Mass Culture, Russian Cinema, Blackout, Mike Shinoda, Clip “Fine”

References
[1] Emelyanov V. V. Ancient Sumer. Essays on culture. St. Petersburg,: Petersburg Oriental Studies, 2001, 368 p.
[2] Hésiode. Théogonie. — Les Travaux et les Jours. — Bouclier. Texte établi et traduit par P. Mazon. 16e tirage 2002. XXX, 242 p. Collection Budé (Collection des Universités de France). Hesiod: Theogony, Works and days; Shield / Hesiod; introduction, translation, and notes by Athanassakis Apostolos N., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. – 192 p.
[3] Ovidi Nasonis. Metamorphoses. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit R. J. Tarrant. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 534 p. Ovid Nason Publius. Metamorphoses. “Fiction”. M. 1977- 430 p.
[4] Plato. State. Translated from Ancient Greek by A. N. Egunov M.: Academic Project, 2015. - 398 p.
[5] More Thomas. Utopia / Trans. from Lat. and comments and F. A. Petrovsky. - M.: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1953. - 297 p.
[6] Archivio Tommazo Campanella. Archivio dei filosofi del Rinascimento. Istituto per il Lessico Intellettuale Europeo e Storia delle Idee. https://www.iliesi.cnr.it/ATC/index_campanella.php Electronic resource. Accessed - January 2022.
[7] Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil. London, Andrew Crooke, 1651 “Leviathan or Matter, Form and Power of the Church and Civil state” (Russian translation – 1936). Thomas Hobbes.” Leviathan” N. N. Pluzhnikova, compilation, preface, preamble to texts, comments, “AST Publishing House”, 2019, 482 p.
[8] Beccaria, Cesare. About crimes and punishments. M.: Stealth. 1995. - 304 p.
[9] Deflem, Mathieu. 2015. “Social Control (Deviance and)”, pp. 30–44 in The Handbook of Deviance, edited by Erich Goode. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.
[10] Kurennoy V. A. The Philosophy of film: Exercises in analysis. M.: New Literary Review, 2009, 232 p.
[11] The exclusive soundtrack to the movie “Blackout”. Release of the film with the soundtrack: November 1, 2019, Electronic resource. Accessed - January 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh6gJL9A6u0
[12] Losev. A. F. Additions to the dialectic of myth. Electronic resource – http://yanko.lib.ru/books/philosoph/losev-dialektika_mifa-a.htm Access mode- December 2020.
[13] Foortai, Francisca. Simulating the Meaning and Meaning of the Simulation: New Narrative Strategies in the Video. (Analysing the Clip “Iridescent” by Linkin Park) // History Research, Volume 9, Issue 1, June 2021, Pages: 31-38 Published: Feb. 20, 2021 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo/j.history.20210901.14
[14] Release of the “Fine” music video on December 3, 2019. Production: PREMIER Studios. Directors: Egor Baranov, Dmitri Komm Electronic resource. Accessed – January 2021 https://youtu.be/qpG1VjswM_4
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Francisca Foortai. (2022). Between Totalitarianism and Chaos: The Problem of Control and Art in Modern Culture. American Journal of Art and Design, 7(3), 83-89. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220703.12

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    ACS Style

    Francisca Foortai. Between Totalitarianism and Chaos: The Problem of Control and Art in Modern Culture. Am. J. Art Des. 2022, 7(3), 83-89. doi: 10.11648/j.ajad.20220703.12

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    AMA Style

    Francisca Foortai. Between Totalitarianism and Chaos: The Problem of Control and Art in Modern Culture. Am J Art Des. 2022;7(3):83-89. doi: 10.11648/j.ajad.20220703.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ajad.20220703.12,
      author = {Francisca Foortai},
      title = {Between Totalitarianism and Chaos: The Problem of Control and Art in Modern Culture},
      journal = {American Journal of Art and Design},
      volume = {7},
      number = {3},
      pages = {83-89},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajad.20220703.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220703.12},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajad.20220703.12},
      abstract = {Control is one of the fundamental phenomena of the world civilizational process. The semantics of this term, which goes back to the roots of the Romance language (controlle), means a list or scroll with written elements. It follows from this that control as a means of managing society in any form (from Egyptian temple farms to modern subcultures) appears with the advent of writing. It is noteworthy that dreams of an ideal structure of society in antiquity or the Middle Ages were associated with a large degree of control on the verge of a totalitarian society – for example, in Plato's dialogue “About the state” or in Thomas More's book “About the best state on the island of Utopia”. Consequently, in the history of civilizations, the limit of control has determined by its excess in society – this is the phenomenon of totalitarianism, when almost all manifestations of human existence are controlled. On the other hand, it is impossible not to see that the entire human history is a series of different wars – from intertribal to world wars. War in the civilizational aspect is the apotheosis of chaos, the archaization of society as an integral organism. And this is another border of control, where its presence is minimal, and where control appears as a benefit and a security condition. In different historical epochs, control could take various forms, especially interesting are the methods of control in the epochs before the invention of the printing press. Art has always reflected the development of control in society. Especially interesting are the images of control in modern cinema, including TV series and music videos, the audience of which currently significantly exceeds the number of viewers of the “big cinema”.},
     year = {2022}
    }
    

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    AB  - Control is one of the fundamental phenomena of the world civilizational process. The semantics of this term, which goes back to the roots of the Romance language (controlle), means a list or scroll with written elements. It follows from this that control as a means of managing society in any form (from Egyptian temple farms to modern subcultures) appears with the advent of writing. It is noteworthy that dreams of an ideal structure of society in antiquity or the Middle Ages were associated with a large degree of control on the verge of a totalitarian society – for example, in Plato's dialogue “About the state” or in Thomas More's book “About the best state on the island of Utopia”. Consequently, in the history of civilizations, the limit of control has determined by its excess in society – this is the phenomenon of totalitarianism, when almost all manifestations of human existence are controlled. On the other hand, it is impossible not to see that the entire human history is a series of different wars – from intertribal to world wars. War in the civilizational aspect is the apotheosis of chaos, the archaization of society as an integral organism. And this is another border of control, where its presence is minimal, and where control appears as a benefit and a security condition. In different historical epochs, control could take various forms, especially interesting are the methods of control in the epochs before the invention of the printing press. Art has always reflected the development of control in society. Especially interesting are the images of control in modern cinema, including TV series and music videos, the audience of which currently significantly exceeds the number of viewers of the “big cinema”.
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Author Information
  • Faculty of Philosophy, Culturology and Art, Leningrad State University Named After A. S. Pushkin, St-Petersburg, Russia

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