Cultural code: Definition of the concept and practical problems of the phenomenon: Theoretical review

The aim of the study is to form a theoretical core of understanding of this phenomenon within the framework of theoretical review of modern concepts of cultural code. The article considers different definitional, structural and functional aspects of the cultural code, reveals its psychic roots and significance in human behavior, structure, sign-symbolic, figurative and value content, the role of a connecting element between the psyche and culture, the function of a communicative element and an interpreter of cultural texts and a cipher encapsulating the main meanings of culture. The significance of the cultural code in ethnic and national forms of human existence, in the construction of social and cultural identity is established. The key problems and risks associated with the defragmentation of the cultural code are outlined: standardization and unification of cultural codes within the framework of globalization, ideological and cultural wars and propaganda, excessive subordination of culture to market and materialistic principles, erosion of traditional values and meanings and at the same time imbalance between traditional and innovative principles in culture, conflictogenicity and disharmony of socio-cultural space as factors of intergroup and international conflicts, destructive processes, and the emergence of new cultural codes. Based on the generalization and synthesis of the obtained knowledge, a new theoretical and conceptual core of the cultural code is formulated as a structure that determines the image-symbolic and value content of culture, its ethnic and national peculiarities, the prospects of development of the sociocultural environment or the mechanisms slowing down this development, as well as the specificity of unconscious thinking and behavior of the people-expressor of the culture and its codes. In the framework of the proposed concept, the cultural code appears as a kind of “genome” of culture, laying the foundations of its development, determining the nature of interaction and human assimilation of its products, serves as a basic mechanism of specific cultural mastering and transformation of the world around people, as well as a decoder that allows (if correctly interpreted) to read the mental characteristics of social groups and influence them in the mental and behavioral sense.