Is it possible to consider martial arts as a cultural phenomenon instead of accepting them as nothing more than a set of techniques of bloody combat? Does that make sense? These questions are asked from time to time even by their fans. There is a kind of contradiction. To some extent, this view is correct: each of the above concepts of martial arts is so different from one another in meaning that eventually contrasted with one another, as one of them is destructive and the other creative. 

 

We cannot deny the fact that there is a strong tendency in the spirit of fighting to prevent the free development of culture and, moreover, to its open destruction. In the history of mankind, numerous wars in which morale is of paramount importance have caused the loss of many important cultural values inherited from previous generations. Often the fighting spirit awakened in man the instincts of fanaticism, leading him to suppress the sprouts of culture due to excessive temperament and self-denial, which ultimately led to his own death. These two aspects of martial arts are definitely negative.

 

On the other hand, it should be noted that this is really part of the culture. In General, and a whole culture to a certain extent, is a sublime way of life or a particular expression of spiritual activities of the people, propagating to other aspects of his life, a barometer, reflecting the level of its development. Consequently, culture is purely creative and is the opposite of destruction in any of its manifestations. This is the generally accepted definition .Also, we should not forget that culture, like many other historical phenomena, human activity and the person himself, is alive. That is, once born, a cultural phenomenon not only lives next to other phenomena of life, transforming and dying like them, but also can have a profound impact on the formation of other phenomena, their development, change or disappearance. Sometimes depressive trend in the culture is able to affect another phenomenon, newly originated or existing in parallel, simultaneously rejecting their true value and steeped in their own decadence.

 

The maturity of culture also requires certain conditions of onset and has time limits. No living thing can live on its own. In the concept of life is automatically laid constant partial death of the individual and his inevitable dependence on others. This is the paradox inherent in organic beings. The creation and development of culture is also covered by the act.

Culture, as a rule, flourishes in the period of "youth", when preceding styles die along with degenerated and lost the activity of the social system; in this case it is close and appropriate connection with the new social realities. The word "adequate "seems too vague, but for the formation of culture requires certain conditions that meet it, in other words, components for it" adequate " substrate. Nevertheless, this does not exclude the emergence of serious conflicts between culture and certain social realities, which are also part of the mentioned substrate. It is well known that the brilliant heyday of the Renaissance took place against the background of more than turbulent social realities of the time. Great creative fruitfulness coexisted with supernatural destruction, determined not only the residual manifestations of past times and can serve as a good proof of the great vitality inherent in that culture.

 

A similar pattern has repeatedly occurred in the history of Japan. At the end of the nineteenth Century, up to which aristocratic culture for a long time experienced agony due to excessive playfulness and decadent sophistication, Japanese society, in the end, was able to get out of this impasse with the help of rough, but very realistic spirit of the newly formed class of Bush— samurai, who completely rejected the aristocracy inherent in the previous culture. In this case arose almost "physiological" the need such a revival. Naturally, it was accompanied by great loss of life and destruction. In numerous lyrical poems one can hear a sad and beautiful call of time, weak as a sigh:the concept.

 

And my forsaken heart, that lives without feelings,

Hear can sadness valley, where, suddenly vzvivshis,

Scatter in the autumn dance of a flock of leaves

The lake worries. And at least until the end of the destroyed capital,

But the dogwood bushes are so Lea in color,

As in the past.

Looking around, I did not notice

No flowers, no colorful leaves;

Lonely hut on the beach in the twilight of autumn.

 

The last poem symbolically reflects the fall of a refined aristocratic society and the arrival of a new society, rough and belligerent. These are the views of the old class. However, the view of the new class is very different from the above, as his interest was mainly real aspects of life than decorative, and preference was given not to beauty, and realism.

This spirit of realism and the primitive vitality of the samurai mingled with heavy social pressure, stimulated by two successful attacks on the Mongols and the newly arrived Chinese culture, especially the Zen philosophy and its new trends in art. All this gave rise to the singularity of medieval Japanese culture, which can be described by the words "skill" and "purity": from dynamic and realistic sculpture to symbolism, most fully manifested in garden art.

 

In this revival, in this skill and purification of culture, the leading role belonged to indifference, shameless consideration of objects and heartfelt awareness of death. People lived at a time when death was something so ordinary that the opportunity to live "today seemed almost grace. This has led to the disappearance of these manifestations of sentimentalism as "flowers" or "sadness valley"; only thing is: the acceptance of death and focus on life at the moment. Culture stepped over the call of death and miraculously revived.

The death of a culture over a generation or a period does not mean the total disappearance of that culture. Many great cultures that have existed for a long time, experiencing partial or temporary death in accordance with the peculiarities of each period of time, at the same time never lost their essence, supporting creative activity, sometimes brilliant, sometimes not very, throughout the history of its existence.

 

When such cultures collide with stable stagnation, as a result of merging with reality, or plunge them into chaos as a result of their uncontrolled and unbalanced development, the search for a primitive form begins, followed by a return to it, which allows to preserve the elements that are original for this culture. It is possible to recognize the existence of a law that can be called "self-observation of culture". This conservative trend is particularly pronounced in Eastern culture and in particular in the traditional culture of Japan.

 

It is no coincidence that a closer examination of the issue from this point of view can be seen that, despite the continuation of historical development, sometimes very noticeable, culture as a whole is extremely conservative in relation to itself and constantly tends to return to the origins that are considered the basis of each people; at the same time, civilization more or less successfully evolves, moving into the future and irrevocably separating from the past. In my opinion, this is the main difference between culture and civilization; at the same time, we must not forget that there is such an important aspect of culture as youth, women's or, more seriously, artistic fashion, or fashion in art, gagzop e'e1ge (the basis of existence) which is novelty, constant renewal.

The martial arts, which have been deeply developed in Europe, especially since the Renaissance, in the form of various techniques of warfare and rapidly spread throughout the world, have been accompanied and continue to be accompanied by the tireless improvement of methods and tools of war; they are developing in parallel with science and industry.

 

Consequently, we can note their close connection with education, which is called "modern civilization". However, in this aspect, martial arts have undergone constructive (or destructive) "material" development, which resulted in their collapse "mechanization". At the same time, this has led to the emergence of their distance from the person, which is getting worse every day, taking a critical scale. They leave no room for such a humane action as a reflection of the inner world of the individual.

This is the "civilized" aspect of martial arts. In Asia, there was a different interpretation of martial arts. Of course, we are not trying to say that the above-mentioned phenomena did not exist here, but against the background of their relatively weak manifestation, it is interesting to note the development of the so-called "cultural aspects" of martial arts in Asia and especially in Japan. They are largely determined by the individual vision of the world, in stark contrast to their inhumane and material development in the West.