AN ATTEMPT TO COMPARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF “TRADITIONAL”/RURAL AND“MODERN”/URBAN (SUB)CULTURES UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF GEORGIA(A MATERIAL FOR REFLECTION)

Abstract

Today, Georgian society is going through a difficult, but inevitable and irreversible historical stage of urbanization and living in an urban environment. However, it is not enough to evaluate the trend of urbanization only based on statistical data – it is much more important to reveal the qualitative characteristics of this process. The management of the urbanization process, full-fledged socio-economic success and sustainability are highly dependent on the deep understanding and practical comprehension of the nature of this phenomenon by all groups or individual members of the society. Moreover, such an approach, at the current stage of public development, should become the basis of the national ideology; all the institutions of the society’s activities and sectoral policies are to be built on it. It is no secret that, historically, Georgian culture is rural, traditionalist; urban forms in it were of a discrete nature and were mainly related to the economic activities of foreign elements – handicrafts and trade; often, it was even related to urban management. We still think of Georgian (national) culture with the categories of a single, seemingly inseparable, indivisible body, and we pay less attention to the dynamic processes of differentiation taking place in it, first of all, the irreversible formation of modern Georgian urban culture. In this regard, it is very important to understand the crystallization of urban (sub)culture in the core of universal Georgian culture. For a wide circle of our compatriots, this (sub)culture is an ephemeral thing; its intangible, invisible characteristics or manifestations are little understood. That is why it is important to reveal and present the characteristics of rural and urban (sub)cultures as concretely as possible, often in an exaggerated manner.