The Sphere of Spiritual Production in Ancient Central Asia
IDEOLOGICAL SYSTEMS OF ANCIENT CENTRAL ASIA
As is known, ideology represents a set of ideas and views that reflect, in a theoretical and more or less systematized form, people's attitudes towards the surrounding reality and each other, serving to consolidate, change, and develop social relations. Ideology manifests itself in the form of political, religious, ethical, aesthetic, and philosophical views and concepts. Usually, intertwining with one another, they together create a special sphere of spiritual production. Ideology acquires social activity through the mediation of psychology. It is psychology that conditions the purposeful activity of individual individuals and entire collectives. Ideological systems, having emerged under the influence of specific factors, also possess relative autonomy. There is a common opinion that for K. Marx, economic driving forces bear full anonymous responsibility for all spiritual processes. This has nothing to do with creative Marxism and represents one of the variants of the "Russian bear" in the representations of theoretical thought in Soviet historical science. Both Marx and Engels repeatedly wrote that it is precisely due to the relative autonomy of ideology that it exerts a noticeable reverse impact on political and social systems.
In ancient periods, the lack of differentiation in forms of public consciousness is characteristic, among which religious representations played a crucial role (Masson, 1960). Without taking them into account, it is impossible to adequately study ancient cultures, to understand the spirit of the era, its ethical and aesthetic canons. Ancient religions constituted a defining block of the entire ideological system, performing worldview, regulatory, and religious-compensatory functions. Mass consciousness, as a rule, acquired a religious-mythological coloring. Religious views played a significant role in national self-identification. Often, ethnic and sub-ethnic groups acquire ethnoconfessional traits. Religious norms largely determined the functioning of the socio-normative subsystem of the entire cultural block.
In the religious complex, researchers usually distinguish three constituent elements: religious representations (ideology), moods and feelings (psychology), and religious actions (cult). Rites and ritual practices are the most important forms of manifestation and embodiment (including in the material world) of religious systems.
The conservatism inherent in ideology as such manifests itself with particular strength in the ritual side, materializing in special structures and sets of objects.
Reconstruction of Ancient Ideological Systems of Ancient Central Asia
