Syncretism is the combination of dissimilar elements within a single conceptual system

Syncretism is a combination (synkretismos - mixing, merging) of dissimilar elements. The concept of the field of psychology, culture and art. Most often you can hear about the syncretism of children's, religious (and religious) and primitive thinking (and primitive culture).

Children's syncretism

In the psychology of preschool children, syncretism is the capacity for an integrated perception of various concepts and categories that are not related to each other. For lack of information about the world around the child is building their own models. In these constructions, objective connections are replaced by subjective ones, instead of knowledge, the impression is used. In the first years of life, the child is not yet accustomed to logical constructions, therefore his reasoning is sometimes illogical even for his own conceptual system.

Religious Syncretism

With regard to religious (mythological) thinking, syncretism is the combination in one mind of dogmas (often mutually exclusive) from different religious schools, as well as objective notions of reality with a mythological description of the world. To a lesser extent, the doctrines existing for centuries without extraneous influences are syncretic. Syncretism is Christianity, in which the Old and New Testaments are canonized on an equal footing . The Russian Orthodoxy is even more syncretic, where Christianity has closely grown together with pagan notions. The mixing of peoples and as a consequence of cultural traditions in the modern world makes religious representations more and more syncretic. The appearance in the last hundred years of a huge number of various sects, schools, occult currents is partly due to the desire of religious people, inclined to reflection, to create a consistent logical description of the world and to resolve the internal conflict.

Artistic syncretism

The fusion of cultures and traditions also generates syncretism in art, which for many centuries progressed towards an increasingly narrow specialization. A modern artist / writer / musician is bound by the limits of one form, one genre. New works are born at the junction of different cultures, different genres and types of art.

Primitive syncretism

It is not quite right to liken primitive to children's thinking. For lack of objective knowledge primitive man is able to mythologize reality, but otherwise his thinking is much more rational than many of our contemporaries. Otherwise, he just will not survive. In primitive thinking, syncretism is a whole perception of the world, in which the individual does not distinguish himself from his own community, or from nature in general. Hence the oldest prototypes of religions - animism, totemism. Within the community there is practically no division of functions, no professional specialization. Everyone is multifunctional. An illustration of such multifunctionality is the syncretism of primitive art: dance, singing, playing a musical instrument, religious drawings are combined in a single ritual action, which is performed by the entire tribe, inseparable from mythology and from solving practical problems (healing the patient, hunting luck, etc.) .