TOBACCO AS A SYMBOL OF THE MECHANICAL PICTURE OF THE WORLD

Statesmen (Napoleon), outstanding scientists (Einstein), methods of obtaining energy and turning it into mechanical work (steam engine) traditionally become symbols of the universal picture of the world. The authors of the article want to offer agricultural products as a symbol of the mechanical picture of the world. This is a very extensive area of human activity. It includes many different components. We reduced this diversity to consumption relations and chose the Virginia tobacco variety as the object. It was brought to Europe from America, and currently occupies 70% of the total volume of cultivated tobacco worldwide. Unlike a sign that replaces another object, a symbol indicates the totality of social relations of a particular era. In order for a tobacco variety to claim to be a symbol of an entire epoch, it must be involved in the traditional symbols of the mechanical worldview. These symbols are science in the modern sense of the word, commercial capital, shipbuilding, absolutism, and the pursuit of an ideal society built on the basis of the innate nature of man. If it turns out that Virginia tobacco directly corresponds to the listed components, then it gets the opportunity to claim the role of a symbol. But a simple match will not be enough. It is necessary to establish a stable citation of this tobacco variety by the modern humanitarian consciousness: fiction, cinema, painting. The authors of the article tried to do all this and hope that their argumentation system turned out to be convincing.