Power as a universal of culture

The article is devoted to the analysis of power as a cultural phenomenon. The article proves that power cannot and should not be considered separately from culture, or opposed to culture. The author substantiates the position that power is a full-fledged universal of culture. It is shown that power is inextricably linked with culture and is itself an element of culture. Power as a phenomenon meets all the criteria inherent in the universal culture. The source of the meaningful content of power as a universal of culture is the value representations in society. Value representations form relationships between organizational principles in the social hierarchy, and power is born as a result of the interaction of these principles. Special emphasis is placed on such a property of the social hierarchy as the ability to form systemic inversions. Systemic inversion in the social hierarchy occurs as a result of the collision of two or more organizational principles. Systemic inversions are the most important source of the peculiarities of power in its specific manifestations.