Abstract. The author analyses certain regularities that define a type of historical development of culture and its substantive direction. A move forward begins from a stiff monologue of cultural self-affirmation to the polilogue of cultural interactions, from the only one possible solution of any task to the tolerant attitude towards a multiplicity of possible cultural options, from the priority of cultural sustainability to the priority of cultural variability, etc.

Key words: cultural dynamics, cultural sustainability, tradition, cultural variability, social freedom, cultural asymmetry