Showing posts with label actions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label actions. Show all posts

2015-12-20

Is there such a thing as "Western culture"?

If I take my own "definition" from last time seriously, the answer would be "no", but that would be a bit short-sighted.

The factor that stops us is the first one -- Language -- for we in the West certainly don't speak a single tongue. In the narrower sense of the term "language", this is true, but we need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture. Linguistically, most Western languages (Hungarian, Finnish, and Basque excepted) are at least loosely related. The number of Greek and Latin-based words that have found their way into all Western languages, often in their own language-specific forms yet they are still often recognizable (e.g., the differences between philosophia-philosophie-philosophy-filosofia, etc. are not all that extravagant). Very often, key concepts are shared, even if the words themselves are different (e.g., notions like "holiday", "illness", names of body parts, etc.); that is, there is often almost a 1-to-1, word-level translation possible. Keeping in mind my admonition to look for what connects rather than what separates, we need not dismiss language outright.

Similar, but perhaps not as obvious, comparisons could be made in regard to the other factors I identified, but what interests me most is what is not obvious at all, what is so taken-for-granted, that we don't think about such things at all. This is particularly evident in the Beliefs and Customs areas: for example, that marriage is between only two people and is generally done in a ritualized manner in front of witnesses; that the roles played by men and women are asymmetric; that the individual is special; that the notion of "property" held in very high esteem; that a scientific, objective approach to problem resolution is worthwhile; that reason is a good thing; that we have at least one holiday honoring our home country and that most of the other holidays have Christian roots. When I was young, however, much of this was much more apparent and, consequently, taken even more for granted. But there are indications that the underlying cement of Western culture is starting to crumble.

Our beliefs and customs most often found their expression through the medium of religion, and that's what's changing most quickly and most deeply. Even though Christianity is anything but monolithic (i.e., three primary divisions: Catholic Protestant, and Coptic; two flavors of Catholicism (Roman and Orthodox, the latter breaking down into a growing number of subgroups); Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Pentecostal Protestants, the latter three having split into innumerable specific denominations, as well as special-cases like Mormonism. What binds them together is much, much less than what makes them different. In times past, most people were either unaware or unconcerned about the differences, but these days, they are playing an increasingly important, decisive, and divisive role. Couple this with a dramatic rise in the number of individuals declaring themselves atheist (whereby, the vast majority of these are, I believe, merely agnostics), and a growing number of people who more or less reject religion altogether in favor of a much less clearly defined "spirituality", and it soon becomes rather obvious that what made us in the West a WE is rapidly losing its cohesive strength.

As is so often the case, these factors, trends, and developments are neither good nor bad, but that our thinking make it so. The current attempts to unify the West religiously to combat what is perceived as a more monolithic religious threat (e.g., Islam) clearly show just how disconnected we've all become. Maybe it is time to finally drop the notion of a "Western culture" all together. The world is getting smaller by the day, so perhaps it is really time to starting thinking more about what we can and do share and stop worrying at all about what makes us different. Deep down, we're hardly different at all.


2015-12-17

What, then, is "culture"?

Nations are new. Cultures are as old as humanity's presence on the planet. There are, indeed, various kinds of cultures: tribal, local, regional, corporate, national, or transnational even. When we think and speak of "culture" these days, we almost automatically think of a "national culture", but only because we are often ignorant of all that history, anthropology, ethnology, and sociology may have to offer us. I'm not going to try to fill that gap, I'm merely going to point out a few salient features of "culture", because our ignorance is causing a lot of misery in a lot of lives.

In simplest terms, a culture is the language, customs, beliefs, and actions of a given group of people who feel bound together because of those four things.

  1. Language is a strong component, to be sure. This is why one often speaks of the Anglo-American culture (which also includes, oddly enough, the Australians, and for some, the South Africans, but not necessarily (or at least not consciously, the Belize), or the German culture, whereby the language is spoken as well in Austria and parts of Switzerland, and these are included in the concept.
  2. Customs describes "the way we do things around here". It includes holidays, like a big, family meal at Thanksgiving, or Santa Claus (or whoever brings Christmas gifts); and sports (baseball, football, soccer, lacrosse); and little things like whether people shake hands when they meet, and more.
  3. Beliefs include the stories and myths that a particular group holds dear, be it the Pilgrim Fathers, Charlemagne, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. These may be religious in nature, but they can also be secular and profane, like owning guns is a fundamental right, or all persons are created equal, or property rights trump personal rights.
  4. Actions are what really defines a culture, though. These are the things a group does, not only because that's the way they do things, but because they believe they have a right to do them. It's not only the way a group acts towards others, but because they have always been able to act that way. In other words, the customs and beliefs often drive what a culture thinks it's OK, good, right and proper to do.

I would be the last person to say what a given culture says, believes, or does is good or bad or right or wrong. All I know is that there are a lot of different ways to slice the reality pie. What I also know, however, that there are way too many cultures on this small planet which think that however it is that they have decided to slice that pie is the "right" way, the "proper" way, the only "reasonable way" to slice it. My only response to that is, well, "bullshit".

Beneath, behind, and beyond whatever we think our culture "entitles" us to, we need to recognize the simple, unalterable fact that everything any of us, individually or collectively, say, believe, and in particular, do has effects on others; that is, anyone other than ourselves or our (cultural) group. We forget that all too often.

Whatever we think is good, right and proper is only what we think is good, right and proper. Some values are universal (not harming others, for example), but even these can be relativized once we start thinking that "our" culture is "better" than "their" culture. Unfortunately, that's where we are today.

We believe we are the good ones, and those "others", well, they're the bad ones. It turns out, however, that they are merely the others whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not. Knowing what that otherness is and understanding what we have in common rather than what separates us are the true marks of the cultivated, civilized person. No more, no less.