Culture – A lesson in Togetherness

What is the origin of culture? Anthropologists have found that the physical and social needs of human beings, by working in conjunction with their ecological surroundings contributed to the formation and development of their culture. All living things are by nature constructed with the drive for survival, and primitive peoples with a potential for possessing and exhibiting emotions have not just a drive, but an awareness of the need for togetherness. It is possible that this awareness prompted the beginnings of primitive culture. The cultural force is one, which alters lifestyle and goes to affect the human condition.

When the wise and creative discovered that they could sow the seeds they got from the wild things they ate, and the tree would reproduce itself, agriculture came into being and gave a greater sense of security. Having to wait on the growing produce itself and on its ripeness, restricted movement. It became possible for people to grow crops and stay for long periods in one area. It gave rise to the construction of more permanent shelters in which to carry on life.

Civilization as we know it, may have begun with a slowing down of pace, and nomadic movements, with more time in which to think and to discover the need for setting up or establishing culture as a means of improving the general human condition. Man, woman and child became official members of a society, with stronger ties to an organized group.

People observed that the sun and rain made the plants grow. One thought religiously of these phenomena and worshipped the acts of nature, fearing the destructive forces of thunder and lightening which were observed to set fire to one’s neighbourhood. The natural disasters were a grim reminder to give praise to the good and beneficial forces working for the preservation of fragile human-kind. Religious thinking revealed itself in cultural practices. Places of worship were built and regular periods were set in which the tribe sought to appease the destructive forces, or praise the benevolent ones. Cultural practices strengthened cultural feelings among people who shared the same experiences and values through their common knowledge.

On the other hand, in an age of industrial societies with the need for urban living, and the increasing demand for higher education and specialization, there is a tendency for social and economic trends of thinking to reconstruct or make adjustments to the prevailing cultural practices. Day to day inconveniences and discomfort change lifestyles. The psyche that supports and thrives on the observance of culture, can through the needs of the body alter its cultural direction. Some people can develop the flexibility needed to surmount cultural barriers. Others remain bound to old views and retain old values at the cost of personal suffering.

Class and caste cultures have always been popular where family and kinship ties have been strong. Here culture demands that one’s duties, or one’s degree of regard or respect, and the maintenance of reverence or awe for various other persons within the family, kin and community, be held and observed prior to individual freedom. The interest of the individual must also satisfy and benefit the interest of the group. The person accepting this type of social orientation from birth may prefer to please the group and give in to their demands, discarding the small voice that goes to make him of her a unique person. Under the circumstances, one cannot be altogether pleased with one’s course of action.

It is likely that eventually the presence of some cause, some desire may be strong enough to free one, and to enable one to please oneself fully. One’s culture becomes unsuitable and one’s former attitudes stemming from clan values undergo alteration. Cultural changes may grow into that culture applicable for satisfying one’s social and physical needs. The qualities of flexibility as well as sturdiness are required to make up the personality of an individual. In considering one’s values in conjunction with the desired values of others one must decide what portion of those ideologies one must retain or discard in order to acquire true individuality.

In a world grown smaller in communication, one may observe the art of living or the various lifestyles carried on by human beings around the globe. The culture of East and West are there to be seen and heard and understood. Still ethnic groups may survive as groups. The old cultural force within can keep off basic change for the majority in their lifetime. However much it is faked, individuality is hard to come by, especially for the average responsible person who must abide by the laws of his or her culture, who must affiliate with the group.

The oneness of the human spirit in common sense will advise that to function as a healthy human being requires tolerance for the demands of others as well as self-will. In short, it requires a merging of the best quality of what is described as the group culture of the East to the individual culture of the West. It requires that acculturation that is wholesome and progressive. Western culture can be described as being built up around the requisites of the individual. One lives not in a joint family system, which has been the pattern of the East, but in a nuclear family system, where the individual lives with spouse and dependent children.

Western culture is said to hold that one caters to the social and economic needs of oneself and the immediate family. One does not necessarily ally oneself to branches of relatives, but to people who are compatible to one’s social order. One’s ego is one’s overlord. Yet in this practice there is danger of becoming too limited. One may have suppressed the side of one’s nature, which desires to give, since the main interest lies in catering to personal needs, in taking.

In as much as the give and take sides of one’s nature may vary inherently and culturally to suit personality, one may dislike the atmosphere one’s culture has created for one, and is inclined to make adjustments. The acquisition of unselfish thought will provide for the humane consideration due to others, and will support the potential for making changes for personal and collective improvement. Good culture must be able to promote personal well-being and maintain a well-balanced integration between the individual and the group. Is individualism an ideal force? This is a matter of opinion and personal evaluation , and the emergence of the question itself reveals the need for the acculturation taking place in today’s society. It amounts to the question: are human beings persons, or are they members of a group? Individuals cannot be expected to remain untouched by society, as the process of living includes the mingling and the involvement of lives.

The aim of a free society is to preserve individualism; and it is unthinkable to imagine individualism as being unimportant, because it is the living matter, the nucleus of every person which seeks wholeness in a plural existence and which must abide by the dictates of others in conjunction with oneself for better or worse. It is the potential of those forceful individuals in search of satisfaction and fulfillment that influences social, economic and cultural developments in the society. Today it can be said that the social and economic success of a majority may lie with a minority; those with power and authority in politics and in the boardrooms. Good decision-making would require the practice of wisdom, justice and love, the practice of the humane for humanity.

The power of norms on acculturation is strong. There is a tendency to adapt to the customs of the majority, and any behaviour that is learned and accepted by a group becomes valid behaviour. For example, if so many people are accepting the display of violence on the screen, it could do no harm. Yet, it can cause the criminal minded to take in self-pride, and it can stir the average person with a sense of hatred for the people behind the violence. It arouses disgust; still the fact is that people watch violence. It is a par of culture. Producers and publishers must take the responsibility for developing righteous public taste in favour of trash they so often sell. Instead, they pretend to be, or, believe they are catering to public taste. Human perceptions in seeming to deal with real issues can be varied and incorrect. Ignorance, weakness and greed bring tragic results. Some people in the professions will prefer to ride on the drive for monetary gains, rather than promote the education required for the maintenance of human well being.

The medical profession may sell drugs as carelessly as the drug pushers, because medical practice is built on he denotation of the right drugs for the right diagnosis. It seeks to preserve the tool that has given it structure. The result is, we have a pill popping culture, and the necessary industries set up to go with the necessary needs, which a culture establishes. One must remember it is a good thing and also a not so good thing. And yet by acculturation or by giving importance to some of the medical practices of the East such as meditation or acupuncture, or by heeding the family Holistic approach to health, medical science can become more beneficial. The health benefits to human beings should have priority over the preservation of medical ethics. It may be observed that orthodox medical science is slowly accepting the intrusion from alternative or complementary medical treatments from ancient practices, and that people are looking into the Holistic approach.

Similarly, in the practice of law, the profession seeks to preserve its selling capacity and enlarge it by establishing the need for various documents to keep clients out of trouble in a complex society. The same old law prevails and prevails, sending off shoots from interpretation to win the cause. Not ancient books and documents, but the benevolent computer keeps all information on the dot. Legally, divorce and settlements are fairly easy to come by, and it has become common and even fashionable for more and more people to join this group. The stigma to divorce is a thing of the past. In divorce people no longer emerge as weak figures, but as liberated men and women. A whole culture has sprung up around single parents and their life styles, which motivates success and failure, as is the pattern of all other cultures. Morality has seemingly turned around according to preference or privilege, and for many, self-direction and self-judgement are rightfully in order. Change that brings better or worse conditions is an eternal function. It is direction that can increase on better, and diminish worse.

The women liberation movements have rightly sought to establish womankind on an equal status with men. The movement grew into a culture by fairness, sympathy and imagination. It introduced a deeper and fuller life for the women who wanted it. And it brought additional systems and enterprises to bureaucracies, industries, government and the establishment as well as the home. As with all cultures it has its good and bad parts, but it is here to grow, and perhaps to alter that social norm gracefully.

Cultural influences can be good and bad for the person, and they go on to affect all human beings from birth to death. Cultural norms may develop out of the purpose of general beneficence or from ulterior motives driven by greed. We as consumers, authorities, people, may accommodate evil into our very natures and yet remain unaware of it. In a consumer society we tend to follow the norm and to need and to buy everything offered at a price. In today’s general culture the giving and the taking sides of our natures have been accelerating to bring on anxiety and stress. We celebrate occasions. Commercials tell us there is much to have and to hold or give away. As a society we yearn to reach that place in mid-stream to get to the ocean of plenty. Whatever the outcome, we strive to keep a balance emotionally in the art of living. It is our fort.

It is important to enrich and preserve individuality through success, and in spite of failure, as both these qualities were meant to strengthen the intellect and to direct the individual towards a better life within the culture. Whether or not it is better for human beings to maintain culture and ethnicity in society, than for society to direct and make human beings to fit a specific mould is debatable. Perhaps the answer lays in acculturation, in assimilating the best, the most useful and fulfilling practices of another culture to suit one’s needs. It is wise to put study of the unfamiliar before judgement. True justice loiters in simplicity, but can falter in complexity with too many options. There is that need to be sensitive and stern, to be vigilant. Results are seldom excellent but generally fair. In the structure of human nature, needs, complexes and claims are basically all the same as are flesh and blood. An enrichment in acculturation celebrates togetherness.