From: blamb@hri.com (Bill Lambert)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: What is culture? (was: Brainwashied
Date: 5 Jan 93 21:16:30 GMT
Organization: Horizon Research, Inc.

=> In article <7566@bigbird.hri.com.hri.com> 
=> blamb@hri.com (Bill Lambert) writes:
=> >> [...]
=> >The discussion about whether or not particular cultures are better
=> >than others is somewhat interesting, however, I wish that in this
=> >discussion, the participants might be more careful so as to separate
=> >what are truly cultural elements from other aspects of society
=> >that are economic or perhaps technological when making such
=> >comparisons. Advances in medicine, and such, for example, 
=> >are societal... not cultural. 

In article <1ick7cINN5m0@shelley.u.washington.edu>, 
yoichi@carson.u.washington.edu (Yoichi Ii) writes:
=> Thanks, this is a good point.  Since this thread started out as
=> a discussion on women's role in society, I assumed "culture" to
=> be "something like the former", but "societal" elements have 
=> crept into the discussion.
=> 
=> Having said that however, I suppose it is possible for a "societal"
=> element to induce a totally new pure "cultural" element. In such
=> a case, one cannot even begin to compare two cultures (one with
=> and one without the "societal" element) because there is nothing
=> to compare.

Sorry, but I beg to differ. There's a lot to compare about cultures,
but whether one is better or worse is rarely one of them. The
beginning of any reasonable discussion about cultural comparisons
is the human condition and psyche, and how cultures were constructed
or evolved at different times, places and with different backgrounds
as attempts to explain, orient, adapt, or whatever, to each culture's
perception of that human condition. As the human psyche varies little
from place to place and from time to time, cultures have sought
accomodations to those human elements in various ways and through
a myriad of adaptations... all trying to explain their particular
set of conditions and history to the members of their culture and
to provide an infrastructure in which the adaptation of the culture's
members is easily achieved through their conformity to the culturally
accepted norm and prerequisites. But they are all attempts to reconcile
and deal with the basic human condition.

There seems to be some commonality in most cultures (I won't
claim to speak for all):

	1) An explanation for "Where did we come from?"
	2) A wish for a better life for themselves and
	descendents.
	3) A recipe to achieve 2) above.
	4) An accepted notion of social correctness.
	5) An accepted notion of what constitutes
	public safety and security and how to maintain it.
	6) A definition of what constitutes a family unit,
	an the member's reponsibilities within that family unit.
	7) An commonly accepted attitude about relationships
	to other cultures or peoples.

(others, I suppose...)

In accomplishing the above, cultures have made their own peculiar
adaptations. Whether you shake hands, bow, or wave your spear
when you meet is really not so important as the symbol of that
gesture, and the meaning of that symbol within that culture. On
that simple level, one could begin to compare parallel phenomena
in different cultures, and actually find many symbolic similarities
when looking past the artifacts of physical implementations of 
those symbols.

That we are unable to find or realize the commonality in this basis
for culture - such as the seven points listed above, for example -
is the failure of humanity, and specifically the failure of human
leadership, which has always put aside global human issues at the
expense of local economics or in mongering the power inherent in
the status quo.

It is difficult to point to different cultural aspects and make
definitive judgements as to which are better or worse than others.
If a culture achieves stability and harmony within itself, and
meets many of the goals set above for its members, then it is truly
difficult to judge any disadvantage over another culture, and one
begins to express preferences for their own set of symbols or
their own manner of coping in an attempt to quantify various
approaches that have solved the same problem for different sets of
people.

Unfortunately, racism and xenophobia have almost been universally
a part of most cultures at one time or another, certainly not
excluding recent Western and World history. That we point fingers
at other cultures and define them as racist or xenophobic is
a fairly shortsighted thing to do. We (in America) have 200
years as a nation, and only the last two generations have we seen
a viewpoint where the common good for the culture has been seen
to be overall acceptance and equality for other than the caucasian
race, and for those other than the people born on our soil. This
acceptance, for many people, is not largely based on any altruistic
ideals of equality as much as it is based on achieving internal
harmony and peace - one of the common cultural goals of any
people. It has taken quite some time to come to this realization
as a society, and we were forced to it: kicking and screaming.
It took a century of 'other' people living in our midsts under 
a sham of equality "in name only" for us to finally accept this
reality, and for them to finally be accorded the name "Americans"
without a majority of the people flinching at the sound.

We are lucky for it in the long run... you'd better believe it.

The point is, "You can't make pickles overnight."

I guess I wouldn't be so quick to put down a people wholesale,
even if many members display basically the same attitudes 
as my parents or grandparents did.

- Bill Lambert

PS - As I looked at the list of cultural points or desires
as I wrote about, I noticed that in America these days, we
are quite far from a consensus on how to achieve most of
them. It's seems to be important to our overall well-being
as a culture to have that consensus. Don't you think so?
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan