Cultures Past, Cultures Futures
Channel: Sam Vaknin
Date: 2013-03-31

Some cultures look to the past -- real or imaginary -- for inspiration, motivation, sustenance, hope, guidance and direction. These cultures tend to direct their efforts and resources and invest them in what already exists. They are, therefore, bound to be materialistic, figurative, substantive, and earthly.

More about this topic here:

http://philosophos.tripod.com/

http://samvak.tripod.com/film.html


They are likely to prefer old age to youth, old habits to new, old buildings to modern architecture, etc. This preference of the Elders (a term of veneration) over the Youngsters (a denigrating coinage) typifies them strongly. These cultures are likely to be risk averse.

Other cultures look to the future -- always projected -- for the same reasons. These cultures invest their efforts and resources in an ephemeral vision (upon the nature or image of which there is no agreement or certainty).

These cultures are, inevitably, more abstract (inhabiting, as they are, the mental space of an eternal Gedankenexperiment), more imaginative, more creative (having to design multiple scenarios just to survive). They are also more likely to have a youth cult: to prefer the young, the new, the revolutionary, the fresh to the old, the habitual, the predictable. They are risk-centered and risk-assuming cultures.