- What is wrong with following `western culture'?
- Do we not have the freedom to choose which culture we follow or not follow, the way we have a freedom of religion?
- Why can we not choose not to follow any `culture' and live life the way we want to live, without conforming to any existing culture?
- Why is `not having a culture' looked down upon?
- What does `has/have no culture' mean?
- Why must we embrace `our culture'?
- How do we decide which culture is `ours'? Why can we not use different criteria for this decision?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Some Questions about Culture
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3 comments:
nice. never thought abt it......
# Nothing
# Yes you have the freedom
# Only if you feel burdened by expectations of the ones that love you, do you need to follow anything specific.
# because having a culture represents the application of your ability to chose what represents you/what you represent and the gives you a certain amount of social credibility, which may or may not be important for you but matters in the eyes of the 'society'.
# means that you choose to not associate yourself with a particular, established way of living.
# to get a sense of belongingness/association with that which has represented your kind/your generations before you, at least in the their eyes.
# you can decide which culture is yours, but 'ours' here represents more people than you, probably older and more in number, hence they decide because they can, and you are not (yet)empowered to decide on their behalf, but they are.
'Culture' is a word with a lot of different meanings. One of them, the most commonly used, is the 'inherited and shared set of beliefs,attitudes, values, goals, and practices'. You can indeed choose which culture to follow, but you cannot not be a part of any culture. Because all that culture means really, is that what you do and believe in, is done and believed in by some other people. The fact that you wear cargos and t-shirts shows that you either belong to or follow the sub-culture that was started by American youngsters during the World War II, as a rebel culture against the existing norms of society. Considering the time period in which you are living though, it means you follow the main culture, rather than it being a rebellion.
The only way I can think of, of someone not having a culture, would be to put a new born baby on an island with no contact to the human world. Assuming the child survives, s/he wouldn't be part of any culture.
Culture isn't something that is bad, it is just a fact of existence. Saying that I belong to a certain culture is like saying I live in Calcutta. Statement, assertion, not a value judgment. It is because people attach unnecessary importance to 'culture' and misunderstand it, that problems arise.
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