Comments on: Culture

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:37:02 +0000

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Susan

http://www.car-insurance-choices.com

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By: K. M.

K. M. — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:47:44 +0000

Marc,
A tribe is a society without explicit laws, without a division of labor economy and without much theoretical knowledge. Perhaps I could come up with a better definition, but I was only using the word in a general sense. Typically tribes worship a variety of gods and ascribe natural phenomena to their moods. These are the false beliefs I was talking of. Sure tribe members have a lot of general practical knowledge in dealing with nature. Men in a modern industrial society lack such knowledge. But that is besides the point. Industrial society is based on division of labor. Men in an industrial society have a lot of specialized knowledge which they trade with others. Trade makes it possible for man to concentrate on one narrow field and get the benefits of the enormous pool of knowledge that results from specialization. So yes, I know nothing about farming, fishing, carpentry, steel manufacturing, mining and innumerable other fields. All I know is how to write specific types of software for a specific operating system using a specific set of tools. And yet I have the time to sit in the comfort of my home and write on my blog, confident in the knowledge that I can trade the products of my specialized knowledge for the products of the knowledge of others. A man in a tribal society knows how to light a fire, hunt for food, cook it, skin the animals he has hunted, make clothes from the skins and a lot of other such things. And yet he cannot be confident that he will get his next meal or find a secure place to sleep. That is the difference that a culture makes in the life of man. Am I a “superior” human being as compared to some member of some tribe? No comparison is possible in general (unless of course the comparison is for a software job). And who cares anyway? The point is not about the superiority of individuals from different cultures. It is about the superiority of a culture by the standard of its potential for supporting a life proper to man. The primary aspect of a culture that can support a proper life is a respect for reason and a corresponding respect for freedom.

By: softwareNerd

softwareNerd — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:20:07 +0000

Interesting classification, K.M.

At its root, a culture espouses some type of philosophy. I think a second level is the cultural “mood” or the dominant “metaphysical value judgments”. These, in turn, influence psychological approaches. Finally, there are the optional implementations — like food. Some implementations — like the art or etiquette — are a mix of the underlying (philosophical and psychological) influences, mixed in with optional/historical influences.

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:44:10 +0000

I say this because wasn’t it you who said that society in general is a mainstream consciousness of ideologues created by “individuals” (which i disagree with since the individual itself is society). Anyhow, if this is the case, than wouldn’t a “tribe” member, pending your definition of it, be a more free thinking human being since it is not tied down to the limits of the state and have superior independent skills in the natural world since they don’t have the luxury of supermarkets, hospitals, or law enforcement and have a deeper awareness of their natural existence due to their proximity to the natural world. As far as falsely held beliefs, is the belief that the common modern man should be living in a grid like system where the objective is to work for the system to make money to survive and achieve personal happiness while abiding by the laws and mandates of the state far less fallacy than a tribe’s belief in living off the natural world? So you must define what “knowledge” a tribe lacks, and when you do, you will realize what “knowledge” modern industrial society lacks for it has forgotten where It came from. In an industrial world, of course a tribal person has far less knowledge, but put a modern human being in the desert, or the forests, the mountains, the coasts, the tundras from which we came from and were meant to be in, and we know who has far less knowledge. The common modern man believes he is independent, a falsely held belief in my opinion, because we have civil services working for us, garbage, water, trash, sewer, utilities companies working for us, electricity, gas, etc, paved roads, healthcare, automobiles, grocery stores, we are completely dependent on these things, and we are naive to think we are superior human beings. Ask the common man to navigate home by using the stars, or to tell time from the position of the sun, ask the modern man to find the herbs necessary to heal, and the correct form of catching fish, proper farming, how to find water or even make a simple fire. What tribes have you studied, and the word tribe comes from an outsider’s perspective, do you really think originally these peoples called themselves tribes? No. Westernization proclaimed such peoples as “tribes” because they did not measure up to their standards. I really believe you should question more the perspective of Western thought about how all this universe is somehow able to be categorized and measured and weighed and defined, and look at it through the other side.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:10:46 +0000

“The most intelligent and conscientious man living in a tribal society has far less knowledge and holds far more false beliefs than an average person in a modern industrial society.”

What do you define a tribe as? What knowledge does a “tribe” lack? What are these false beliefs? A tribe in perspective to what. I think that quite general and a bit assumptous to propose that as fact.

By: K. M.

K. M. — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:18:20 +0000

Burgess,
I wrote “The concept culture refers to shared beliefs, practices, tastes, values, attitudes etc.” I am looking at only those products of the human mind which are shared (or atleast dominant) in a given place and time. The purpose of my concept of culture is to (attempt to) distinguish between the aspects of a man’s identity that are unique to him and those that are a result of him living in a specific society in a specific age.
Your definition includes all products of the human mind. I can see how your concept is useful to an anthropologist or a historian.
I believe there is a considerable difference in the two concepts and that we need different terms to refer to them.

P.S.
I wrote this post to clear my own thoughts in response to a comment by softwarenerd on my last post. Now you say that my post set you thinking. This is very rewarding to me. Thanks for the comments and please keep them coming.

By: Burgess Laughlin

Burgess Laughlin — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:47:05 +0000

I am a long-term student of history. Your clearly written post has started me thinking about X. I don’t have a name for X. It is the process of progressive awareness of and interaction with a wider and wider society and culture as time passes.

Humanity has gone through this process through the millenia, from the smallest bands in tiny territories in the stone age, integrating–cognitively, socially, and geographically–into larger and larger groups (across wider and wider territory). Each child goes through the same process, starting with a single room and a few people, and gradually expanding cognitively, socially, and geographically.

Thank you for the post. It is thought-provoking. As a reader, I can’t ask for more than that.

P. S.–As a long-term student of history, I use a very broad definition of “culture” that I learned from anthropologists: Culture is all the products of the human mind that can be passed to other individuals and thus from one generation to the next. In this sense, culture includes chopsticks, symphonies, a particular government (as an institution), books, the concept of rights (expressed in writing or recorded speaking), customs about who precedes whom through a doorway, languages, and selectively bred chickens, and so forth.