Culture and Confusion

SEARCH BLOG: CULTURE

Yesterday, I wrote about cultural relativism. [I encourage you to read that post and... above all else... view the video]

The idea of culture is varied... broad... and is often confused with what is fashionable or trendy. But let's look at what the online dictionary defines as culture and then narrow it down a bit:

Main Entry:

¹cul·ture

Pronunciation:

\ˈkəl-chər\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Middle English, cultivated land, cultivation, from Anglo-French, from Latin cultura, from cultus, past participle

Date:

15th century

1: cultivation, tillage

2: the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education

3: expert care and training culture

4 a: enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training.... b: acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills

5 a: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.... b: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time [popular culture] [southern culture].... c: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization culture focused on the bottom line.... d: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic — Peggy O'Mara>

6: the act or process of cultivating living material (as bacteria or viruses) in prepared nutrient media; also a product of such cultivation.

When I write of culture, it is with 5 above in mind. When I write of inferior cultures, I write of those that have significant flaws in 5 as measured by 2.

All countries have some cultural flaws. But those cultures with the most significant flaws are those where the culture itself inhibits/prohibits its own development of intellectual and moral faculties especially by education.

Those societies that are locked into traditional and religious customs and laws that allow or even encourage abuse of women, or those that encourage the murder or enslavement of those who will not profess specific religious beliefs, are flawed beyond redemption.

What I find particularly strange is that so many who would defend the rights of women or religious or political freedom will not condemn cultures that are the antithesis of those rights. Rather, they seem intent on opposing those who would condemn such cultures and the ongoing results of those cultures.

Can it be that those who are so concerned about "intellectual and personal freedom" have lost the ability to discriminate intellectually between that which is constructive and creative and that which is destructive to the human spirit?

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