I always refer to my home town of Portsmouth, Ohio as the "Cultural Center of Our Universe", which, of course, refers mostly to those born or raised there. Susan tells about Jeremy Griffith's Freedom Book 1's remarks and video.
One cannot escape the culture of their place in this history. Are we so conceited that our culture is the most significant? I think not. But each of us are from cultures of the place and time we exist in. It simly fascinates this witness of twentieth and twenty-first century history.
SamKat
What is culture?
28 April 2013
Category: Life Questions
Culture describes the cumulative influences on a group of people or society–their
collective knowledge, characteristics and learned behaviours. This
knowledge is passed on from generation to generation and accounts for
the different cultures that we can see around the world, for example
Western culture, Eastern culture, Middle Eastern culture, African and
Latin culture. Each of these cultures is defined by the values,
traditions, social habits and behaviours, language, belief systems,
concepts of the universe, dress, food, music and arts that they
encompass.
‘Cultural diversity’ is the term that we
have traditionally used to refer to differences between cultures. Terms
such as ‘ethnic inclusiveness’ or ‘cross culturalism’ also relate to the
issue of cultural differences. What is immensely significant about the
whole issue of culture is that through the advances made in science
we are now, at last, able to have a real discussion about not just
‘what culture is’ but also about why cultures around the world are so
different from one another. In truth, the important question needing to
be answered is not ‘What is culture?’, but ‘why are there cultural differences?’
The truth is that questions, like ‘what is
culture?’, and more importantly, why are there cultural differences,
have until now been impossible to answer truthfully. We humans all live
under the duress of the human condition, a state of insecurity brought about by our inability to explain why we humans are the way we are–why,
when all the ideals are to be loving, cooperative and selfless are we
humans seemingly divisive, destructive and selfish? And until we could
explain our human condition we could never hope to explain any of the
fundamental questions about our nature with any great insight. However,
the situation has now greatly changed. We can now easily explain all
kinds of previously unanswerable questions, like ‘what is culture?’, and
why cultures vary so much, because we can finally explain the human
condition.
Yes, most wonderfully, biology is now able
to provide the full, compassionate explanation of the human species’
non-ideal, contradictory behaviour. This comprehensive explanation of
the origin of humans’ psychologically upset state, is available in this Introductory Video Series and Part 3 of Freedom Book 1,
by Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith. It is this fundamental
explanation that unlocks all of the seemingly unanswerable and
off-limits questions about human behaviour.
In Freedom Book 1, Griffith
explains that a society’s behaviour and its culture is actually based on
how that society has learnt to cope with the human condition. As
Griffith explains, ‘On the whole, culture
essentially encompassed the various ways people passed on, from one
generation to the next, the knowledge they had learnt about living under
the duress of the human condition’ (Freedom Book 1: The Biology).
And differences in cultures really relates to the intensity at which
the human condition has impacted the lives of people in that particular
society. The longer and more intense the battle that the human condition
has given rise to becomes, the more psychological upset and alienation
are present in a particular culture, as Griffith writes: ‘Just
as an individual person’s lifestyle was inevitably going to largely be a
response to that person’s particular level of upset, so too a race’s
culture was inevitably going to largely be a response to that race’s
particular level of upset’ (Freedom Book 1: The Biology).
Griffith also explains that without
explanation of the human condition, any deeper acknowledgement and
analysis of differences in levels of upset, alienation or innocence
amongst individuals, races and cultures has not been possible. This is
because it immediately leads to the erroneous view that some
individuals, races and cultures are superior to others, or some are
‘good’ and some ‘bad’, and hence direct confrontation with the issue of
the human condition, when in fact all humans are equally ‘good’. So, to
avoid confrontation with the human condition, any differences in
individuals, races and cultures were explained as ‘cultural diversity’
or as adding ‘colour’ to our lives, and we celebrated and lived off the
excitement and distraction this colour provided. However as Jeremy
Griffith articulates in Freedom Book 1; ‘If
we wanted to understand human behaviour, we had to look at how upset we
humans have been, specifically how alienated we have been’. And this is exactly what Griffith has done.
With the human condition now solved and the
full defence of humans’ psychologically upset state understood we can
explain exactly what culture is and safely acknowledge differences in
cultures and the real reasons for those differences. But very
importantly, as Griffith explains, while humans do vary in their degree
of psychological upset, ‘all humans are equally
good because upset was a result of an unavoidable and necessary battle
humanity has had to wage to find knowledge. The equality of goodness of
all people is a first-principle-established, fundamental and universal
truth now. Humanity no longer has to rely on dogmatic assertions that
‘all men are created equal’, purely on the basis that it is a
‘self-evident’ truth, as the United States’ Declaration of Independence
asserts, because we can now explain, understand and know that the
equality of all humans is a fundamental truth. We can now understand why
everyone is equally worthy, and that no one is superior or inferior,
and that everyone deserves the ‘rights’ of ‘life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness’ (ibid). Prejudice, the view that some individuals,
races, genders, generations, countries, civilisations or cultures are
either superior or inferior to others, is eliminated by understanding of
the human condition. In fact, with understanding of the human condition
the concepts of good and bad, superior and inferior, worthy or
unworthy, disappear from our conceptualisation of ourselves’ (Freedom Book 1: The Biology).
So culture, rather than just being explained as adding some diversity
and colour to our lives can be honestly recognised as an expression of
these different levels of upset, alienation and innocence, and how
humans have variously adapted to life under the duress of the human
condition.
Please add a comment
Posted by
Frank B
on
Apr 25th, 2013
Brilliant blog as culture is something that has been vaguely
described and all you could do was ask yourself the question but why?
Why are so many people from around the world so different what is going
on. Such honest answers have been stifled by political correctness and
so forth however it does clear a lot up for me as I’m sure it would for
most people as we are in such a desperate need for understanding at the
moment.
Posted by
Emma
on
Apr 26th, 2013
thanks for the great post. This subject takes me back to anthropology
at university, debating whether we ‘live to work’ or ‘work to live’. I
can now appreciate that it was a futile debate, that each and every
human copes the best way possible in a world where we know so much, yet
so little when it comes to how we view ourselves and one another.
Posted by
Stirling
on
Apr 26th, 2013
That was a great article Sus.
Posted by
Aggie Harpham
on
Apr 27th, 2013
This is just so relevant to my current work up in the Kimberley’s
where I am faced with such extraordinary differences in culture and the
devastation of Aboriginal Australians from this area coming into contact
with White fella culture. There is almost no acknowledgement of it in
any discussions up here as until now there has been no capacity for an
honest dialogue about it. It is so precious that we can now talk about
it honestly. One day soon there will be so much relief.
Posted by
Jimmy
on
Apr 27th, 2013
Thanks for a great article Susan
Posted by
Connor
on
Apr 28th, 2013
Great article. So refreshing to finally get some tangible responses
to questions that traditionally just get “covered over” with ambiguous
and confusing explanations!! Thanks Sus.
Posted by
Ali
on
Apr 28th, 2013
enjoyed reading that thanks Susan.
Posted by
Steven Collins
on
May 5th, 2013
Thanks for this great blog Sus. I am teaching a year 12 ‘Society and Culture’ class. This will be a very handy resource.
Posted by
Gavin Braithwaite
on
May 16th, 2013
An interesting Article but I can’t quite see how understanding the
differences can repair them. Take for example Fiji where on a recent
holiday I observed the tension that exists between the native Fijians
and Indians, or indeed any of the many more cultural and ideological
clashes that have resulted in horrendous persecution like the so-called
“Indian Removal Act”of 1830 in the US which saw the forced removal of
the Cherokee native American Indians from the state of Georgia or the
‘stolen generation’ of Australian Aboriginals that occurred under a
‘White Australia policy in Australia. Culture not only defines but also
divides us so it seems the healing can only begin if the more “innocent”
as you put it can be magnanimous enough to forgive the more
“alienated”.
Posted by
Susan
on
May 16th, 2013
Thanks for your comment Gavin. What we are suggesting is that Jeremy
Griffith’s explanation of the human condition does now give us the
ability to repair the cultural divide that you talk about because it
allows us to compassionately admit and reconcile (forgive) all the
differences that exist in humans and our paradoxical behaviour. To quote
Jeremy Griffith: “Science has made it possible for all humans to win
the freedom they have fought so valiantly for two million years to
achieve. We can at last understand that there was a sound (that is,
integrative) biological reason for why humans became divisively behaved
and soul-corrupted. Sir Laurens van der Post made the essential point
about our predicament when he said, ‘how can there ever be any real
beginning without forgiveness?’ (Venture to the Interior, 1952, p.16 of
241). Forgiveness was the key but it had to be forgiveness at the most
profound, deepest level of our psychosis; forgiveness found through
understanding of the dilemma of our human condition–understanding that
would allow all humans to know that while we are all variously upset we
are all fundamentally good and not bad or evil” ( Freedom Book 1: The Biology). So until we had the biological reason for our divisive behaviour we couldn’t admit that there were any differences in alienation levels because that would have led to even greater prejudice and divisiveness. Even now that our upset is defended and we can admit these differences it is still an extremely confronting aspect of this new understanding of ourselves. This is all incredibly explained by Jeremy in Freedom Book 1: The Biology where he reveals the six unconfrontable truths that have blocked our access to understanding the human condition and the differences in alienation is dealt with in “Part 4:4E Fifthly, the upset human race has had to deny the differences in alienation between human individuals, races, genders, generations, civilisations and cultures” (see http://www.worldtransformation.com/freedom-book1-fifthly-we-couldnt-confront-differences-in-alienat/ ) which you might like to read as it looks at the historical situation regarding the Fijian and Indian cultures.
Posted by
Nicholas J
on
Jul 3rd, 2013
Thanks for posting that Susan. Understanding a person is very
important. Sometimes a person moving into different society may act the
way he/she normally does back home and so that idea still linkers in
mind. The important thing is that we all must understand each others
culture so that we can get along well wtih those we come into contact
with.
Posted by
Mathome Kgalema
on
Jul 10th, 2013
A very enriching article about understanding culture. What is more
important to me is the analytic tool used unpack origin and
manifestations of culture. How culture is used in South Africa is mostly
associated with biological identity more than any physical
adaptability. often, culture is assumed not to be flux or dynamic.
Thanks for the analysis.
Posted by
tanveer hussain
on
Jul 16th, 2013
enjoyed reading & i complete my task from ur article thanks 
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