We want to preserve our culture. We often say cultural degeneration is damaging society. By cultural degeneration, we usually mean new cultural practices imported from other cultures that we consider to be inferior or bad. But what if those other cultures are better than ours? Shall we love to adopt those cultures giving up our own? How do we determine the superiority or inferiority of a culture?
Culture is a vast and complex thing. We use terms like ‘culture of the country, ‘company culture,’ ‘family culture,’ etc.
English anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, regarded as the founder of cultural anthropology, defined culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habit acquired by man as a member of society.” That’s everything! Indeed, people are products of culture.
The above definition of culture implies the difficulty of comparing them. One way of comparing cultures is by the degree of individualism existing in that culture. The concept of individualism was originally coined by the 19th-century French social theorist Alexis de Tocqueville. In 1980 Dutch social psychologist, Geert Hofstede described it as one of his proposed four dimensions along which cultures differ.
A high degree of Individualism refers to societies where people are expected to look after themselves and their immediate families which means the spouse and children. The ties between individuals are rather loose and people do not seek to depend on others.
The opposite of individualism is collectivism. A low degree of individualism means a high degree of collectivism. Collectivism refers to societies in which people are integrated into strong, cohesive groups like extended family, tribe, community, cult, etc. which protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. In these cultures, people tend to depend on others in the group.
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This article was published in the Daily Sun on September 27, 2022. Please read the full article here or here.