LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
4.3 Understanding Culture
4.3.6 Pluralism
Each culture is highly complex. and is made up of many institutions with many different goals and inter-related interests so much so that society can never real ize all of them.
Therefore. the values a particular culture seeks to realize in any given time in the history of mankind are numerous. Because men are many in number. it is probably the main
reason why values are many. Commenting on pluralism Vico says that:
Thanks to their varying geographical circumstances. history and forums of self understanding; different societies organized themselves on different principles. They develop different human capacities, needs. ideas of human excellence. and forms of cognition, modes of imagination and systems of belief. and threw up different forms of artistic and literal activities. They ask different questions about human life and the world and answered them these on their own unique manner (Vico 1984: 84).
Even though people have different geographical circumstances and different historical backgrounds. different people will still have the same kind of basic needs. However.
these same needs will be met in many different forms depending on what resources are readily and mostly available within the geographical and historical circumstances. As much as these six characteristics of culture help us to understand it. Bhikhu has this to say:
The influence of culture permits the individual's ways of thinking.
feeling and judging himself or herself together. pleasures. pains.
values. ideas. dreams. nightmares. forms of imagination and aesthetic and moral sensibilities. Human beings felt at home and realized their potential only within their culture and were awkward and profound disorientated outside of it, which was why Europeans who displayed great civic virtues at home. often behaved with uncharacteristic brutality when traveling or living abroad ....
Since no man could be human outside his cultural community.
membership of it was a basic need just as much as food and physical security (Bhikhu 2000:69).
Every culture has two levels namely "surface culture" and "deep culture". Many times people think they know or understand a particular culture by simply observing or practicing few things done by the people. They do not realize that they have simply stopped at the surface level of culture. Many times people are deceived because of the superficial similarity between the two cultures.
To further clarify on the point of culture. Wederspahn used a model he calls ..the iceberg model" or "pyramid model.·· The model is divided into two parts. The first part is the
"surface culture'" This includes the five senses we use to see. hear. touch. taste and smell.
The surface pal1 of every culture can be learnt or understood through our five human senses. At this surface level. superficial similarities and patterns of behaviour may overshadow significant difference between cultures at the deeper level. Such similarities include the use of language. For example. English is used in South African schools churches and at business places. The adoption of western clothing. food. building style.
furniture and many more things are part of the surface culture. These apparent commonalities may mislead many people into playing down the importance of cultural diversity. One may think that because of all these things. we are the same at every level.
Such conclusions could be pat11y right but at the same time seriously misleading.
The second part of the pyramid model is the "deep culture." This part includes those things we cannot see on the surface. This is even more so if we are strangers or outsiders to a pal1icular culture. To argue this point Vico says:
Since human societies are vastly different. understanding them is an exceedingly complex activity. A good deal of their inner life is lived in the imagination and based on unarticulated assumptions and unreflective judgment. They were structured by customs and conventions and driven by deepest fears and hopes. whose internal rationality was often missed by outsiders (Vico 1984:51).
Most culture is beneath the surface where it is realized or easily understood, especially by insiders. Since this part of culture cannot be seen. it poses great danger in a multicultural setting. For example. sport. business. education. social life and as well as in Church life.
This level of culture is hidden even from the majority of people within it. which makes it worse for those from outside. Deep culture is the force that drives human behaviour and thinking patterns. This forms the larger part of human culture. It comprises of assumptions. perceptions, attitudes. values and beliefs.
The iceberg concept of culture (Wederspahn 2000: 35):
Surface
Things you can:
/ \
See Hear Touch
• Taste
h,~~~~:,~t"\ .
'mellf D~r~~ltec~~~;S \
- --- --- ---- --- Assumptions
Ideas governing child-raiSing
Figure 4.1
Varathan also mentions three points that \vould help in the understanding of what culture is all about. He says that:
1. Culture is universal in man's experience. yet each local or regional manifestation of it
IS umque.
2. Culture is stable, yet is also dynamic. and manifests continuous and constant change.
3. Culture fills and largely determines the course of our lives. yet rarely intrudes into conscious thought (Varathan 20003: 15).
If we are to understand better what culture is, we shall need to keep in our minds that, culture is a historically created system of meaning. beliefs and practices, which a particular group of people in a specific place understand, regulate and structure in their individual and collective lives. This would mean both understanding and organizing human life. The kind of understanding human-beings seek when they form or create a culture has a practical deeper meaning and is not just pure theoretical in nature like those offered by philosophical and/or scientific theories. Howe\'er. the way in which culture organizes and regulates human life. is not of temporal nature but it is grounded in a particular manner of conceptualizing and understanding human life. William has this to say about the development of culture:
Every culture develops over time and. since it has no coordinating authority, it remains a complex and unsystematized whole. It has residual stands of thought. that is. those that v"ere once dominant
and now survive either as historical memories or as undigested elements in dominant culture (WilliamsI980: 10).
When the term or word culture is used broadly. it encompasses more or less the whole of human life. When objectified. it refers to the area or aspect of human life highlighted by the adjective. The term business culture, drug culture. moral culture, political culture.
academic culture, religious culture or essential culture refer to the body of beliefs and practices regulating a specific group of people. including the ways in which these are conceptualized. demarcated. structured and regulated. Such terms as gay. youth. mass.
and working class culture refer to the ways in which other people understand particular groups of human beings. their place in the society in which they belong. and the manner in which the group itself regulates its internal and external relations. Folk or popular culture refers to the beliefs and practices of ordinary men and women or to culture as it is actually lived. High culture refers to the great creative achievement of the talented minds of society (Bhikhu 200: 143).