THE CULTURE FILE
Arising out of my knowledge and interest in Asian cultures, and my perception that culture is a better indicator of social change than politics or religion, this file examines the nature of culture and of cultural change.
                                                     Culture | Social Change | Asian Cultures | References

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 CULTURE

CULTURE
Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, norms of behaviour such as law and morality, and systems of belief.

SOCIETY
A society is a grouping of individuals, which is characterized by common interests and may have distinctive culture and institutions. Societies may also be organized according to their political structure. In order of increasing size and complexity, there are bands, tribes, chiefdoms and state societies.

RACE
Race is a biological concept. Races are recognized by a combination of geographic, ecological, and morphological factors and gene frequencies of biochemical components. However, ninety-nine percent of the genetic makeup of all races are identical suggesting to some that race is not a useful category, although there is recognition that certain "racial characteristics" do help in the identification of inherent diseases such as, say, sickle cell disease found only in those having negro characteristics.

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SOCIAL CHANGE
Substantive social change only occurs when real world events and not political events upset social norms. The invention of the bow and arrow, the automobile and the birth control pill are real world events. A decline in natural resources, climate change, a plague, a geological catastrophe and overpopulation are also also examples of real world events. Such events force changes in human behaviour which, in turn, bring about changes in our belief systems as we try to explain why the new behaviours have been adopted. Institutions only change after the new belief systems are in place. Politics merely chatter around the edges of impending social change, and are not a cause nor an answer to true social change. Political leaders do arise in the context of changes under way, but in the final analysis, real social change only moves under the pressure of physical events in the real world, events that may, at times, be authored by man himself.

CULTURAL IMPERATIVES
The idea that a political system originating in one culture can be transplanted into another culture overnight tests belief. Consider attempts to transplant Western forms of political democracy into the Orient or into the Middle East. Do Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan or the Philippines really have a political democracy in the Western sense? And was the so called communist state of Soviet Russia really much different in the way it played out to that of the tsarists regime that preceded it? Or is it that existing cultural ways have more influence on political structures than most believe? Can any culture imbedded with its own traditions adopt a radically different political system such as a Western form of democracy, when cultural imperatives do not support it? The cultural box in which people live acts as a screen through which all ideas pass, and no amount of political action will circumvent that screen unless political action is preceded by physical events outside of politics. A facade of "political democracy" might be adopted but the cultural imperatives will assure that democracy in the Western sense will be distorted. The "culture factor" in politics is more pervasive then the pundits will have us believe

SOCIAL EQUALITY
Social equality is tied to the availability of goods and services and not to political rights. If there is enough to go around, then we could agree that every citizen is entitled to an equal share of the goods and services, the wealth produced by the country in which they reside. The ideal would be to use a measure such as the energy cost arising out of the production of goods or services, and to then divide the result equally among the citizens. However, we are stuck with a monetary system which requires the citizen to have a job before any part of the wealth can be acquired. About the only compromise that might even approximate the ideal is a guaranteed annual income in some kind of non-negotiable form, especially as our present system cannot guarantee a decent income tied to a job, nor that monies allocated to a citizen won't be negotiated away.

For instance, in a country like Canada, there is no reason why every citizen should not have housing, schooling, clothing, food, health care, an annual vacation, and comfort in their older years whether they have a job or not. The only impediment is our belief in that what we now do is the only way: we know we have the goods and services to make it so, yet cannot see past the existing monetary system of distribution.
                                                                                     

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