Culture means the complete lifestyle of a person, including but not limited to occupation, types of food consumed, how the food is cooked, language, dress style, laws, values, beliefs, religion, travel, construction methods, the materials used in the construction and so on.
Especially, Indians seem to use this word more than the people from any other nationalities. They use it to raise a hue and cry about the changing dressing styles, the changing values, and generally for everything which is not to their taste. [I have used the word they when referring to Indians, even though I am a naturalized citizen of India because: I being the Emperor of the Universe, am a citizen of the Universe at large and cannot be categorized as a citizen of any one particular region.]
The answer, I mostly get is that we are following the same practices that were followed a hundred years ago. Really? You didn’t have IT companies back then. So, working in an IT company is against “Indian Culture”. We didn’t have automobiles back then or cell phones, or television, or credit cards… and the list is endless. All these things are against the “Indian Culture”. Yet how many people do you see protesting against these? Not a single person!!!! Yet, you have people protesting that English should not be used in official documents, food chains should not open, and some stuff like that.
I was watching a program were two group of people were debating over whether not wearing dhoti is against “Indian Culture”. The whole thing left a bad taste in mouth. Little did the Pro-dhoti group or for that matter anyone else did not notice was that the medium (television) through which they were airing their views by itself is not “Indian Culture”.
Democracy as practiced now is also not an “Indian Culture” (The idea of democracy is from the Ancient Rome.). India since it’s inception by the great Chandragupta Maurya with the assistance of the even greater Chanakya (Who’s idea it was to create a large empire in the subcontinent.) was always ruled by a king in its long history until British Raj and became a true democracy only after the independence (In some ways,
Show some consistency people!!!!!!!!
I end by saying that Culture is not permanent. It is unfixed, and ever-changing. It must change with time or will stagnate, decay and decompose everything that it touches. Culture absorbs new things, both modifying itself and that which it absorbs into a new entity constantly.
The idea of this post is not to say that you have to accept everything that is new and reject everything that is old. The idea is learn to accept change and do not stand in the way of progress saying something is not culture just because it is not to your taste.
4 comments:
"The idea is to learn to accept change and not to stand in the way of progress ", VERY WELL SAID `PIDOG'.
For once, i would agree with you.
Culture is something that we have been obsessed with. People term to use the culture "Whenever they find things that they don't like about the youth". However, we can't change our old culture just like that.
WE HAVE to retain a few good things our ancestors did such as "Respecting and loving your parents, fellow beings etc; learn to live along with nature; realize the true aim of life which is to live and let lived; and so on...."
Let us accept the fact that we need to change along with times. But let us also not forget that a few things in our SO CALLED CULTURE stand true for any period: be it the PAST, PRESENT, or the FUTURE.
Do you agree with me dude?
Culture is an idea, a man-made construct. It exists in the mind of a human being and, as you rightly said, subject to change. What people, i suppose, would argue about this is: "we take the good part of advancement or progress and leave the bad part of it". Again who decides what is good/bad for us?
The fight against alien language,(
actually there was a good haikoo about this mad movement by Abdul Rehaman:
"Yes Tamil is my oxygen,
But i wouldn't exhale it on others." Those guys should read this poem. short and stinging.)
the fight against building a bridge, imposing dress code etc etc.. all these moral and religious guardians wouldn't move their finger for the needy but talk for hours about good/bad culture, progress, advancement, and whatnot.
The whole question about dhoti.. i think the dhoti freaks will have a different opinion when gravitational force works on their dhotis!:P
Liked the part about globalising or rather universalising yourself:)
one definitely needs maturity and broad mindedness first not to cling to their ethnicity and call it superior, then not to impose it on others or stereotype others based on their ethnicity/other categories.Finally to look at the human being inside. Positive effects of universalising yourself:)
Impressed.
Well said! I completely agree with you abour our values like respecting elders being something you keep through generations while simultaneously being open to change.
The jeans thing made me laugh. I went to college with a low women : men ratio. Its odd how there were few professors who were quite uncomfortable with women in "Western" attire. :-)
:) nice........ esp the starting point about IT comapnies made me smile....
i think i ll end every post with this -
mmmmuuuuaaahhh ;)
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