Ruth Benedict (1949) states that we are "creatures of [our] cultures ... its habits are [our] habits, its beliefs [our] beliefs, its impossibilities [our] impossibilities" (Patterns of culture, p. 2), and I agree - to a point. Yes, we are shaped by our cultures, and everything that we deem moral, immoral, right, wrong, good, bad, is what we learn through the society in which we live. How did those learnings first come about? Someone said, yes, this is what we should do, and from there it was up to the rest of civilization to either follow, break, and remake certain rules.
Everything thing that I have learned has been from my American culture. More percisely though, my Northern-California culture (we are so different from everywhere else). I had a friend in Canada, and one of the first things I asked him was "do you guys say "eh" in every sentence?" He replyed, "eh, dunno. Do you guys say "like" in every sentence?" To which I replied, "Like, I don't know." The only reason I remember that conversation: it was the first time some one asked me about my speech habits and how it pertained to the "silicon valley-girl talk." Did I grow up speaking like that? No. My dad was strongly against it. How did I learn it? My culture told me "you live in silicon valley, you are supposed to, like, you know, talk like this, ya know?"
China was different. New York was different. Tahoe, Reno, Vegas, Oregon, Washington, was different. Their cultures, though not every far away, is completely different from the one that I grew up with.
But...
We can change it. Everyday we see people who are "weird," but only to us. To them, they are normal. How can we change being "creatures of our culture?" By not assuming that everything we are taught, shown, or heard is the "right" culture to live by. If we have a open mind, and take everything that we learn and make a giant stew out of it, ladle that up, then we will be a mish-mosh of culture rather than meat and potatoes. There will be no difinitive line that says "you are from X" but a mix of "X, Y, and Z." Which I believe to be the better culture anyways. There will be no misunderstandings or offending someone of a different culture, because we will have some knowledge of "theirs" as well as "ours." Yes, there will still be a culture, but only one, so... everybody will be the same.
(I know it sounds like a Marx's Communist version of culture, but I think it is the only way to break the limits of cultures by elimnating them or condensing them into a singlarity.)
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your thought on this matter. I especially enjoyed and could relate to this part,
"do you guys say "eh" in every sentence?" He replyed, "eh, dunno. Do you guys say "like" in every sentence?" To which I replied, "Like, I don't know.
I am from Puerto Rico, my girlfriend is from California. I tease her saying she can sometimes sound like a valley girl. Or she can be from southern California. I have been living here for 3 years now, and before I came I had an expectation of how the people here would talk. I expected to hear dude, hella, and like come out of everyones mouth. I found it quite amusing at first, and now I realized people who say those words don’t think anything of it. It just flows like any other words coming out of their mouth. I have a tendency to use Spanish phrases which to other people sound really weird and make no sense. To myself, it is perfectly normal and back home no one would question me. I agree with you completely when you say we are shaped by our cultures and the society that we live in. I have changed a great deal since living here. I have even started using DUDE and LIKE because I hear it all around. I feel whenever someone vacations in a foreign country, studies abroad, or moves somewhere completely different they will inevitably catch on to what the surrounding culture is like and incorporate it into their daily lives without even noticing. Thank you for sharing!!