Blogging is CULTURE!

However, it is also something you can find for yourself if you read, look around and think.

So, what is culture? Well, think of culture as a collective personality. Though I’m not Freudian, it is convenient to explain it in Freudian terms, so indulge me — the collective personality, like the individual one, is composed of three parts. (Cultura omnia divisa est in partes tres {no, I do NOT know Latin I’m just minus coffee and silly})

The super ego — what the culture tells itself it is and what it aspires to be. This often includes the deeds of ancestors and their supposed reflection on the present descendants. “Great so and so was the first to climb the Everest in his underoos, this shows we’re a people of courage and determination.” You can see this in the Odyssey and the Iliad, for instance — oral traditions that defined and in a way created the Greek culture as much as the Greek civilization created it. This is by the way usually not — what was it DawnH called it that was so appropriate? “Student Tourism” I think — what a Student Tourist gets out of a cultural assignment, unless they are of an unusually bookish turn of mind. And if they do get it “The Elbownians are a valiant people locked through history in a deadly struggle with the mud that pervades their country” it is because a native distilled it and put it up on a wikipedia page. And even then, they are likely to miss the full picture that would be in the mind of someone living in the culture. And the people living in the culture don’t SEE it either. They simply live it.

Even those who have changed cultures start losing sight of the edges of the new one, once they’ve been in it long enough. When I was in Portugal, reading Heinlein, I’d have told you American culture was all about “underdog makes good.” Which the “superego” part of American culture is, in a way, but not just. Now, twenty some years later, as an American, it would take me a book to describe the “super ego” part of American culture. Because it has become my culture, it is all tied up with the other two parts of it, now, which are:

The ego — this is what the culture thinks it is, and in many ways how it expresses. Do people work too much or too little? Do we pride ourselves on our large number of holidays? Are our holiday religious or political? Do we wear little square hats? Do we eat purple buns on Hogswatch Night? Do we tie bows to our nostrils on the first of May? Cultural. This part would include the language as spoken, treatment of women and children, treatment of pets, whether Vlad Dracul is a monster or a national hero. You know, that sort of thing.

The subconscious — this is the built in assumptions in the culture — what has been interiorized and passed down, what has been absorbed through the skin, as it were, without having any clue why. And by the way when I say “passed down” or absorbed through the skin I don’t mean it’s biological. It’s a figure of expression. This comes, like the personal subconscious, in many ways. To begin with, it’s transmitted by child rearing. When an adult or a clan are faced with a child to rear, they are in a situation of reacting day to day. I.e., if you haven’t heard this — those of you who are childless and like to speak about how you’ll raise your children, enjoy it. Your coherent theories won’t last past your child’s birth. Because it is composed of your living and teaching that child you’re going to coherently or not pass on a lot of the culture. Say, for instance, your culture believes one should be kind to beggars. When your kid starts screaming about the dirty old man on the corner, you’re going to discipline him. In a culture where beggars are routinely cursed away from the door, this would be considered bizarre. You never tell your child “our culture doesn’t do that.” And you might not even think it. It’s just there. I don’t think any American parent in the twentieth century needs to tell their children “it is frowned upon to marry for money and social influence” a statement that would make their ancestors a few generations back scratch their heads.

There is more to this submerged part of culture. As with examining the individual subconscious, it is easy to get carried away by pseudo-clever images and discoveries. “Doctor, doctor, I dreamed about pears last night.” might be significant or not. Being a linguist, I’m always discovering past traumas in the language. Like in the region of Portugal from which I come, Russo is the slang word for both blonds and pigs. The region is within Viking raiding range and the tribe that raided those coasts was the Rus. Is the slang derived from this? I’d lay odds. However, Russo is not used in a pejorative way when applied to blonds. And when asked to explain it — when I was very little — my mom is by and large innocent of — and not fond of — history, thought it was because so many pigs are pink. So how much does the use of the word affect the perception of blonds? And pigs? I don’t know. There must be someone out there who can get a grant to study subconscious cues buried in language. It is beyond me. I suspect some of the time this does affect our perceptions and some of the time a cigar is just a cigar.

Which, of course, makes cultures not an easy thing to study or understand. Particularly not by outsiders.

This view of culture as personality is confirmed by psychiatrists who refer to various “reactions” that cultures have, which are similar to personality. For instance, our deep division since 9/11 and the way people seem to talk past each other? Regression and splitting, which I’m given to understand is a normal reaction to shock.

The thing is that culture processes things FAR slower than individuals. (Also, and this is my humble opinion, at the brain power of a two year old.) So a truly huge trauma — say WWI — can take centuries to process. When you look at Europe, remember they’re still feeling the after effects of the hundred year war, and this will give you a feeling for how long it can take to work itself through. When the Bible speaks of punishing sins through the seventh generation, I think this is what they were referring to.

What this means is that some cultures are still, in the twenty first century, processing shocks that occurred centuries ago. The way in which they process them can be profoundly maladaptive to modern conditions. This is what makes nonsense of “all cultures are equally valid.”

I’ll give an example from Portugal, simply because I’ve been a part of that culture and I’m now a part of this one — to any Portuguese hearing this, no, I’m not running Portugal down. Portugal has a deep history and some interesting battle scars, but the last thing you can say is that Portuguese are a danger to the world. Individual Portuguese are often a danger to themselves, but rarely to the world. This is just a convenient way to show cultural differences. And, btw, a contrived one.

When I first came to the states, I was SHOCKED to see houses and fields without walls. I was even more shocked when people put lights on their outdoor trees for the holidays. The reason this was so mind-blowing is that anything outside your walls and easy to take in Portugal, would be taken.

This does not mean, btw, that the Portuguese are thieves, or that your average Portuguese would come steal your Christmas tree. No, it means it’s an accepted, unexamined part of the culture that if it’s not defended it’s anyone’s. (Or it was. As with everything I say about ways of living in Portugal this is twenty years out of date, and refers only to my region.)

In the States, otoh, no one would dream of taking your outdoor lights, unless you live in a very dangerous neighborhood. In ours, I’ve been known to leave gardening implements and such in the front yard — brain of a minute, that’s why — and still find them there the next day. If I left them on the devil’s strip, though, a college student might take it, since they tend to view anything left there as a “please take it out of my hands.” (We often do this with old chairs, etc, and so do the neighbors.)

Why the difference? Well, I’m sure I’m only seeing SOME of the reasons, because I haven’t made a study of it, but having lived in both cultures I can tell you why one would view picking up stuff from the neighbors’ yard with disapproval and the other not. a) Portugal was the welcome mat of Europe since before history. Everyone stopped, landed, conquered or mingled. This meant that a lot of people brought with them the invader ethos of “what I can grab is mine” and the others got the idea of “defend it behind walls or it’s free.” b) invaders often became ruling overlords and took all the property by right of conquest, leaving the natives to scramble for bits of what used to be theirs. c) Portuguese are often profoundly alienated from their government. Which fosters the idea of “them as can, get.” d) Portugal has gone through periods of great scarcity as recently as the 20th century. And while it isn’t true that necessity makes people immoral, it does tend to reinforce the sense of alienation and of “having to fend for oneself.”

America has not had any of this except invaders coming in — before some person points it out — and despoiling the natives. And that was a far more complex picture than the sixties’ books, the noble savage tales, etc, try to make you believe. Also, it happened to a small minority of the population, once. (Unless you count the south, and I’m not going there.) Most people’s ancestors weren’t even here at the time. Oh, yeah, and the Great Depression was a period of scarcity, but it didn’t last more than a generation. The habits of that didn’t get passed on too far (Though PJ O’Rourke is correct in asserting all Americans are descended from the Great Depression on one of their family sides. Even the ones whose family wasn’t here at the time, but that’s fodder for another day.) So attitudes here are completely different.

Culture, being transmitted half unconsciously, as it is, doesn’t pick and choose. It is often blundering and blind. It is OFTEN counterproductive. The behavior of what’s buried in the subconscious of a culture often means that people behaved in ways contrary to their image of themselves.

One exception to how the culture holds — or doesn’t — and how fast it can process things — some cultures change faster than others. I suspect all colonial cultures are more adaptive than cultures that have been in the same place over centuries. (Then again, this isn’t true linguistically. when finding a dead language, you know which one is the colony and which one the land of the mother tongue, because the culture retains more archaic elements. And if you don’t think this is true — though it’s changing these days — you don’t know how much of the US speaks in almost Shakespearean way compared to GB) At least I assume this, because I know what a difference “aculturation” can make. Also, the US is uniquely adaptive (in the sense of able to change quickly) due to the combination of factors of — being a colony; nuclear family unit mobility; mass media as arbiters/shapers of culture; public education that subtly or not pushes an agenda. These last two were perfected by totalitarian regimens of the 20th century, too. And they do allow one to shape the culture, to an extent. The extent to which they fail is why you can’t create a “homo sovieticus” and why the cultural revolution looks to us like a period of high insanity. Also, the US’s high-adaptive qualities make it very easy for us to veer into weird turns of mind or get bizarre ideas that leaves the rest of the world scratching their heads. (This parallels highly adaptive individuals who seem to remake their personality from the ground up every decade. I’m sure you know some.) I’ll give an example — a lot of grammar books today devote more time to explaining how to make your language gender neutral (“herstory” — proof that philology is a different country. They do things differently there) than to explaining how to use the subjunctive (and to Prime Crime proof readers — yes, you can have my subjunctive when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.) To the rest of the world, this is a lot like your friend who always wears something red because it brings her goodluck, okay? ’nuff said.

Part of the reason that it “burned” me for my kids to be told to write about their “culture” is that in the US this is borderline insane. It might have made some sense, if, say, my child was trekking to school from a nearby reservation, coming from an ethnic neighborhood his friends didn’t come from, or my entire family had moved here and we still lived in a multi generational household. Cultures can subsist for centuries within a larger culture given isolation — physical or mental — and group cohesion. But even then, the general culture slowly infiltrates the smaller one in most cases. (Find and read the short story In Venus, do we have a rabbi” for a wonderful take on this.

I.e., yes, there is such a thing as a family or clan culture — of course there is — this is why we hear of dysfunctional ghetto culture (though I’d like to submit in that case the picture is incomplete, as that’s just a part of a larger culture — ours — that rewards abhorrent and counterproductive behaviors, partly based on an enshrining of “subversiveness” as a god which is an extreme projection of the underdog meme.) But because culture is a generational thing, it doesn’t remain in any obvious ways past a couple of generations when every new generation moves around and starts anew amid strangers. Actually, the meaningful ways in which it does get passed on, could never be mentioned in today’s school. Religion. Morality. View of the world. Once you strip the “We have worshiped Annoya for fifty generations. We think flogging your squash is bad. We think only other Elbonians can run telecom companies.” which you CAN’T say, you’re left with “We make these interesting cookies out of crickets, and we wear pink scarfs on St. Ethelred’s day” which are not even an approximation of culture.

Ditto with “are you going to teach your adopted Elbownian baby her culture?” So many levels of insanity there. My adopted Elbownian baby is an American now. This is her culture and where she’ll grow up. Would it be a good thing to teach her about her ancestors and where she came from? Undoubtedly. Though if her elbownian ancestors were responsible for a kneean massacre two generations back, I’ll withhold teaching her this until she’s old enough to understand it’s not her fault. On that, btw, I favor teaching EVERY child about EVERY culture. Including but not limited to ancient ones. It helps them gain more perspective on what behaviors work in the long run and which don’t. (“The mothers of Rome used to tell their sons ‘come back with your shield or on it.’ Then they stopped saying it. Rome didn’t last much longer.” RAH) My sons have through my urging — okay, pushing and guilting, this too is cultural — read more about foreign history and culture by the end of elementary than most adults with a college education. Robert, who gets bored in the summer, and Eric who forages my research shelves on the sly, in the happy certainty he’s doing something naughty, know FAR more about Asian history than I do, and a lot more about other places/times too. This is a good thing. But it is not what these ‘culture’ assignments achieve.

While talking of this, instances of doubtful use of “culture” is “school culture” or “the culture of this city” — these might be true in places where schools are attended by generation after generation — my elementary school, for instance — of the same families. Here… you could say that each “generation” — four years? — of school has their own “culture” but once the school has turned completely over — and usually these days that includes staff — everything that could be considered a culture is completely different. My younger son is three years younger than the older, and by the time he reached Junior High, it was a completely different school than the one his brother attended. One or two teachers were left, but usually in different capacities.

As for every culture being equally valid — no. It isn’t. A culture in which female mutilation was once adopted for — doubtless and I could go into it and speculate why, but it would take volumes and attract flames — what was a psychological if not a physical necessity, might still be completely attached to the practice. This doesn’t mean it is valid to cut out people’s functional organs. Even if it allies anxiety. IOW it’s about as functional as individuals who want a limb amputated for no reason. In the twenty first century where “what was over there is over here” their and dysfunction can be our issue. This must mean at the very least such “cultural” practices must be condemned. Vocally. Not excused because “it’s their culture.” Culture is not race and condemning it is NOT racism. If you think it is, you don’t understand either word.

“Culture” as it’s taught in the schools CAN lead people to become incredibly racists without knowing it. Like… the idea that an elbownian baby is somehow, primarily elbownian. The idea that the baby’s behaviors were racially set at birth. A word to the wise — Hitler would have LOVED that one.

Part of the reason this cultural tourism makes me want to scream is that it makes our kids think of culture as race and further muddies the waters, and makes it harder for the world — as a whole — to survive in the twenty first century and beyond.

The other part is that when you do the “cookies and scarves” version of the culture, the kid emerges thinking “Other cultures are cooler than ours. They have all this quaint stuff.” The setting of the classroom; the political correctness of our times; the desire to not offend anyone there limit the assignment. You can’t say “Elbownians have through history committed or attempted to commit several Kneean genocides.” You can’t say “Elbownians are mired in generational poverty, because it is considered demeaning for an Elbownian to do manual work.” You can’t say “Elbownian women never learn to read because that would hinder getting them married off at twelve.” No. You do the pretty outfits and the tasty food.

I would rather — oh, far rather — discuss Portugal with someone who never heard of it, than with someone who once did a project about Portugal for school and THINKS they know about it. Because first they have to unlearn the nonsense. “No, we don’t wear scarves for St. Ethelred’s day. For crying in bed, no one has done that since the eighteenth century!” One sf/f book I read, the author had CLEARLY painstakingly researched Portuguese culture. I can tell you the books he’d read. And yet, he was completely, thoroughly and bizarrely wrong. (No, I didn’t write to him. I talked myself out of it.) What’s more he was wrong in ways, that, though he based his stuff on the writing of some Portuguese, was patronizing and insulting even to me, who am now, at best, marginally and nostalgically “Portuguese raised.” (This is a danger I’m aware of with some of my books. Which is why I like to make them historical and in parallel worlds. I’m aware there are things that will make someone raised in the culture want to brain me with an elbownian cookie.)

Have children read history. Sure, have them watch movies/read novels that take place in these countries. Preferably stuff done by natives. Send them off to read blogs written by people of this nationality. BUT don’t teach them it’s their “individual” culture (Ah!) or that every culture is equally valid (Double Ah!) and remove the accusations of “racism” from the discussions of culture. One thing we know, if you study history — all our ancestors were despicable. ALL of them. Really. And most noble savages were more savage and less noble. (As cultures if not as individuals.) Living hand to mouth and uncertainly does that to people. (If you think an oak tree provides all of an individual’s necessities, you have other issues.)

All of you — like all of me — are descended from slave traders, mass murderers, genocidal maniacs, cannibals. All of you — like all of me {g} — are descended from geniuses, saints, heros, philanthropists, artists and yes, slaves and people who got raped or eaten. Oh, and there are very good chances, even if you are like my friend Becky Lickiss, who doesn’t tan just turns slightly less bluish in the sun, that you have ancestors of every skin tone from shoe-polish to pink.

Culture and guilt are NOT genetically transmitted. For that matter, racial characteristics are only spottily transmitted and only for limited generations. Racial guilt never is. It doesn’t exist, unless you are thinking in terms of “original sin.” You are ALL free. Now go in peace.