Okay, okay, please don’t bite my head off for this one. I
know this is a controversial topic. Hey,
I am study family, which has been the main topic in controversy for the past
couple years. But it was an interesting question posed in one of my classes
this week. Is there such think as valid or invalid cultures? I was honestly a
little taken aback by the question. Since a young age I was fascinated by other
cultures, especially ancient ones. Culture is part of identity. It creates rich
and amazing variety in our world. In a world that is striving to be more and
more accepting of walks in life, is there such thing as a valid culture?
Well first let’s address what culture is? It is more than
race. The clothes that are worn. The language that is spoken. Culture is
interwoven into so many aspects of a group and has so many layers it can be
often difficult to discern what aspects are part of a collective culture or
not. Culture is the customs, rituals, rules and traditions of a society. Culture
even goes as deep as philosophy, the way people think about and view the world
around them.
Valid is for something to have sound basis in logic and
fact. To have reason.
Are there some cultures that are not reasonable?
Yes, honestly, I think there are.
The family is what I base my value of a society on. I
believe that the family is “the fundamental unit of society.” (The Family a
Proclamation to the World). As such that is what I base my ideas on whether or
not a culture is valid is by asking a question. Does that culture, promote,
protect and strengthen the family?
Throughout this week, in a few of my classes, we studied
cultures and its effects on families. I was curious about whether or not any
culture, based on my question, was better than all the others. If there was a
culture that validated and promoted the family the way that I see it. I was a
little disappointed to find that there was not one culture that seem to satisfy
me. Yes, there were many parts of different cultures that I thought were
amazing in their regards to family. One culture emphasizes the importance of
the mother in the home. Another the importance of having a father in the home.
Many of them shared good ideals. However, in each culture, I would often find
an idea that affected a family in ways I felt were harmful. My teacher actually
said in class “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just take part of this culture
here, a part of that culture there and put it all together to create the ideal
culture?”
I am not saying that every culture, that every people needs
to be the same. I feel that the traditions and rituals often performed by a
group of people often creates unity. In family, in a community, and then in
society as a whole. However, there are some practices I feel that either
distract or detract from the family. In the US today, for example, a cultural
norm has become the idea that it is better to become established in a career
before you get married. Or at least before you have children. As a result it
often causes people to put their jobs and money before their family members
causes great harm.
One of the hardest things to acknowledge this week was that
the perfect culture that puts the family at its center does not exist. At least
not perfectly yet. It is an ideal. A standard. A utopia many are striving to
reach for, but with so many ideas and paths to follow I am afraid we all become
a little lost in the search.
Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion and have
the freedom to make their choices. In my opinion there is a document, presented
in 1995 by the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints, that perfectly lays out the ideals of the family. I believe once the
ideal of family is firmly understood for what it is meant to be, only then can
a culture or society center itself around it.
No comments:
Post a Comment