Various comments prompted me to wait a couple of days and think before posting again. You see, while the concept of culture does help to explain various behaviors and attitudes that one sees in different parts of the world, even in different parts of this nation, the concept has to be handled with a certain degree of care. During the last few years, the conjoined concepts of culture and worldview have been popularized to the point that they are among the most misunderstood and misused concepts that there are. What do I mean?
Have you ever argued with someone and had them reply that you only believe that because you are a liberal, or you are a conservative, or you are a mainline Protestant, or … ? When you hear that, you are hearing a mixture of a misuse of the concepts worldview and culture mixed with a very unhealthy dash of equally misunderstood postmodernism. It has become common to treat a belief with which we disagree with such dismissive statements. They imply that there is no “real” truth to what you are saying, you are simply responsding to pre-intellectual learned thought patterns. Now, it never gets phrased quite that way, however, that is what is being said sub-rosa. It is a very nasty modern way to gut you of any true intellectual skills.
Of course, the rejoinder is exactly the same one to the other person. You simply answer the other person by saying that it is really because of THEIR beliefs that they are incapable of understanding your clear argumentation. It does not help that there are now cause-affiliated “think tanks” that grind out much worthless research and many worthless news releases purporting to support one side or another in almost any major debate. Frankly it reminds me of that rejoinder that was used in the early 1970’s against Christians who were witnessing. “You only believe in Jesus because you need the psychological crutch of a higher power.” Of course the rejoinder was that they only refused to listen because they were afraid of losing their autonomy. It was every bit as vicious a circle as what we find today.
So you see the problem. On the one hand, a correct understanding of the cultural components of our worldview can help us see better why we tend to behave in certain ways, why certain values are more important in our culture than another culture. For instance, group solidarity is very important among the Japanese while some type of libertarian thought is really the approach most Americans take in practice. But on the other hand, it is all to easy for us to belittle another culture for having a different approach to their value system than we do.
One of the hardest things to learn when we were training for missions was to understand that just about every cultural emphasis that there is in this world has both a strength and a weakness. Group solidarity is extremely important many times. When we think of the group first, when we think of the other first, that is often a very good thing. But group thinking at its worst can also lead to kamikazi bombers and suicide bombers. On the other hand individualism can be very helpful, particularly in situations such as pioneering, some scientific research, etc. But individualism run amuck means people that often do not see why a law should apply to them if they disagree with it. It leads to an inability to live with your neighbors, etc.
So, in posting what I did about the South, let me caution you to be very careful how you use the information.
One must use care with any generalizations about any group of people. I think groups follow a bell curve–You can get stuck on either end. You can also get stuck with how people define words and concepts. Having lived in different parts of the globe and being raised in a particular sub-culture (Military), I have vast experience with the “you used familiar words, but they don’t compute to me in the context you have used them.” I even find this between the “big” (older 3) kidsand the “little” (younger 3) kids in my family of origin. As there are 14 years between me–the oldest–and V.–the youngest–there is somewhat of a generation gap between us, but the bigger gap is that more of her growing up years were spent after my father retired. We grew up in the same family but somewhat different cultures. It is fascinating.
Alix