I have moved around 8 times in my life. Four of those times were within my homeland (England), then my family took the big jump across the pond to America. In these modern times, with the internet and many other technologies connecting the world, I thought that the culture shock would not be that bad. Believe me, Utah and England could be from different planets.
Folk knowledge differs in both places. In Utah (as far as I have been able to observe) crafts and music are highly valued types of knowledge that can be passed down from mother to daughter, father to son. I had never thought of scrap booking as a skill, but it is and it's one that I definitely did not learn while in England. In England, or at least where I grew up, we learned from an early age the "sarcastic" type of humor (as my roommates call it) and the slang you need to get by.
As I was thinking of this, I wondered if big groups of people had this kind of problem. Maybe if a people were forced to move into another group's territory there would be a clash of cultures
where the type of knowledge grown up with in one culture would not be accepted in the other. As it turns out, it has happened. One example can be seen in the time when the Romans invaded England and enslaved the Celts. Roman folk knowledge included frequent bathing, their own set of rituals to honor their gods, women learned the knowledge of the house and men the art of war and politics. The Celtic people had different ideas and beliefs. They held nature as sacred, druids were physicians and holy leaders (they could be men or women).
To the Romans, Celts were barbaric. Their rituals were alien. And so the Celts were invaded and much of their culture and knowledge was replaced by that of the Romans.
I wonder if, when we come across a different culture that holds differing knowledge as true, we try to embrace or obliterate their wisdom. Should we just hold fast to what we know? Or should we take from the learning of others and create a knowledge system?
Would it be better for two cultures which clash to combine all their knowledge, or to keep their own ways separate? What if one way truly is better than the other, should it replace it? Are there any more instances in history when this happens?
ReplyDelete(Re: Emily) Wow, that is an interesting thought. I'm not sure if I like the thought of creating a knowledge system for our culture because I know that not everybody is uniform to the culture. Not everybody does arts and crafts, and not everybody gets married young. But as a whole, I think that it is safe to depict our culture as that. I'm not sure if I am defining knowledge system correctly, but from I think it is (a recorded system of how a culture passes on knowledge) I think it would be cool to create a knowledge system, for historical purposes of course. It would be cool for generations from now to look back at us and study us like we do today with other cultures. It would be hard for a generation years from now to try and study our knowledge system because so many different cultures are meshed together in one place. Plus we gain our knowledge from the documented past, so it would be difficult for others to try and be able to determine what knowledge is created in our generation and etc. I wonder how other cultures would generalize us?
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ReplyDeleteGreat post! This is a really interesting thought, and I think that it's important to not question which culture is right or wrong as a whole, but which characteristics of the culture would the Gospel side with?
ReplyDeleteIt's important not to take it as a whole because I feel like there is good and bad in most everything secular, it just depends on if something is being evaluated thoroughly enough. I don't see much black or white, but a lot of grey.
Maddie Grant
Kimberly, how are you defining better? More efficient? Your idea of right? Because I think that for the most part better depends on the way you were raised. Emily thanks for the cross-cultural post! It is always interesting to hear a perspective from another culture!
ReplyDeleteEmily, I loved reading about the history of cross-cultures and some of the prejudices and peculiar things that come with each culture. My grandfather came to America when he was about 10-years-old. Seeing him (older) having adjusted to the culture. It's fascinating how certain things he did I didn't understand as a child - how he has retained traditions from England and created his own traditions that are uniquely American.
ReplyDeleteWhat about when Captain Cook stumbled across the cannibals in polynesia? I think most people would see that as a bad cultural practice...
ReplyDeleteWhat about arranged marriage? What about Burkas? Those are more gray areas...
How can two clashing cultures get to the point of learning from each other when the frequently meet on unequal terms? Why is the traveling culture coming in the first place?
How about in our religious culture...why do most chapels have basketball courts in the cultural center? Who's culture is that? What about the places in which basketball isn't played?
What about the style of music we sing in church..is that cultural or doctrinal? In on eare of South Africa, the last I knew, they were still refusing an organ. They sing a capella and a little livelier than we do with less regard to the written harmonies. good or bad?
As far as cultures uniting..I found Mosiah 25 to be very interesting
ReplyDeleteFor one we have basketball courts in meeting houses because THE JIMMER declared it thus. As for the South Africans singing with out the organ, if they can stand to hear themselves sing great! I only wish we had an organ to drown out m siblings for FHE! The important thing for clashing cultures to realise is that different doesn't have to be good or bad...
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