“Do not try to seek absolute values in this relative world of nature.”
Are we living on the extremes of both the edges or some are ?
Well, these types of questions will most probably will remain questions, these will drive the human curiosity.
Somewhere, I think we are trying to assimilate/accommodate the ideology at the same time. Also, in the process of both, the idea towards accommodation is questionable as seen from the current scenario, the assimilation has gone towards domination of either of the two over each other.
Let’s dig in to the beginning of this civilization and culture whirlpool, to the cradle of the civilization – places such as Mesopotamia, Saqqara, Jerusalem etc. not till we started living in groups, we wouldn’t had thought of culture, let alone civilization exist. Well, a long time, after the primitive society, what culture had been known was through murals, wall paintings/caves, scripts over palm leaves, archeological findings, to which we got to know about animism, the pagan people and their lives, well they obviously meant a great deal to us to understand the very beginning of the everything.
Then came along the civilization which came to flourish through bronze age. Stories about bronze age is yet another discussion, but what little I know about that era is that it marks the beginning of the civilization of this modern era. Anyways, cut to present, the presumption is that culture came first and then the civilization, or the other way around will always be a confusion. As civilization needs masses to create itself and obviously a group of people can only indulge into some ideology which grows into culture. But what is culture “sum total of beliefs and expectation” & “an ought to life” but both can’t be differentiated, but be interactive and relative.
Culture needs civilization to grow and civilization needs culture to exist
Culture is qualitative whereas civilization is quantitative. Ideally both culture and civilization are related to Enculturation and to some extent acculturation. We had been through a long way from folkways to orthodox to civilization. Contrary to this, we say civilized society / culture is like relativism and not ethnocentrism which simply means ones own culture and civilized life is superior and rest are inferior, but that’s very different from the ideology of civilization, but it ideally means liberal and thoughtful society whereas culture expects one to follow certain rules and norms, barring to accommodate others as well but at the same time not forgetting one’s own norms.
Today we are on the extremes of the very definition. Everyone’s life has been influenced majorly by the cultural factor via political environment. Culturally driven society, there is no moderation, the only moderation I can think of is protest or war. Basically, these cultural prospects are agendas and mostly futuristic, to which we fall for, though it sounds transparent but transparency is yet another illusion.
In the name of the culture, we are blindfolded towards the civilized part of the society. The ethos part of the society to which some or majority do not want to grow.
On the other hand, in the name of civilization we have forgotten the very culture made us into society and led to civilization. The morals, integrity, norms, we should not forget it’s the culture that gives us social and economic life, a perspective of gathering among us.
With the passage of time, with more civilized we are getting, the more accultured we are becoming. Though civilization has brought us together but some how culture might have divided us.
But both should go hand in hand, with support and resistance and a sense of belongingness. We must not forget the interactive nature among them. If civilization is the standard measurement, then culture is the quality of it. If civilization is the body, then culture is the soul.
Civilization might change but culture remains. Culture will guide us to a prosperous life, but civilization will guide us to face the challenge of life and nature. Eventually, “Civilization is what we have, Culture is what we are.”
Sento 