Transculturalism
Understanding transculturalism is to understand culture's naturalistic origin (or at least to understand it from a secular vantage point), but it also means an understanding of the inherent value of culture itself to human individuals. Every progressive advance in society comes with alterations, adaptations, innovations of culture whether around economic equality, women's rights, racial equality, or sexual identity.Understanding transculturalism is the key to returning civility to public discourse by providing a way of describing similarities and differences in an adaptive and yet considerate way.
(This is a term that I have come up with to hold until I learn a better one. I took it from 'transhumanism'.)
What is the Point of Transculturalism?
Transculturalism is primarily about accurately contextualizing societal expectations of organizational-level change on one hand and individual-level change on the other towards societal progress.
Another way to put it is to operate with a correct understanding of the plasticity of culture on both societal and individual levels. Whereas on a societal level, it can be seen as completely alterable - many ills can result from rushing change on an unwary society. I believe the blame for many tragedies of the 20th century can be shifted slightly away from ideological problems onto misunderstandings of cultural plasticity.
The misunderstandings lead to overly hardened dogmatism about social order on one hand, and a lack of gentility towards individuals on the other - expecting citizens to simply adapt to entirely unorthodox ways of life. The cruelty is not in the ideology itself, but in harsh demands on people. (This with the glaring exception to Nazism, which is a harsh ideology unto itself.)
Yet another way of framing this is in terms of contextualizing civility in public discourse - not just with regard to the US conservative/progressive dichotomy, but with regard to considering all cultural differences in light of progress.
From a naturalistic standpoint, culture is arbitrary in its specific variants, but generally serves a purpose of helping people feel purpose and identity in order to survive and flourish. It is not any particular culture that is invaluable to nature, but it is that each of us possesses a culture that is important. (Therefore culture is not fully described by the nature/nurture description.)
On a personal level, we learn culture purely according to environment factors, but we then carry a permanently fix relationship with those learned perceptions for the rest of our lives. What we happened to learn in childhood can make us or break us later.
On a national/professional level, the culture of an individual in a multicultural nation has no apparent value beyond generally facilitating the economy and whatever system of rule is in place. There is no accounting to individuality, because it is broad and varied. Laws are made attempting to protect trends in culture, but these invariably fail to protect greater variation than generalized forms allow.
Also see:
Another way to put it is to operate with a correct understanding of the plasticity of culture on both societal and individual levels. Whereas on a societal level, it can be seen as completely alterable - many ills can result from rushing change on an unwary society. I believe the blame for many tragedies of the 20th century can be shifted slightly away from ideological problems onto misunderstandings of cultural plasticity.
The misunderstandings lead to overly hardened dogmatism about social order on one hand, and a lack of gentility towards individuals on the other - expecting citizens to simply adapt to entirely unorthodox ways of life. The cruelty is not in the ideology itself, but in harsh demands on people. (This with the glaring exception to Nazism, which is a harsh ideology unto itself.)
Yet another way of framing this is in terms of contextualizing civility in public discourse - not just with regard to the US conservative/progressive dichotomy, but with regard to considering all cultural differences in light of progress.
Culture is both indispensable and arbitrary
A potential fundamental paradox of naturalism and culture is crucial to understand before being skeptical of individuals and organizations.From a naturalistic standpoint, culture is arbitrary in its specific variants, but generally serves a purpose of helping people feel purpose and identity in order to survive and flourish. It is not any particular culture that is invaluable to nature, but it is that each of us possesses a culture that is important. (Therefore culture is not fully described by the nature/nurture description.)
On a personal level, we learn culture purely according to environment factors, but we then carry a permanently fix relationship with those learned perceptions for the rest of our lives. What we happened to learn in childhood can make us or break us later.
On a national/professional level, the culture of an individual in a multicultural nation has no apparent value beyond generally facilitating the economy and whatever system of rule is in place. There is no accounting to individuality, because it is broad and varied. Laws are made attempting to protect trends in culture, but these invariably fail to protect greater variation than generalized forms allow.
Also see:
