RE: Behind cultural bars
Thanks for the well thought out reply and the links I will read later.
I have written before about culture and that there really is none in the form that people think if it. Or perhaps there are 7 billion.
People however have the tendency I think to attach themselves to the way they think something is, even though they may act quite differently themselves.
The dangers I see from culture for the individual is that they do not see themselves behind the veil they cover themselves with. I think that who they are and who they think they are are different and therefore a conflict forms between the positions.
I care very little for group culture but it can be a starting point for a person to start to see themselves for who they are as they realise they are actually different from what they identify with. Perhaps it is then they look deeper and find out who they actually are.
And thank you for the thoughtful reply.
This is not evident from what I know or what you say here. I'll have a look at your older posts and see what I see on this but at present I see nothing to contradict the existence of culture in the common understanding of the term, what you refer to as "group culture". I have to assume this comes from a redefinition of terms on your part.
Culture cannot be a meaningful term without more than one person, i.e. a group, so I don't think this qualifier is necessary. The real fact is that culture is in your mind, and everyone elses'. For example, in the most basic sense it consists of the shared metaphors you construct and communicate ideas with other people, the habits which are "normal" and so on.
Deep inner knowledge is often cultural. The tools with which one does this introspection are inherently cultural, often part of a corpus of ancient knowledge, and is a reason why in some areas of the world you will find people which are better at it than in other parts.
This is actually a good example. I observe that some of these tools, like meditation, are like technologies, in that they are tools which "just work", without needing to know how they work, and also, critically, independent of religious or cultural knowledge. However they are often bound up with religious and cultural practices as the means of transmission, and the particular "flavor". What does this say?
Followers of Buddhist Vipassanā meditation, or Christian contemplative prayer, will probably believe that it does not have meaning outside the religious context, and is worthless without it. After all, it's not about the mediation per se, it's about the larger spiritual goal. But the benefits of the meditation work regardless of this. However to perpetuate the shared (re: cultural) meaning and tradition, this context cannot be separated. A simplistic adherent might say they cannot be divided, but clearly they can.
I agree that there are aspects of group life which are dangerous to the individual. Many societies have not had a concept of the individual as we do and so did or do not respect individual liberty especially. This is expressed in the culture and reinforced by it. And all societies have violence against individuals who are perceived to be a threat, in greater or smaller measures.
Culture is made and remade and we are by no means the subjects of it - it does not "happen to us". Certainly it is the context we find ourselves in, but we have the choice of how to continue. The problem, as is usually the case, is people. It's not useful to reject the idea that culture exists. We can and should reject the actions of certain people, perhaps even those people themselves if serious enough. If our cultural knowledge is in conflict with what we need to do, what we see to be true, etc., it needs to be challenged. This is kind of flexibility is common, and something which is always a potential conflict between generations too. I feel like this is what you are doing here, nonspecifically.
One cannot live alone and I think it will always be possible to find likeminded people to commune with, in all senses of the word.