SOME QUESTIONS CONCERNING CULTURE:
Written circa December 2000
QUESTION
Drawing from from Betancourt and Lopez quoted in
Rohnez (1984),
culture is defined as “a highly variable systems of meanings…
learned and shared by a people of an identifiable segment of a population…
designs and other way of life… transmitted from one generation to another”;
a definition consistent with Herkovit’s (1945) concept of “culture as human-made
part of the environment”.
Such a definition is essentialist in character in
which the systems of meaning connotes the existence of a body of knowledge; in
the postmodern context can be defined as a “grand narrative” and echoing Elkin
and Handel and many a cultural anthropologist contains sources of information,
knowledge, wisdom historical in character and systemic and phenomenological in
nature to be passed down through agencies of socialization so that the junior
members of society (in Deweyian terms) can utilize the narrative for their
effective and efficient functioning in the society. By “people of
an identifiable segment of a population” it is meant to denote a group of human
beings (in French term natio, i.e. people) who share similar
physical characteristics, ethos, norms, values and language among others and
those who share somewhat common historical tradition or cultural “roots” as such
as the peoples of Ibo, Yoruba, Yaqui, Iloqanos, Malays, Shan, Kachin, Sioux,
Serbs, Celts, and many more. Thus, “people” within the definition of culture
offered by Betancourt and Lopez can be distinguished from one
another even within the parameters of discussion of the modern nation state in
which cultural groups/races may coexist under a political governmental
arrangement aligned via pluralistic structurality.
It is to be noted that although this is a flow of
information from one generation to another which can be characterized within the
essentialist framework of information dissemination top-down, cultural
traditions as defined as such can be modified and reinterpreted according to the
political, social, economic and technological development of the particular
milieu. The core culture would however remain intact (presumably), passed down
as highly coded information of which creativity in interpretation of the values
may be guarded by the senior members of the society in order for cultural
tradition to remain preserved intergenerationally.
Illustrations of the grand narrative of the
cultural traditions or coded information passed down from generations might be
in the case of wisdom from so-called great books of world’s religious and
philosophical tradition such as The Ramayana, Mahabhatta, and The
Bhagavad Gita to the Hindus, the I Ching, The Tao Te Ching,
and The Analects from Chinese philosophers to generations of Chinese, or
the narratives from the four gospels of Jesus of Nazareth passed down to
Christians – all these represent knowledge/information designed to
be passed down from generation to generation through a variety of media such
as parables, drama, music, shadow plays,
kabuki theatres , etc. Although the grand narrative used as illustrated above
may be argued to be religious texts, I believe that they “speak”, originally to
distinct cultural group with claimed universal message in that the antagonists
and protagonists, the crisis, conflict, climax, conclusions and lessons which
can be drawn from them utilizes specific cultural contexts within the particular
milieu. Thus the Hindu texts are rich with imagery of ancient
India , the Chinese grand
narratives are written with pastoral ancient Chinese civilizations as backdrop,
and Jesus’ gospels are stories or parables set in the ancient land of Israel
Whilst Betancourt and Lopez noted the
complexity of the definition of culture and equally so the “interchangeability
of the definition with that of “ethnicity,” they argue that “being part of an
ethnic group can also determine … [one’s cultural belongingness ]… and
[as]… members of an ethnic group interact with each other, ethnicity becomes
a means by which culture is transmitted”. The authors also noted that the
elements which distinguish a cultural/ethnic subgroup are i) nationality ii)
culture and iii) language.
“I’ve always believed that culture of a
people is the soul of a people. And it expresses their highest hopes and
aspirations. And in that hope, and in that aspiration, there is a political
statement” so said Harry Belafonte in an interview with Cornel West in which
Belafonte alluded to some of the elements passed down onto him. A critical
reading of the interview text would reveal that the artiste derived his cultural
influence from the wisdom of his mother, the technologically and ideologically
incorrect image of Tarzan on Television, his environment that is Jamaica, the
politically liberating image of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie driving the
Germans away, Marcus Garvey, and his life long education is search of the
meaning of Black liberation though diverse and intensive readings, friendship
with Paul Robeson, and his perception on class division and cultural industry
among contemporary African-America people. Essentially, Belafonte’s concept of
art is arts de l’engage (committed art) as opposed to art de
l’arte (art for art’s sake) has guided his belief as an artist committed to
the struggle for liberation of the oppressed Afro-American.
The effect of all
these have made him an individual who believe that through his art (songs,
movies, etc.) he could enlighten his people of the imperativeness of looking at
the situation of Black oppression through class consciousness and the perversion
of culture manipulated by those who owes the means of (cultural) production. I
was attracted by his criticism of Black expression as embodied in late twentieth
century music in which he said:
And those
who are paid to do it, who want to live and got on the air and have money. It is
a catch-22. Everybody’s caught in a circle of self-destruction. (p.19)
And in relating
the Catch-22 phenomena with monopoly capitalism, Belafonte observed what Black
culture has come to evolve into:
I think black culture as it sits in America, and as it sits
in other places in the diaspora, is under the greatest onslaught of negativity
that has ever existed because of what monopoly capital is doing to control all
the forces that buy and sell art, and determine the tastes of the public, and
instruct and condition people in a way (George) Orwell didn’t quite imagine…
Because technology in the hands of oppressor is the new legacy to domination in
the future. (p.18)
The illustrations above characterize Belafonte’s
perception of what the future of the Afro-American man/woman would be like; a
perception somewhat pessimistic and largely critical based upon a
political-economic class analysis, derived from his cultural historical
background as an immigrant of Jamaican roots. It is not to say that Belafonte is
through and through dismal in his outlook; it is important to note that his
critical view and the culture industry, crypto-capitalism, pseudo-consciousness
of the Black youth and technological control are in itself relevant for those
concerned in the struggle for liberation to look at structural changes necessary
to address and act upon the injustices. We see quite a different view of those
issues in Charlene Hunter-Gault’s analysis.
“We’ve got to bring up a generation of young
people who think of themselves as kings and queens and little black princes and
princesses. Because when you think of yourself in that way, you carry yourself a
certain way” (p.83) so said Hunter-Gault at the end of her interview with
Cornel West; a powerful statement positive in its undertone derived from a
lifetime of upbringing by parents whom she attributed to have given her the
“armor” and “the coat of-arms” she has since worn like a red badge of
courage.
Particularly remarkable is the story of how her
father put so much emphasis on her “first rate mind” which cannot produce
anything less than an A in her grades and how this strict sense of importance in
education has carried her a long way into making her think like a highly
intelligent “princess” and “queen” and to give her the gift of passing on to
others the motivation and imperativeness of thinking of oneself as kings and
queens. One of my favorite songs by an Afro-American princess, Whitney Houston
is “The Greatest Love of All” which clearly echo Hunter-Gault’s message
and one which I constantly use in my training workshops on human motivation.
She looked at the plight of the Afro-American
people as something which can be changed and in fact is changing for the better
albeit analysis of the predicament have often painted the situation as dead-end.
Hunter-Gault takes prides in seeing the Afro-American coming out of slavery into
evolvingly participating in the political and economic life of a Middle America . She sees positive happenings in the music
industry and believes that there will be a time when black and white will become
equal partners in global economics. She is futuristic in her outlook, not
allowing a great deal of the past to haunt her in her analysis of society.
Unlike Belafonte who educated himself and look at
the class condition as primary in the struggle, Hunter Gault had parents who
helped her instill the necessity of “being the best and nothing less” and
acknowledged that although there is certainly class distinction in Black and
White America, one need not dwell in the past but look at the future through
building and strengthening the “armor” within. Thus, she believed that:
“If you
think of yourself as a victim, you go down on the street looking like a victim,
with your head down instead of up. And that’s what we’ve got to do. Have our
young people watching around with their heads up and their eyes on the
future.” (p.83)
I
learned a great deal from the two powerful perspectives on the Afro-American
people echoed by the equally powerful personalities in Belafonte and
Hunter-Gault. In them are powerful messages regarding how one can be socialized
in the same culture yet having differing outlook in how culture should
evolve.
QUESTION
Why do we think of race as a social construct instead of a
biological reality? Discuss an ethnic group that has been racialized over the
past 30 years. What do you think of this practice?
The conceptualization of race as a social construct
instead of a biological reality is beginning to be a popular research-focus
phenomena in the study of race, ethnicity, and culture because of a growing body
of research which is suggesting that physical and genetic characteristics in
such conceptions have its limitations. As written by Betancourt
and Lopez (1993), the study of race, culture, and
ethnicity is beginning to be perceived as more scientific if there is an
inbreeding of cross-cultural research with the fields of socio-economic research
and psychology; the latter as a field which has tremendous potentials for
explanatory insights when interdisciplined with comparative findings in
cross-cultural research.
Betancourt and Lopez (1993) in “The Study of
culture, ethnicity, and race in American psychology,” is arguing for a new
theoretical framework which goes beyond the paradigm of biological construction
and limitations of experimental psychology and the multitude of research on the
sociological and comparative cultural limitations of the studies in race,
ethnicity, and culture. They believed that the professional and scientific
ethical status of mainstream psychology (presumably essentially “white” in
orientation and ideology) can be enhanced with contributions it can make
cross-culturally to “ethnic psychology” using experimental methods of the
field.
Conceptualizing race as essentially a biological
construct and advancing claims using those parameters can be a limiting act in
theoretical frameworking as genetic arguments of “superiority in intelligence”
for example is beginning to be debunked because of current research status which
identified the “dubiousness” of looking at racial differences based upon
physical and genetic characteristics. As quoted by Betancourt and Lopez
(1993):
the classification of people in groups
designated as races has been criticized
as arbitrary, suggesting that the search for
differences between such groups
is at best dubious. … specifically there are
more within-group differences in
the characteristics used to define … races.
(p.91)
The authors used extensive arguments to advance the view that
scientific findings in the medical field that in a study of Caucasoid, Negroid,
and Mongoloid of their genetic systems, it was found that
“differences between individuals within the same tribe or nation account
for more variance (84%) than do racial groupings (10%)”. (p.91)
“Theory in ethnic minority “ research is thus
proposed as a hybrid of fields merging sociology, psychology, and cross-cultural
research fashioned then, into an experimental (measurable) orientation so that
this new perspective will professionally and ethically move beyond dubious and
delimiting biological constructs. As the authors note, it is only with this
theoretical nature that the study of race, culture, and ethnicity will help
mainstream American psychology become inevitably, more credible.
The discussion of race and the racialization
process as a social construct with particular reference to an ethnic or
immigrant subgroup’s Americanization over the last decades can best, I believe,
be illustrated by the case of South Asian and Arab Muslims who have been
Americanized beginning in the 1960s when the racialization and the
Americanization process for them began. As ethnic or immigrant subgroups which
are varied within their South Asian and Arabic (Middle Eastern) stocks, they
migrated to the United States first by identifying themselves as either South
Asian and Arabic Muslims but thirty years after their descendents can aptly be
called American Muslims of Indian or Arabic descend. Thirty years of
racialization and socialization process in one have undeniably add to their
character the “American” dimension as such as what happened when
the waves of immigrants from Europe first set foot on the shores of America
hundreds of years ago or when the Africans were brought to the plantation fields
in the 1700s.
By race or ethnic group, Muslims in
America have grown from 0.4% of
the total United
States
In El
Cerrito , Calif.
a muezzin’s call from a mosque minaret, but
because his Power Mac has
chimed. A verse from the Koran hangs by his
futon. Near the bookcases –
lined with copies of Wired magazine and Jack
Kerouc novels – lies a red
Arabian prayer rug. There’s a plastic compass
sewn into the carpet, its needle
pointing towards Mecca
prayers, the same time as those recited across
the globe – form the Gaza
to Samarkand
While racial socialization has been happening since the day the
South Asians or Arabs first migrated in waves as subgroups, enculturation into
the American culture has also taken shape. In the process, however, something
which goes beyond ethnicity, i.e. religious being-ness, form the basis of
spiritual strength underlying the social construction of being-ness and
existence of these subgroups.
What is relevant in answering the question of
practice of socialization -- be they of South Asian, Arabs, or the
Afro-American Muslims – is that prior to becoming American Muslims, there is an
identification of racial subgroups such as South Asians, Arabs and
Afro-Americans although the ancestors of these groups can be traced to have come
from a multitude of ethnic groups from their motherlands; South Asians from
various Asian subgroups, Arabs from a multitude of tribal groups and
Afro-Americans from a descendent of different ethnic groups of Africa.
Racialization then first occurs in America
The practice of racialization I think for whatever
historical reason it has come to evolve into, is a positive one in that the
American constitution can and has been providing these racial groups the
guarantee for freedom to practice their faith; perhaps in ways much better than
they would have enjoyed in their respective motherlands. It can perhaps give the
younger generation of these racial subgroups to prove that their religion cannot
necessarily be equated with violence, extremism, and terrorism as popularized
the “free media” of the capitalist world. America
QUESTION
What is cultural essentialism? Do you believe in this concept?
Do you think cultural essentialism helps or hurts the cause of unity? Using the
readings and class discussions, construct arguments for and against cultural
essentialism.
In looking at the question of cultural
essentialism, the arguments for and against it, on whether adherence to this
concept divides or unites, and lastly to offer my own view on this important
concept, I begin with the general statement that “cultural essentialism’ is the
belief that in every civilized society or a cultural group, there exist a core
culture which governs the “life sustaining” forces of that particular culture.
From the core, moral or religious doctrines are derived, cosmological view or
metaphysical conception is drawn, knowledge base is founded, principles and
ethos are constructed, and socializing agents as cultural values transmitters
are established so that the core culture can continue to be passed down from one
generation to the next in order for society to be maintained of its order and
harmony although technological, political, economic, and ideological winds of
change may be sweeping seasonally into the house that the core culture is living
in.
Peter J. Paris called it “religious social ethics”
in which whose “goal has been that of providing a framework for a moral theory
that fits the relevant historical data.” (p.162). In summarizing his work on the
core value of the African people necessary to be rediscovered by the
Afro-Americans, Paris called for a systematic transference of essential ideas
about the culture; ideas which fit into the definition of a moral theory:
[A] moral theory of virtue requires a set of
social conditions that will
facilitate the realization of its desired ends
namely, the development of
morally virtuous people. In other words, moral
development is dependent
on a community’s capacity to facilitate it. If
for any reason a community
fails to provide an environment
that is conducive for the development of
moral virtues the converse will certainly occur.
That is to say, the moral
character of the community will be reflected in
the moral development of
its children. (p.162)
We can discern through
the quote above, albeit brief, the essential tenet of the core culture theory; a
grand narrative to be passed down for cultural preservation. Paris’ illustration
of the core cultural theory above can also be equated with those of Charles
Taylor’s in Multiculturalism particularly in his the latter’s view on the
“politics of recognition” as in the case of the French Canadians, to a certain
extent Harry Belafonte’s view and in the preaching of many an Afro-American
religious leader as such as Marcus Garvey and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If we
construct arguments against cultural essentialism, we may be faced with a
problematic spin. On the other hand, by rejecting entirely the value of
tradition and grand narratives sacredly guarded by the elders, we may be denying
the essence of the religious social ethics inherent in them. On the other hand,
by becoming an advocate of this concept, we may deny the ability of our
postmodern self to utilize the power of our mind to deconstruct the excesses of
traditional values and limit our ability to create newer paradigms; designing
our own history and experimenting with personal narratives of the subaltern
genre. In summary, there are positive aspects of essentialism which can
be allowed to survive as much as there are excesses which must be
made to die off.
My
arguments unfavorable to core culture theory is that whilst values such as
honesty, piety, religiosity, industriousness, peacefulness, and harmony must at
all cost be guarded and transmitted, the ritualistic, paganistic, and
“linguistic gatekeeping’ aspects of cultural essentialism must be destroyed in
order for irrationalisms in the core values be withered. If cultural
essentialism means taking in faith and practice the ritualistic,
ultra-denominational, racist, communitarian, and ideological aspect of religion
for example to the extent of breeding hatred against others in the world we
ought to share as living space, then the religious/cultural texts or doctrines
of essentialism must be reanalyzed and deconstructed. If core culture means
bowing down to rulers – religious and political – however corrupted they may be,
then such essentialism must be demystified so that rulers as such can be
overthrown. If essentialism means bowing down to man-made objects mistaken as
God’s representation whereas worshipping must first be made onto oneself
wherein the Forces within reign, then paganistic essentialism as such ought
to be rejected. Did not God created human beings in God’s own image which means
that whatever the image we carry as human beings must contain God’s attributes
to be “rediscovered”, “reconstructed, “re-destroyed” and continually
reconstructed then?
In such a conception of the Self, should not the
case be that one need to worship one’s Inner Self which contains Inner Beauty,
Love, Harmony, Peace, and the message of Sages and prophets within culminating
in the so-called Image of God? I believe in this postmodern metaphysical concept
of essentialism; that there are never-ending cycles and veils of interpretation
of the Essence in oneself, the Inner Conscience, beyond any cultural and
archetypal symbols to be passed down from one generation to another. If Jesus is
Love and Moses is Deliverance and Adam is the Father, how do we find meaning
within these concepts and bring them “closer to our jugular vein” so that we may
not merely in the pure Essentialist tradition, continue to believe that the
stories in the Bible are stories of the peoples who live in times uncharted by
modern history. We can then find the beauty in the story of Creation as it
will be unveiled to us by the day in front of our eyes within our own
conscious self in a subaltern narrative form – and not of one story of
creation which is at odds with Einstein’s conception of the birth of
universe.
By bringing ourselves to such an understanding of
essentialism thus, -- one which is beyond cultural domain and
ritualistic- paganistic advocacies – we may find that it ought to unite more
than divide for the question then, must no longer be differences in some
tribalistic “religious moral ethics” but one which is living, growing, and
life-affirming within the universe of personal existence called “The Self”. If
there is the belief that we begin with Adam and Eve, we as a family of human
beings must return to Perfection. Between Adam and such Perfection, in my
conception of essentialism, must lie the Evolving Self – one which lives not
solely in the past nor in the future, but imperatively in the
ever-changing present!
QUESTION
Some would argue that music is an “essential”
element in understanding the culture of subgroups. If so, what is hip hop and
how does it help us understand about the populations from which this artistic
expression originates? According to our guest speakers, and the readings, what
is one of the current struggles faced by the hip hop community and how does this
struggle reflect a broader issue in Black/Latino communities?
Hip hop, as defined by Mr. Pee Wee and Mr. James
Moody is “Black and Latino manifestation of oppressed creativity” and claimed to
be a culture in itself which originate two decades ago in Harlem , New
York
Looking at hip hop from a post-industrial
tribalistic point of view, this cultural manifestation can help us understand
that the socio-economic condition and the alienation the inner city Black and
Latino subgroups is preconditioned into is needing of such expression as a form
of rediscovering of self-esteem and as a form of political recognition.
“Political” here is meant in the broadest sense “the constitutional and
unconstitutional arrangement of power relations” and in hip hop, power means the
push for visibility so that the dispossessed younger members of the targeted
Black and Latino youth can be attracted to this new culture so that a kind of
“enlightenment” project can be carried out. It is claimed that the hip hop
culture has an essentialist core acronymed as SILVER – self, intelligence, love,
vision, evolution, and revolution. It should then be interesting to follow the
development of the progress of such a cultural transmission project from a
culture “given birth” circa 1970s.
Just as words such as “race”, “ethnicity”, and
“culture” can be interchangeably perceived because of their subjective nature
and cross-breeding tendency in their utilization, I must say that “hip hop” and
“rap” as musical forms is in that category of linguistic complimentarity because
of the elusiveness of their meaning. In Chapter Two of Black Noise hip
hop is defined as:
a cultural form that attempts to negotiate the
experiences of
marginalization, brutally truncated opportunity,
and oppression
within the cultural imperatives of
African-American and Caribbean
history, identity and community. It
is the tension between the cultural
fractures produced by post-industrial oppression
and binding ties of
Black cultural expressivity that sets the critical frame for the
development of hip
hop. (p.21)
If we compare the above with the definition of rap
music, we may see the close link between both forms in which rap music,
[i]s a Black cultural expression that
prioritizes Black voices from
the margins of urban America
storytelling accompanied by a highly rhythmic,
electronically-based
music. It began in the mid-1970s in the South Bronx in the city
of New York
City
composed of graffiti, breakdancing, and rap
music.
We can say that the slight difference in the
definition and how hip hop and rap have progressed are also a cause for struggle
by the hip hop community. It is a question of “cultural appropriation” in that
the hip hoppers claimed that the huge global success of rappers are partly due
to the adulteration of the noble values hip hoppers originally plan to
propagate, which instead has worked to the benefit of rap music industry. This
is an issue faced by cultural originators from the Black and Latino community
which can be at the mercy of recording companies and electronic cultural
producers which see more value in marketing messages of violence, gangsterism,
anti-family, irrational hedonism, eroticism, sexual perversion, foul language
use, and the like through rap groups living and breathing images of destructive
counter-culturalism. The hip hop community believes in “reforming its wayward
child” – rap – and propagate the message of positive self-esteem, love,
intelligence, and respect, with regard to the building of a more progressive
Black and Latino community.
The issue of old versus new culture in the hip hop –
rap continuum of claims to cultural originality reflects the broader issue of
liberation in Black and Latino community. As mentioned earlier, through hip hop,
what is programmed to be achieved is a pride in the self and community of which
has been lost through marginalization and all forms of structural violence over
the years of existing as immigrant subgroups. In Black Noise and
Welcome to Terrordome for example, the struggles are well narrated and
what grew out of these is hip hop and rap which attempt to raise the younger
generation’s level of social consciousness and praxis through such as postmodern
genre of musical-artistic expression. Although artists like the
essentialist-socialist Harry Belafonte would see rap and hip hop as
nonsensical and devastatingly oppressive, and as a consciousness clouding
form of cultural perversion, the progressivist-capitalist Hunter Gault applauds
its existence as a creative form of expression which must be
channeled positively so that the younger generations can continue to do newer
things and be happy at doing them.
Thus, through hip hop and rap as an interesting
post-modern tribalistic phenomena of cultural expression with global
manifestations, they can provide contemporary sociologists the opportunity to
look at culture of subgroups and also help political economists understand the
inner-workings of culture industry on a global imperialistic scale with its
fashion, language, and lifestyle ‘lock, stock, and barrel” becoming the message
and the medium all at once transmitted to the four corners of the free world
made safer for “democracy”.
VIVA
HIP HOP
No comments:
Post a Comment