| BECAUSE ALL human beings are created in the image of God, and belong to the same species, there is significant human commonality for people everywhere--as they strive to meet their basic human needs for food, shelter, security and struggle to be affirmed and to belong. But this common substratum has generated an impressive diversity of cultural expression and a babel of tongues. One of the most significant contributions anthropology has made to our understanding of man has been its documentation of the diverse ways the human animal has adapted to different ecological and social environments. Of all the creatures in the animal kingdom, man is by far the most adaptable. He adapts, however, not so much through genetic recombination, but through culture. To understand the diverse ways of mankind, we must take a closer look at the concept of culture as developed within anthropology. The Concept of Culture One of the greatest contributions anthropological science has made to the missionary enterprise is its refinement of the concept of culture: the entire man-made environment in which every human being lives. Culture, thus conceived, refers to that complete array of ideas that man carries in his head which are expressed in the form of material artifacts and observable behavior (cf. Kroeber 1952). Much of what we attribute to "human nature" is not naturally human or universal at all, but is a consequence of being a member of a particular society that practices certain customs and holds certain beliefs. It is this body of beliefs and customs that comprise the culture of a society, allowing it to function in a particular environment and enabling its members to get on with the business of living. The human nature with which we are born is indeed very flexible and is thus molded, shaped and formed to fit in with the society in which we are raised. Culture is not human nature. It is not transmitted biologically through genetic material, but is learned. Racism, prejudice, love, kindness are all learned responses; they are not genetically transmitted from one generation to another. They are transmitted, however, through the learning process. Moreover, a normal member of any society has acquired the essential structure of his culture within the first five years of life. Thus in observing human behavior from one society to another, it is more appropriate to speak of one's cultural nature than of one's human nature. The pervasiveness of culture on human beings is most astounding when we pause to reflect on it. We are thoroughly immersed in and totally influenced by it, for not only is our behavior governed by our culture but our thinking process is also pervasively influenced by it. I am not implying that we are totally determined by culture and that there is no individual expression within it, for this is obviously not true; but our culture does establish the parameters and conditions of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. I recall once explaining this pervasive nature of culture to a class of introductory anthropology students. Finally one young man couldn't take it any longer. He blurted out that perhaps some people were completely influenced by their culture, but that he certainly wasn't: he was his own man, he went his own way and did his own thing. I complimented him for cogently articulating the contemporary, ideal model of the young American male as our culture defines it. His was an American response, not an African or Melanesian one, and his culture had so shaped his personality and values that he was quite unaware of it. This is the pervasive nature of culture, for it seems so natural to us that we readily confuse it with human nature. Cultural Models Another way in which our culture influences us is in the way we perceive the "real world," for we "see" it in terms of the cultural models we use to interpret it. Philosophers of science have alerted us to the fact that the "real world" out there, and our perception or model of that world which is in our minds, are never isomorphic. That is, the cultural models we use to interpret the world influence the way we perceive it. 2 We always perceive through a cultural lens. St. Paul, the missionaryanthropologist of the New Testament, captured this principle when he noted that, "What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete" (1 Cor 13:12).3 We are in error when we assume that our distorted cultural model of the world is an exact replica of the real world (Barbour 1974:34-50). And yet, this position of naive realism dominated the scientific world until the present century. It is only recently that we've discovered that the "real world" out there can only be understood in terms of the observer's frame of reference and biases which determine how he perceives this real world and the order he imposes upon it. Given the diversity of language and culture around the world, and the role these two entities play in shaping our perception (model) of the world, it should not be surprising to discover that there are indeed many different cultural models of the real world. Because our cultural model of the world seems to be so natural to us, so correct, it is easy for us to disparage other cultural models that differ from our own, labeling them inferior, superstitious, primitive or even sinful. Anthropologists call this attitude ethnocentricism and it is analogous to egocentricism. In transactional terms, an egocentric person says, I'm OK, you're not OK. Similarly, an ethnocentric person says, my culture, my life-way is OK but yours is not. We are all guilty of this when we step out of our own culture into another, and it is indeed a pervasive problem for many missionaries. Our view of the world, the way we think and act, seems so utterly a part of our human nature that alternative models strike us as wrong, missing the mark or inadequate. Perhaps an illustration of the way culture influences our perception of the world will be helpful at this point. Ever since the European Enlightenment, Western man has increasingly replaced supernatural explanations of cause and effect with naturalistic explanations, and indeed, a broad body of scientific knowledge has grown from this foundation. Because scientific knowledge has generated such an expansion of technological achievements it has left us a bit awed by the scientific enterprise, and buttressed our belief in a naturalistic world. We have adopted a cultural evolutionary view of history that identifies progress with Western Civilization and all other cultures of the world are left in the dust of our rapid development. Our technological sophistication has led us to naively believe that we must be superior to all other societies in every aspect of their culture. This naturalistic and scientific worldview has made it very difficult for Western man to believe in supernatural intervention in the affairs of the universe. Christians particularly, suffer from cognitive dissonance living in such a world, for there is little room for the supernatural. This view of reality is a product of Western culture. It is only a model, and as a model it may be partially true and very useful, but it is not sufficient.
|
