The most misunderstood and most discussed topic in the human society is
culture. The simplistic definition of culture is significantly synonymous with
the idea of goodness and valued aspect of collective lifestyle or collective
behavior of the group of people. The word culture is a conglomeration of many
aspects of human society and its behavior.
Despite of its omnipotent presence,
the defining culture in one sentence is a million dollar question. In fact,
there is no need to define the culture in uniformed way, because the basic
difference between culture and civilization is that the propensity of culture
is dynamic, while the civilization is static. This also seems challenging to
define the culture without civilization and vice versa. Even in various theories of modernization (Parson, Huntington 1971,
Inglehart 2000, Apter, Hegopian 2000) the definitional aspect of culture is not
seen as independent paradigm. The question remains unanswered, is culture
really a complex issue in the human society? Culture matters and culture also
defines and redefines the social structure on the basis of the influence from
inside and outside actors and actions.
When we conceptualize about the culture as multidimensional, shared,
often unspoken in nature, an underground river of meaning making, a series of
lenses that shape what we see and what we don’t see, shapes our idea and
attitude and above all, culture operates below the surface and shifting
propensity enhances the cultural domain beyond the definitional aspect. The
dynamic nature of culture orients the human being in a particular ways, which
consolidates the concept of ‘we’ and keep away from ‘others’.
Here, this shows that the human society does not belong to single
culture but a multicultural. Therefore, the human being is experienced about
cultural assimilation, cultural adaptation, cultural realism, and cultural
centralism from the early age.
There is no comprehensive understanding about the culture exist, since
the culture never works in isolation. The contextual realities shape and
manifest the cultural resilience and its essence in the society. This is also a
fact that there is nothing called culture free perspective. When we start
visualizing the ideas and values, the cultural influence works in shaping the
perspective on the basis of our inbuilt cultural intermingling and
socialization. Here, one thing important to understand that despite of seeing
culture as potent weapons, the awareness about the different perspective make
the culture more tolerant and more dynamic than the civilization.
Modernization and industrialization has affected the human lives
significantly in both positive as well as negative ways. One the one hand, the
concept of individual recognize as building the culture of human rights and
peace in addressing the culture of violence, while on the other hand, the state
has become a hegemonic creature, where violence as seen as the problem of law
and order.
The Grand theory of Modernization encourages the essence of ‘Rite to
Passage’, and also recognizes the challenge in the formation of nation state.
Apart from this, modernization is still being used as the potential tools to
serve the vested interest of economic agenda and political development in the
world as it was used during the spread of colonialism. Historically, the
human society is a multicultural society consisting of many nations,
identities, differing abilities, languages, gender, sexual orientation,
political and religious affiliation and list goes on further.
During the 18th Century, the phase
of clonialisation started with the grand concept of modernization, when the
dominance was the politically inspired but the hierarchy and its significance
was institutionalized in the social structure. However, colonialism was not
solely responsible for building hierarchical social structure.
There are many evidences show that the hierarchical structure of society
was visible even before the concept of colonialism. The most oft repeated
example is the caste system in India, which is religiously defined but there is
no ontological separation of religion from the political sphere of influence.
Religious institution and activities were part and parcel of political system
in India. This is rightly observed here that “Kings derive much of their
power from worship, and bestow their emblems and privileges in a cultural
atmosphere that is permeated by the language and attitudes of worship. Further,
temples are key institutions in the formation of social communities”.
Generally, this is believed that the concept of social structure in
India is based on ‘purity and pollution’ (Louis Dumont; Homo Hierarchicus, 1970)
and ‘sacred and profane’ (Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Form of Religious Life
1912), a central characteristic of religion. But in case of India’s social
structure and power structure has worked together and brought together the
religion and kinship.
This has been correctly described that ‘Religion does not encompass
kingship any more than kingship encompasses religion. There are not two
distinct forms of power, secular power had by kings and sacred power had by
Brahmans. Kings and Brahmans are both privileged but different forms of
divinity in a world in which all beings were, however distantly, generated from
the same ontological source. And power—whether defined as a constellation of
cultural conceits or as an analytic concern--cannot be restricted to a single
domain of Indian social life’.
