Efendi

If two people on the photo are couple. It is not a marriage. but a hyerarchy over women. She doesn't at an age when she could make marriage decision.

Rasta

Yes our modern ideals of equality say that hierarchy over woman is immoral. Can we say that this ideal is absolute?

Can we say that one culture is right and another culture is wrong? Good and bad things happen in all societies.

In more traditional cultures, they see a lot of freedom as immoral. The widespread tolerance of pornogrophy, homosexuality, etc as immoral.

bunyip

You have just actually described aspects of culture.

The word 'culture' has a broad meaning. It means anything not innate in a human being.

It includes; language,religion, writing,dress,food/cooking, agriculture, fine arts,politics, legal system,morality and economics.Culture is all of those things which make up our world view and even our sense of self. It is dynamic,changing constantly, from internal and external influences.

The only way not to be influenced by other cultures is to have no contact with them. Of course it's a matter of degree.

Just two examples; (1) Crass American cultural Imperialism of the Coca Cola, Hollywood and fast food variety.(2) The English language growing from a medieval German dialect to the most widely spoken language on the planet.English has major components from several languages and loan words from perhaps dozens of others.

Guaporense

While the impact of culture in human behavior is great, culture always follows certain universal principles.

Guaporense

We have today a hierarchy over children. Hierarchies are an absolute part of society.

I can say that certain cultural elements can produce bad long run effects over society.

Yes. These more tradicional societies are fading out quite fast. Here in Brazil we have had a certain cultural revolution in the last decades. The country was deeply catholic and conservative about 50 years ago, today it is quite different.

Jake10

Good question, Rasta.

I believe the first thing to do in order to answer this is to analyze the evolution of science. We have ask ourselves how we come up with the concept of science. Well, we know that all sciences start off as philosophies and develop from there. Now, a philosophy is an answer to a question that cannot be proven but carries some degree of validity based on our beliefs and other knowledge. In time, we seek to prove our philosophies or hypothesis if you want to call them that, in which case we end up learning more about them.

So, if we consider the reason for philosophy, we see that it starts off with observations of natural phenomenon, be it the sun rising or pleasure derived from sex. Our curiosity leads us to ponder about why this is so. When something is too complicated to analyze, the first response that comes to mind is that God/gods made it. I’m not debating whether this is true or not, since the next question is always how and why God did. Using the knowledge at hand, the conclusion that prostitution should be sacred would certainly be reasonable if sex were seen as a godly reward, just as sacrificing people would make sense as a type of payment in return for the sun rising.

At the same time, humans are selfish by nature, but we want to believe that we are in the right, or good in some way. Certainly, the more powerful slave owner or husband to a wife who had no say in the matter would try to justify his actions according to the values of the society around him, as well as the religion he practices. It would sound too arrogant to say, “I want this, so I should have it.” Instead, a natural human conclusion is, “This is the way it should be because…” I suppose the same could be said about capitalism.

By those very justifications, a culture derives a driving force. Of course, all cultures have the concept of face, religion, wealth etc. but different cultures put more or less emphasis on different driving forces. In a Japanese culture, where face is valued above other driving forces, the practice of seppuku makes perfect sense, because it spares humiliation, which is feared above death.

Then, we come to the point of making science out of philosophy. As generations go by, young curious minds seek answers above their parents’. They being to test the philosophies with experiments. A common example of that lies in teen trends, which older people often find somewhat offensive but tolerate out of sympathy for foolish youth. Through experiments, people prove or disprove the philosophies, meaning that, in time, the Aztecs would have realized that the sun would have risen without the human sacrifices. Through studies of the lives of prostitutes, the sacred view would eventually be dismissed, just as the concept of forced marriage would be. How long this would take depends on the hold on power that the people who enjoy this have on the society, and how willing certain citizens are to contradict the norms. Choosing not to commit seppuku might result in social isolation, but when enough people accept isolation, a renegade group would form. Naturally, they would seek to change their public image starting with philosophical justification, and eventually turning to scientific evidence. How successful they would be depends on the history of the practice, as well as the how successful the people making the challenge are, and the evidence they are able to come up with. Scientific proof is stronger than philosophy because it is less abstract.

Scientific proof, however, does not automatically alter cultural practices that it contradicts. We are all too familiar with that and have seen enough threads in this forum that we don’t need to go into this. But, What I’m trying to get at is that cultural practices commence based on the desires and opinions of those in charge when the culture is developing, and this is usually a time when scientific knowledge is limited. As time goes by, technology and interaction with other cultures challenges these practices, forming cultural conflicts. Whether the practices continue or not depends on the influence and power of the people governing the culture, and the amount of proof that contradicts the practices.

So, while we cannot really say that these practices are morally wrong, we can say that they, and some of the ones we currently have, derive from philosophies that came about when we had less access to knowledge and tools with which to derive a conduct from. We will always, no doubt, have to satisfy our human desires, but taking more factors into consideration and using new tools available to us will change our conduct for better or for worse.

Mike McClure

Any ideas on the differences in the concept of modesty?

The Imperial

I would say, my question is like- hen or egg first?

It was human behaviors which solidified over generations to become that population's culture......

And that culture influenced further generations, and defined human behaviors of that behavior.....

It's somewhat like-> human behavior = human culture

Jake10

No, it's not a chicken or egg concept. One of the essential elements for culture is language. Language and culture are interlinked and cannot exist without one another. Human behavior was around before language.

Human emotions and instincts account for the commonalities in cultures, but not the contrasts. The contrasts derive language and environmental influences.

Just let me ask you what makes you Indian? What makes someone French or Italian? Surely it is not skin color. It is not a birth certificate, since I'm sure you've seen people with Indian birth certificates who were not Indian. It is your language. Language makes you what you are.

Efendi

I thinks things are not totally parallel to hen and egg issue. Culture effect human behaviour, human effect culture too. But Culture change dependent on human. Human is engine.