When cultures fail
Culture binds a person's identity to the meanings that surround them. This is a dueling affair. Meanings come from activities of the mind and body - actions, relations, habits and purposes.
Some of us will create new culture by infusing new meanings into our culture. This comes what we accomplish in the periphery of our culture - activities that are allowed, but not commonly encouraged, appreciated, or looked upon as worthy of attention.
But it will be easier for most of us to simply take our identity from the culture instead, and change ourselves over time to fit well into it. What starts in childhood becomes a silent force, hard to disengage from. This is fine, since we shouldn't be spending effort in resisting our nearest neighborhood in the universe of meanings.
But some of us move to a different culture by way of ideas space, work, travel or social factors, both push and pull. When we thus migrate from one culture to another, we see new and different …
Culture binds a person's identity to the meanings that surround them. This is a dueling affair. Meanings come from activities of the mind and body - actions, relations, habits and purposes.
Some of us will create new culture by infusing new meanings into our culture. This comes what we accomplish in the periphery of our culture - activities that are allowed, but not commonly encouraged, appreciated, or looked upon as worthy of attention.
But it will be easier for most of us to simply take our identity from the culture instead, and change ourselves over time to fit well into it. What starts in childhood becomes a silent force, hard to disengage from. This is fine, since we shouldn't be spending effort in resisting our nearest neighborhood in the universe of meanings.
But some of us move to a different culture by way of ideas space, work, travel or social factors, both push and pull. When we thus migrate from one culture to another, we see new and different …