Cultural Diversity and Conditioning

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Cultural Diversity in India
  3. Cultural Diversity and the Unity of Mankind
  4. Purity and Pollution in India 
  5. Cultural Relativism

Introduction

Cultural Diversity

Not only in terms of outwardly visible characteristics, but also in terms of languages, religious beliefs and practices, customs and traditions, and rituals and ceremonies, mankind exhibits enormous diversity.

Humans' basic needs are met and controlled by culture, as was discussed in a previous post. There are countless variations in how these needs are met, how human groups and communities adapt to their surroundings, and how universal cultural patterns like religion, language, technology, and art are expressed. With some examples, we'll explain cultural diversity.

Regarding how the dead are handled, there are significant differences between various human groups. Burying the dead is practiced by many groups, including Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Hindus cremate their dead. In India, the Parsis let vultures feast on the dead bodies. King, queen, and other important people's bodies were mummified by the ancient Egyptians. In India, it occasionally happens to put dead bodies in the Ganges river. In addition to these, human communities around the world use other techniques for disposing of the dead. These include seafold burial, simple abandonment, dismemberment, and storage in vaults or canoes.

Similar variations can be seen in religious practices, rituals, and beliefs. The majority of primitive people hold the notion that natural phenomena and objects, like trees, rivers, and stars, have souls. Animism is the term used for this. Others adhere to the doctrine of totemism, in which a tribe or clan worships a particular animal species as its ancestor and is ritually linked to it. For instance, the Australian aborigines can trace their lineage back to an ancestor who is represented symbolically by a honeybee, an ant, or a kangaroo. Many primitive people also worship the spirits of their deceased ancestors. On the other hand, some religions, like Hinduism, hold that the divine essence permeates the entire cosmos and honor a variety of gods and goddesses. Judaism and Islam are two monotheistic religions that hold a supreme God responsible for creating the universe and acting as its ruler. There is no concept of a supreme being in Buddhism.

Cultural Conditioning

Humans, both as individuals and as members of social groups, think, feel, and act in particular ways as a result of the circumstances of their upbringing in a particular society or community. A people's perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, values, habits, and customs are all influenced by their culture. In other words, our culture plays a significant role in defining our personalities and character. Cultural conditioning is the term for this reality.

People's associations with particular things, things, and colors are shaped and conditioned by their culture. For instance, certain hues are used during festive occasions, rituals, and ceremonies because they are thought to be auspicious. In most of India, the color red is regarded as lucky. In Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, among other places, brides wear red clothing. Maharashtra's culture places a special emphasis on the color green. The first sari a girl receives from her parents when she reaches puberty is green. Green is the color of the wedding gown. While expecting, a woman dons a green sari. She gets a green sari from the bride's mother when her son gets married. Yellow is considered lucky during marriages, housewarming celebrations, and religious events in South India, particularly in Andhra.

You already know that cultural factors have an impact on eating habits. Strange but intriguing ways for this conditioning to show itself. In India, many vegetarians avoid mushrooms because they are thought to taste and feel like meat, despite being a delicacy in the west. Similarly, because tomatoes and beets have a color similar to blood, Jain vegetarians initially dislike them.

Cultural Diversity In India

Every group of people on the planet has its own unique culture. Take Indian society as an example. It has a vast array of languages and dialects, beliefs and rites, customs and traditions, habits and behavioral patterns. To show the degree of cultural diversity in India, we will give a few examples.

A single varna is made up of the Brahmin. The Brahmin, however, are not a culturally uniform group throughout the nation. They are broken up into countless castes and subcastes known as jatis, and they are the only group that can legally marry. The various Brahmin sub-castes differ greatly in terms of language, eating habits, customs, and rituals. There are two main sects among the Brahmin subcastes: Shaivite and Vaishnava. There are many subsects within these sects. For instance, the Vaishnava are divided into Madhava and Shri Vaishnava in South India. Northern and southern sects of the Shri Vaishnava are further divided into subgroups. The Vaishnava are divided into followers of Rama and followers of Krishna in North India. Madhava and Ramanandi are two subgroups of Rama worshipers. Radha-Vallabha and Chaitanya are two subgroups of Krishna worshippers.

In terms of eating habits, there are substantial differences among the various Brahmin sub-castes. However, fish is off-limits to Kashmiri pandits. The Maithili Brahmin of Bihar don't eat chicken, only meat and fish. The Bengali Brahmin and Saraswat Brahmin both consume fish. Contrarily, the Brahmin populations of Punjab, Gujarat, and South India are all strict vegetarians.

Regarding dress patterns, there are variations across India's various regions. Unsewn clothing is commonly worn in rituals throughout eastern India. Similar to this, only a piece of unstitched clothing can be worn to enter the inner sanctum of a Jain temple. Only while wearing unstitched clothing do the Brahmin of eastern Nepal consume food. Unstitched clothing, on the other hand, is replaced by stitched clothing as one travels from Bengal to Western and Northern India.

Cultural Diversity and the Unity of Mankind

The cultural differences between the various populations of the world can seem perplexing and mind-boggling. The fundamental unity of humanity, however, is concealed behind the mask of diversity. All people are members of the same biological species, homo sapiens, despite social and cultural differences. Any human population or group has the ability to interbreed and give birth to another of that kind. Additionally, all human communities share certain cultural universals, including the ability to learn and acquire culture, the ability to speak a language, laws against incest, funeral rites, and institutions like marriage, the family, and religion, among others.

Purity and Pollution in India

The caste system has a component known as ritual purity and pollution, which offers an interesting illustration of how culture shapes and conditions behavior.

Birth, unclean occupations, coming into contact with the dead, and bodily emissions like blood, excreta, urine, saliva, nail polish remover, and hair are all thought to be the causes of pollution. Anyone who comes into contact with these things becomes impure. Physical contact is thought to be a means of transmitting pollution. Distance pollution, a ritual defilement that is more interesting, is particularly common in South India. According to popular belief, pollution or impurity can be spread by an untouchable's mere shadow or by being in close proximity to them.

In the past, certain castes in Tamil Nadu and Kerala had to maintain a certain distance between themselves and the Brahmins and other higher castes in order to prevent the latter from becoming defiled. As a result, if a Shanar, a member of the Tamil Nadu toddy-tapper caste, approached a Brahmin within 24 paces, he would contaminate him. A Brahmin may be approached in Kerala, but a Nayar is not allowed to touch him. A Pulayan was not allowed to approach the Brahmin within 96 paces, and a Tiyan was allowed to maintain a distance of 36 steps from him.

Cultural Relativism

The idea that one's culture, religion, and values should be valued above those of others is known as ethnocentrism. This is a limited but widely held viewpoint, and the concept of cultural relativism offers a counterargument to it. The idea of cultural relativism holds that a people's values, ideals, and behavioral patterns should not be assessed and judged in terms of our own values and ideas, but rather should be understood and valued in their cultural context.

The concept of cultural relativism emphasizes the idea that we should try to rise above our own cultural conditioning and attempt to understand another culture as it is understood by the people who participate in it. This calls for some creativity, comprehension, and scope of vision. We cannot understand a group of people in a realistic and compassionate way until we put aside our prejudices and stereotypes about them.

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