Of Cultures, Customs and Tastes

Man is born a barbarian, and only rarely raises himself above the beast by culture. BALSTAR GRACIAN (1647). The Art of Worldly Wisdom.

Occupying successfully every corner of the globe from the Tundra to the rain forest and from the high Andes to the blazing Kalahari, humans have made themselves at home everywhere. Though weak, they possess a unique ability to adapt to changing environment through the presence of culture. Moving into all kinds of environments, human beings have devised sets of rules, beliefs and technologies specifically designed to overcome whatever the obstacles the land and environment raises.

The Island of Yap is a small pacific ocean island which can support about 30,000 people. Unrestrained human fertility could overwhelm its resources in a few generations. To cope with this situation, the islanders have developed a cultural image restricting land use and ownership making raising of large families so onerous that fertility limitation is built into the system. Coming to America, the Maine lobstermen are a notoriously clannish group. Access to fishing ground is allocated by common consent of the group. Outsiders attempting to fish find their marking buoys cut free and the lobster pots destroyed.

In the island of Bali, there are world's most fertile rice fields and a thriving population; community organizations in which the membership is mandatory distribute irrigation water to the fields. The elaborate and demanding religious culture reinforces the family and communal solidarity that makes cooperative agriculture possible.

Successful cultures are stable but the world itself is not static. External influences always create new problems and with them come the new challenges. The pace of change in the modern world is unprecedented. The modern city is the new challenge to our culture. Would we adapt in time? The challenge is a formidable one but there is heartening evidence of the resourcefulness with which human beings everywhere and at all times have responded to the challenges that have faced man on earth.

Our customs, values, preferences, tastes, dress and the rest are all created and sustained with one goal: survival. A given climate with its challenges forces man to devise rules and resulting values to endure the climate. From the palate for a certain food to the respect of elderly, are all examples of pragmatic manifestations of the surroundings. Take for example, the family structure; as people develop greater independence of each other through economic security, the family structure weakens. Poor cultures by tradition have closely knit families. Modern western societies lament about the withering away of the central family not realizing that this is part of an inevitable cultural evolution.

Clothing to keep comfortable leads to traditions. In temperate climates, loose light clothing is of order; in the cold climates, more skin-hugging and warmer clothing is required. For survival, nature inculcates a forceful likening of cultural values and traditions, often to a point where we consider alien cultures and values repugnant. Nothing is far from reality. Insistence that only certain values are right is ill-founded. Values that help survive a society are the best values, moral or otherwise. Culture should be allowed to survive only as long as it serves a purpose; the best cultures are dynamic cultures, changing with time. Unfortunately, genes forcing us to stick to our culture often lag behind the needed changes in cultural values.

For harboring the culture-preserving trait, the societies have been perished. Static in this instance can be suicidal. Perhaps genetically adept societies to adapt to changes.

Customs arise mostly from culture and are honed in because of religion. Most customs of unusual nature today may not have been unusual some years ago. Laws in the State of Georgia perhaps still prohibit selling peanuts on a certain day of the week. The Guinness book is full of such enchanting tales. But why, what is today a custom becomes an oddity tomorrow.

A custom is created when people start repeating after others and they do it because one of the human nature is to emulate. By conforming they associate themselves with a larger group of peoplea human weakness or perhaps an evolutionary strength. Soon customs become hallmark of a society for a specific segment of the society. Wearing turbans of different colors or a Texan hat today exemplifies a custom that screams for a geographical recognition. Customs often prosper for reasons totally different for which they are created. Customs often are created to conform and they are perpetuated to be different from the rest of the crowd. Whereas, humans like to associate with other human beings, they also maintain their own identity and often guard it jealously.

Identity is often also a weakness that arises from insecurity. A man used to titillating his endorphins through recognition will find it extremely boring and perhaps outright unacceptable to be among the pack of common men. Statesmen, politicians, leaders, scientists, philosophers, theologians, magicians, acrobats, daredevils, kings, aristocrats, modern-day yuppies, all find it difficult to be a common man because their endorphin factory churns chemicals faster, either because of genetic differences or perhaps likely because of their training and experience.

Dominating their own kind by being different is perhaps the most powerful of all human emotional needs.