Cultural Wisdom: What Hundreds of Generations Can Teach You
Culture is a collection of the wisdom of hundreds of generations.
Through the process of socialization, the wisdom of the previous generations gets passed onto us.
This wisdom serves as a guide on how we should live our lives. From how to behave in a group environment, to how we should manage our time and how to resolve conflicts, every aspect of our lives is influenced by the assumptions, values and beliefs that are being passed onto us through this process.
The problem is, that this wisdom also forces us into a cage of thought.
By dictating to us patterns of thought and behavior, this cultural wisdom limits the possibilities on how we can act in any given situation, solve problems, respond to people and live our lives.
The cage of thought that we acquire through cultural wisdom is commonly called a worldview.
Don’t get me wrong here: having a worldview certainly is not a “bad thing”. It guides our behavior, automates our decision-making process, and is necessary in order to become an accepted member of the society.
Take the quote from the photo at the beginning of this article as an example:
“Inhale the future, exhale the past”
What this tells us is that on the on the one hand, we should be breathing both our future and our past. But on the other hand, it also puts a much stronger emphasis on the future, as this is what we are inhaling. In this view, a focus on the future is significantly more important than living in the past.
If we were to live by this quote — one of the pieces of wisdom created by the generations before us — this would have significant consequences on how we are living our lives.
People even get tattoos with pieces of wisdom like these on their bodies in order to be reminded of their message constantly and live their lives accordingly.
We benefit the most from cultural wisdom when we force ourselves to question our worldview regularly
While pieces of wisdom which we have learned as part of our cultural conditioning are useful in guiding our lives, we should always acknowledge that they are just one perspective of looking at the world.
For instance, the quote “inhale the future, exhale the past” is dealing with the question of how we should approach time.
Here, a significantly stronger focus is placed on the future than the present and the past. Other cultures, however, may have a completely different perspective on time.
“Who has ever seen tomorrow?”
This is an Iranian proverb indicating that since we can not predict the future, we should not focus too much on it. And in fact, the Iranian culture has a very strong focus on the past until today. Iranian people love ancient cultural products such as poetry and art as sources of wisdom and as guides for their behavior.
“For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”
This is an African proverb showing a strong focus of the African culture on the present. People who are moving to Africa to live there are often surprised by the degree to which African people live in the moment and the happiness and spontaneity this brings with it.
Every cultural perspective has wisdom inherent in itself.
We need to always remember that all cultures have long histories, and that they are the result of hundreds of generations struggling for survival.
The reason why cultural perspectives can be so significantly different from one another is that they are results of the different environments that people were living in and the different challenges they were facing.
For instance, harmony has become an important feature of the Chinese culture as a result of the fact that during the agricultural era, there was only limited land available where agriculture was possible. Because people were forced to live in extreme proximity to one another, it became necessary to establish a high degree of harmony within the communities.
In the Middle East, tribal thinking has developed as a result of the extremely harsh living conditions of the people. Because resources very very limited, pretty much any other “group” that one encountered was a potential source of threat. As a result, levels of trust for people from different tribal backgrounds in the past has been extremely low.
All cultural perspectives have their own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, we need to discover which one’s are the most suitable for our own situation.
The worldview that has been granted to you through your cultural conditioning may well be one of the most important assets that are guiding you on how to live your life.
But if you do not question this worldview from time to time, then it will inevitably limit your possibilities for growth.
The easiest way to do that is to simply expose yourself to new cultural perspectives on a regular basis.
Just observing the fact that people have a completely different view on things as compared to us can be enough to start questioning some of our most central assumptions.
The goal here is not to “get rid” of the worldview we have developed as part of our cultural conditioning. Rather, the goal is to make an active choice about which values and beliefs we deem to be more useful for our own personal lives.
What steps can you take now to make the most use of the wisdom of other cultures?
I would start by identifying areas of wisdom that really fascinate you and spark your curiosity. For example, I am personally very fascinated by the idea of harmony in collective cultures. But I am also fascinated by a large number of other cultural ideas such as German efficiency, Australian “mateship”, or the Indonesian concept of a company as an extended family.
If you are already living in another culture, then certainly the most sensible way is to identify areas that spark your interest in that particular culture, and then try to learn about it as much as possible.
But this isn’t necessary in order to expose ourselves to new cultural perspectives.
For example, we could join a local Kung Fu club and learn about the perspectives on life that the subculture of Kung Fu has to offer to us. Or, we could join the local start-up scene and learn about the way people in the start-up scene perceive the world.
There is a sheer unlimited number of different subcultures we can expose ourselves to, even if we are not currently at a point where we are able to move overseas.
If you want to take way one piece of wisdom from this article then it is this:
All cultures have wisdom inherent in them. Seek them out actively. Learn about them. Understand them. Make them a part of who you are. Grow beyond the restraints of your own cage of thinking. Become a person who is capable of looking at the world from different perspectives.
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