It may be that some consider culture to be for the elite. However, culture exists at every level of society. There is Human culture which we all share. This breaks down to sub-cultures and underground cultures and on and on. Without culture, we don’t know how to identify ourselves. On a superficial level, culture may be expressed by how we talk, dress, our activities, etc. On a deeper level, culture may be found in our beliefs, attitudes, norms, and mores.
Consider when someone meets you for the first time. What do we say about ourselves? Generally we define our culture in order to give that person a roadmap to our identity. In other words, our culture is what our Soul wears to identify itself. People naturally feel most at home within the culture worn by their Souls. Culture is the comfortable “slipper” worn by the Self.
That being said, Web 2.0 presents social networking as the 21st century’s new culture (identity) clarification tool. We join groups and forums and chats and the like in order to either identify our insecure self, or impose our strong self on others.
The insecure Self uses culture as an excuse for matters of conflict such as war. The strong Self uses culture as a pretense for enslavement of others deemed less ‘cultured.’ Either way, mankind needs to be delivered from the superficialities of the cultural identity crisis and discover the real meaning of human existence.(posted 9/20/08)
