Cultural Awakening and World Peace

Wissenschaftlicher Aufsatz , 2010 , 7 Seiten

Kulturwissenschaften - Sonstiges

The concept of culture, understood in its totality, is a powerful construct which covers the entire field of life. It connects the creator and the creation. How? Etymologically (the Latin root word cultura, which implies tilling the soil as well as the cult, encompasses the continuum of the material and spiritual world) positions man between the finite and the infinite, between heaven and earth, the physical and the spiritual world, the material and the immaterial, the visible and the invisible.
Man himself as well as the concept of culture are a synthesis, a convergence and integration of vertical – horizontal, inner – outer “metadimensions”, superordinate, structural und functional dimensions of culture, at a more fundamental level of analysis. The resulting structural and functional integration enables life as a whole. Culture in the wider sense, which is proposed here, conditions wholeness and unity of life and results in balanced sustainable individual and social organisms.

The unity of culture:

The concept of culture, understood in its totality, is a powerful construct which covers the entire field of life. It connects the creator and the creation. How? Etymologically (the Latin root word cultura, which implies tilling the soil as well as the cult, encompasses the continuum of the material and spiritual world) positions man between the finite and the infinite, between heaven and earth, the physical and the spiritual world, the material and the immaterial, the visible and the invisible.

In the Christian tradition, the Word or Logos (Christ) is the mediator and reconciler between the two. In other religious traditions consciousness or/and the law are the principle that connects the two worlds which therefore, in both traditions, can be considered as one physical-metaphysical continuum: One indivisible field of life and existence.

Both poles are necessary to maintain the overall integrity, the verticality of evolved man, his or her quintessential vertical-horizontal integrity: In Christianity, Adam is the “Earth Man” who cannot be thought of as independent of his creator. The force behind the phenomenon of man is logos. In the Orient the convergence of yang spiritual energy and yin earthly energy generates the human phenomena. Whether personalized as heavenly father and mother earth, or impersonal as logic of energy, consciousness or involution/evolution or by reference to nature in pacha mama, i.e. mother earth (indigenous Indian cultures) and the sun, the interconnected reality and process is governed by the same principle. The cosmological integration by one perceived or revealed logic or the other and a concomitant horizontal integration condition each other. The macrocosm and the microcosm of man are linked and are a continuum.

Some cultural traditions privilege one component of that continuum at the expense of the other and harvest the consequences: A purely material, instrumental concept of culture and cultural traditions is a technocratic consciousness which prioritizes the outer, technical, material world, whereas a more immaterial understanding of culture and cultural traditions prioritizes the inner world, inner logic and technique. This explains the fundamental difference between eastern and western cultures and civilizations. The inner - outer and the left - right, eastern - western, material - spiritual dichotomies seem to be a replication of the overarching cultural principle which is a cosmological principle and which is already foreshadowed in the above illustrated Latin etymology of the term culture.

Man himself as well as the concept of culture are a synthesis, a convergence and integration of vertical – horizontal, inner – outer “metadimensions”, superordinate, structural und functional dimensions of culture, at a more fundamental level of analysis. The resulting structural and functional integration enables life as a whole. Culture in the wider sense, which is proposed here, conditions wholeness and unity of life and results in balanced sustainable individual and social organisms. Therefore, the outer, technological, western pole intuitively seeks to integrate the inner spiritual eastern pole to become a viable and sustainable whole. Due to this design pattern any component of the whole requires both elements and their balance is a matter of relative dominance and priority which can be likened to the male-female biological duality, which is naturally integrated in a masculine or feminine appearance. It is the true structural cultural DNA of man. It is the metacultural cosmological DNA, whereby we use DNA as a metaphor. The individual and social organism needs the integrity of the cultural information which is biological, spiritual and cosmological. Therefore, hemispheres, cultures and individuals that privilege one component of the interdependent whole over the other need to seek the other pole to become whole, viable entities. For this reason, in the present era of the dawn of the cultural and cultural intelligence - of cultural awakening - cultures in which the major world religions originated and which have therefore privileged the inner technology seek to also integrate outer technology and, conversely, cultures in which the industrial, technological civilization originated also seek to integrate inner technology. An asymmetry between the two poles jeopardizes the vertical - horizontal, left - right, inner - outer structural wholeness and existence of man.

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• Veranstaltung: Interkulturelles Management
• Autor: D.E.A./UNIV. PARIS I Gebhard Deissler (Autor:in)
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2010
• Seiten: 7
• Katalognummer: V159865
• ISBN (eBook): 9783640794461
• Sprache: Englisch
• Schlagworte: global diversity management, transcultural management, cosmology