Learning and Culture

     After this week's readings, I feel that I learned a lot of terminology surrounding the vague entity of culture.  What struck me in particular were the sociological issues highlighted in Kumar's Chapter.

    I felt he did a great job describing individualism/collectivism and otherization, but it was the section on Orientalism which truly helped clarify some of Kumar's explanations.  Kumar is describing individualism and collectivism as ways to define certain cultures. He said these terms are mainly used in sociology, but can often act as more of a continuum or as a representation rather than a realization of particular cultures.  I found this to be a little problematic since it somewhat labels cultures.  It says culture x tends to act this way, which certainly eliminates an individual element to culture.  Otherization built on this by showing how stereotypes build by looking at cultures in such generalizations.  This brought me to my favorite part of the readings:  Edward Said's Orientalism.

     Being a history major, I found myself drawn to this section because I have had to read Orientalism for several classes on Middle Eastern history.  I came across a fun fact when looking up the background of Orientalism :  Orientalism derives from the comparison of the Orient and the Occident.  The Orient means "the rise" in Latin, where as the Occident means "the fall." This tid-bit of knowledge is great in understanding the superior western view to eastern culture.  I found so much interest in Orientalism because it provides so much insight on the world today.  There is obviously so much political, sociological, and historical friction between the United States ( and much of the Western world, for that matter) and Southwest Asia, which can be linked to a misunderstanding of culture.  I will not get into specifics or strong political opinions, but I truly believe that U.S. Foreign Policy and American perceptions of the middle east have been built largely out of ignorance.

     After some outside reading of Robert J.C. Young's Postcolonialism, he provides some interesting insight and criticism of Orientalism.   As I read Said's work, I do believe that it is easy to view cultures too generally.  Young states, "The Occident is just as much of a construct as the Orient is.…the structure of Orientalism is nothing more than a structure of lies and myths, were the truth would be told, would simply blow them away.” Basically, I feel that it is the West's perceived superiority that is driving this discourse. It can be seen as contradicting to generalize one group at the cost of another.  This leads me to my final point.

     While this blog post may have a rather heavy analysis on the smaller portion of Said throughout the reading, I feel that a very important conclusion can be reached.  Cultural roots have been developed in each individual in some particular way.  They have unique experiences that shaped their well being.  While looking at whole cultures' responses and cultural contact zones may provide insight onto how societal misbalances of power happen, understanding each individual's cultural roots can help provide some cultural homeostasis. By understanding cultures through a non-essentialist lens at an individual level, maybe these understandings can be transferred to a societal level.