The Reformation Of The Human Character Through The Global Culture

By: Stephen Ainsah-Mensah

Except for the members of his nuclear and extended families, everybody else knows and calls him by his nickname, “Steel” This nickname was not earned by luck or chosen as a kind of imitation of a revered person. It was earned in relation to the diehard principles Steel stands for. He was brought up in a culture that was expertly sealed off from interaction with other cultures outside his society. Thanks to the eminent appreciation of technology, Steel’s society has shown an equally eminent technological progress. The products from this progress are well known, well liked, and prove the ingenuity of the inventors and producers. But the fallacy that has germinated the seed of alarming arrogance in Steel comes from his line of reasoning, which can be summarized in the form of one basic premise and its associated conclusion.

1. My society has proved its superiority to others in the form of technology and its products.
2. Therefore, the people in my society, including myself, are superior (and better) than others.

The conclusion - 2 - that is drawn from the premise -1 - does not merely lack perspicuity but is unsound. The conclusion, moreover, is a recipe for gross misbehaviour by a people who dwell on the concept of technological superiority as the basis for dominant thoughts and actions. The fact that Steel’s society enjoys perhaps incomparable technological progress does not necessarily mean its people are equally advanced in ways of doing things that exclude the technological index. A people’s advancement ought to show in their manner of speaking stripped of the arrogant dress. It is essential that their temper is softened by the spirit of patience. They need to supplant chilling pride with reasonable modesty. Their glad heart must be expressed in the cheerful enthusiasm with which they associate with and respect the cultural constructions of others without any traces of facial cringes. Above all, they must appreciate and learn from other cultures as the basis for exchanging and assimilating positive ideas, knowledge.

With these fine human qualities comes along the breaking of the walls of inequity, of prejudice. Even if the people in Steel’s society are advanced in many conceivable facets of life, that does not warrant the assertion by Steel or any other members of his society that in terms of the right choices to make for human progress, Steel and his kin have the incontestable right to do so. The analyzed condition of Steel is likely to reveal raging forces that tend to dislocate his emotional structure. This speaks volumes as to why he tends not to be calm, conciliatory, at every turn whenever the global cultural stage is full of participants who are keen on sharing culturally stimulated thoughts without resorting to any kind of comparative advantage. Participants choose – or have chosen – to be fair-minded, modest in disposition and justly forthcoming in teamwork. Steel does not fit into this category, for his irreducible snobbish temperament draws towards him far more isolation than he must have envisaged. But that is why in desperation, he is compelled to apply all the deceptions under his sleeve to win converts to his side. Yet it seems to me that this hardened stubbornness is the root of much of the human failings that translate into the looking down of one species of people by another.

I need to emphasize that human refinement is not just a matter of technology. We need the service of human respectability to generate a criterion for establishing objective standards regarding acts of understanding and cooperation among people from other cultures. It is the global cultural stage that offers the best test of one’s decorum in the doing of things. Over there, varied cultures abound. They may enrich the mental receptacle with varied cultural ideas that are so vital for cross-cultural synchronization. What Steel may bring to the global cultural stage is rather cultural dissent since, for him, no other cultures count more than his when the issue of appraising matters of great importance are at stake.. He is unable to shake off the framework of cultural insularity that retards his apprehension of global cultures. With this shortcoming follows the sin of discrimination and, in the extreme form, of hidden or explicit racism to bear on innocent folks. For if cultural insularity obstructs the victim’s range of apprehending the reality, the goodness of other cultures, then Steel and his kind are not genuine participants on the global cultural stage; they provoke tension, conflicts, discord, tricks with the hope of winning over vulnerable participants. Besides, ignorance, and, above all, risky arrogance haunts the personality of Steel.

We could eventually see the unqualified adoration of technology and its products fixed with a different kind of priority. The contributions of this branch of human ingenuity to progress, while great, have also, in large measure, unseated the rightful place of the human fibre to progress. When the said priority is reached, we likely will be inclined to say: “humanity has come to fully appreciate its rejected essence.”