Culture's Role in Progress

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

1. One may dispute a very well-liked view of development. It is a view that fixes the idea of development on the putting up of structures. This view tends to disregard the natural connection that the structures have to have with the progress of the people; that is, structures may be of little use unless they, in general, complement progress of the people. The structures may show progress of a few people. This also means the structures are of little use. The view in question sees, above all, development not necessarily as something guided by the hand of culture. People do things anyway and care less about the role culture has to play - or has been playing - in their doings; so progress can go on as usual; the signposts of culture could stay unheeded. There is a problem with this kind of development. Since culture is the unique way of life of a people carved principally from their natural surroundings, development may lack the natural vitality if culture is forsaken. Problems get compounded when the people seek comfort, admiration, the means to progress from others' culture(s). Here, one can see the connection between the people and their natural surroundings to be that of a rejection initiated by the people themselves. But, then, this is also a key to the unnatural growth of the people's intelligence even though intelligence could advance at a fast pace to stimulate development, especially in the domain of technology and, for sure, structures. The sin, however, is that way of life fails to conform to the progress of culture; that naturalness of culture is just not there; it is stifled!

2. One has to be reminded that there could be inadequacies in the natural surroundings to support a growing population. This will require shared views, thoughts, experiences with other cultures to encourage mutual progress. The problem arises when the sharing is not seen as essential and is, thereby, set aside for one culture to decide the direction of progress of another culture or cultures. This could begin an unfaltering rise in the barrenness of culture. And too often barrenness is not equated with the culture but merely with development. People are tempted to say: “Your culture is not going through the necessary progress. You require the service of developed cultures!” What this means is that the missing progress is the result of errors in the doing of some standard things unrelated, for the most part, to culture but typical of a customary human cleverness. Once this form of thinking gets wholly accepted, it is taken as a given that progress is a universal thing that need not be connected to the boundaries of particular natural environments; and this contention also means progress can reject culture and still keep its tempo.

3. When one begins to question the thesis of developed and developing cultures, one encounters a difficulty that, perhaps, has gone unrecognized or disregarded. Now, suppose you say that a culture is developed - meaning also that the right progress is going on - one has to look over the means used to arrive at the development. The means may have been that of the use of wrong morals; that is to say, the means that brought about the present development must have been morally wrong. The human character might have worked in an illogical way. Dishonesty could be common; the logic of life then gets distorted by a host of human doings that draw inspiration from wrinkles, gimmicks, deception, aggression, machismo, and related practices in order to keep up progress. One can be sure that the future inclination of this kind of culture is not praiseworthy. Progress of this nature is simply on shaky ground. One has to keep asking: what are the ingredients of the culture and the progress thence? The response is that one has to go back, again and again, to the question of the natural surroundings. Are the said ingredients natural springs of the natural surroundings or species of them? The practice of forcing culture to follow a path that is not, in any case, consistent with the ingredients of the natural surroundings brings sin to bear on the way of life of the people. We are generally in favour of a developed culture that abides by the rules of moral correctness and of the logic of life, which is of the form: “do these to others because you like to do them to yourself!” Here, one's selfishness in doing these to one's self shows entirely in the way one does things to others as if a moral equivalence is in place. We may call this unselfish selfishness.

4. We are fond of saying that this is the way of life of the people, that this way of life has shaped the people's style of progress. But if the way of life of the people is all there is to culture, then it is silly to say that progress can be neutral of culture and that, therefore, culture need not always underlie - or be wedded to - progress. Much of the problems of the modern concept and practice of globalization come from the mistaken notion that development could, anyway, go on notwithstanding the sidelining of culture. Globalization is supposed to bring different cultures closer to one another with the hope of freeing them from misunderstandings and the weaknesses of trade, business. Cultures, thereby, see each other in two basic lights: developed and developing cultures. If instead of equitable interactions, the idea of developed and developing cultures is made to decide how trade is to go on, one is bound to see equity supplanted by the gut-feeling of superiority from those who claim - or are said - to be superior precisely because they are developed. And this feeling of superiority generates its opposite feeling - the feeling of inferiority - or a complex variation of it from the side of developing cultures. The problem goes further than this. If I am developed and you are developing, I'm prone to believing that I have more of the traits of smartness and sophistication than you do. This kind of thinking is flawed, logically; but it also fails to grasp the concept of smartness and, so one may say, sophistication.

5. The inadequacy of the concept of smartness shows up when smartness excludes or fails to incorporate the appropriate role of the human fibre in the execution of smartness. Thus, a man is claimed to be adept in communicating with all sorts of people, organizing them effectively, winning their interests, proving to be masterful in human relations, doing what is naturally judged to be morally right and capable of sowing the seeds that generate the right choices by people for promoting the desirable development in the culture. He also understands that the natural environment is our greatest natural friend and strives to live with it, in it, for it, by it, in as cordial and peaceful a manner as possible. We ought to integrate these valuable skills into the overall conception of smartness; for such skills, moreover, moderate human excesses and tend to encourage social planning, which is vital for purging wastes and observing prudence in the procedures of progress.

6. In general, one will prefer prudence to an overambitious way of life - granted one is being honest to one's self. It may be held that the latter can lead to awkwardness in culture if it so happens that despite the available soaring creativity wastes is widespread and takes its toll on the environment and the people. This problem could come about from the misuse of technology. For sure, technology eases the production process; it brings special comfort to life; it surrounds us with all sorts of amazing gadgets, machines. Technology reduces the time expended by humans on the production process. It demonstrates the progressive sophistication of the human mind and its creative ability. Technolgy shows that a culture can withstand the pressures of inadequate natural resources by exploring human ingenuity to as great a height as possible to enable the flourishing of production. But this human marvel hits the wall whenever instead of enhancing moral decorum, it promotes the contrary; whenever instead of elevating social cohesion it brings about social disintegration; whenever - and this is very important - instead of enhancing economic equity it accentuates economic classes and brings business to the level of moral and social ridicule.

7. The question of smartness can, perhaps, be resolved conclusively if we pay much more attention to the advancement of science and technology and its integration with the original traits of culture that says: “let the moral conscience inspire the logic of life and foster the spirit of progress!” Here, science, techonology and culture advance but within the framework of the natural character of we humans. We are barred from obstructing other cultures from progressing the natural way - and according to the natural character, which is spurred, in general, by the natural environment.

8. Imagine some men from a developed culture who go to a developing culture with the sole purpose of achieving trade deals. Their intuitions are those of people who think winning over their counterparts without giving room for any equitable compromises is the natural thing; they think they have the power, the advantage of “knowledge” and smartness, the spirit of pre-eminence to back them. As the business talk resumes, one can see their winning spirit directing the procedure. The talk ends, and they achieve their hearts' desire: an overwhelming trade benefit at the expense of the developing culture. Whereas the developing culture loses heavily, the developed culture gains a great deal. The developing culture cannot do otherwise; its economic weakness obstructs it from undertaking a tough stance in the talking terms; so the developing culture reaches a point at which it gives in to the influx of all sorts of items from the developed culture helping to buttress the latter's economy, its general strength. The natural drift of the progress of the developing culture gets stalled. When the developing culture gives in to the unwarranted, crushing requests of the developed culture in terms of trade (of business), the internal mechanism of its natural environment is distorted; culture ceases to show its natural character, and progress proceeds in a messy fashion. Much of the forced migration of people from developing cultures arises from such anomalies.

9. We want to say that respect for all sorts of cultures is crucial for promoting culture-determined progress; so, think of any kind of human ingenuity in any domain, and it ought to be relative to culture. There is no superior culture, nor is there an inferior culture. All cultures stand at the same level as far as they grant satisfaction, the hoped progress to the people in relation to a cohesive natural environment. But, then, natural environments are not the same, so cultures are also supposed not to be the same. The idea of lording one culture over another arises from vulgar ignorance and dangerous arrogance, which is a clear sin and should be avoided. At best, cultures should learn from one another and seek help from one another granted there are some perceived deficiencies in resources essential for progress.