Half-Filled Glasss View of Culture

Abstract

Imagine two people looking at the same half-filled glass. One says it is half full and other says it is half empty. Their views are their personal ideation in relation to the glass. They may even argue the point, each seeing the other as wrong. ‘Culture’ is the typical/shared ideation across a group. It follows, all culture can only be understood exactly as a person perceiving a half-filled glass. It is the ideation adopted by individuals within the group relative to the environment including the management of their social relations. Continuing the analogy, half-full or half-empty then become the defining characteristics of the ‘culture’. The problem then is if people developing within the culture are inculcated with the ideas derived from it when those ideas are no longer the best ideas in relation to managing a changing environment with the culture locking people in to doing things no longer to the best survival advantage. People die unnecessarily. Humanity stagnates. All subsequent discussion over culture is trivial and only of significance in relation to the accurate scientific understanding of it. The important factors are not ‘culture’ but the content of culture, namely the ideas adopted and applied by people in pursuit of their lives.