Quote from John Freeman on September 1, 2022, 9:46 pm

Hello everyone,

First, I'm grateful to Kavalier for inspiring me this thread. In this thread, we talked about generalization. In my case it was around culture even if I did not put more details as the thread was to talk about the power move itself.

I want to start a conversation with you around culture.

First, let's start with a definition from Wikipedia.

Culture (/ˈkʌltʃər/) is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.[1] Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location.

Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies.

A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change.[2] Thus in military culture, valor is counted a typical behavior for an individual and duty, honor, and loyalty to the social group are counted as virtues or functional responses in the continuum of conflict. In the practice of religion, analogous attributes can be identified in a social group.

My view on Culture

I simplify culture as a behavioural program within the context of the definition above.

So when I talk about "Norwegians" for instance, I think and mean: the people who follow the prescribed norms, behaviours, way of thinking and traditions within Norwegian society. Of course some people will tell me: not all Norwegian are the same from region to region, from city to city, from family to family, from individual to individual. And it's true. However, that is not my point.

I'll give an example from today:

I was with Georgian patients. And many Georgians (so do Erythreans BTW) have a necklace with a cross around their necks (this one had also a medal of Gabriel). In my case it's relevant because it was a baby and babies can strangle themselves with it.

I respect their tradition and culture and always start by stating that I do respect their tradition and culture.

This time instead to tell them simply that medically we don't recommend any necklace to babies (superficial), I asked them why they were doing this.

They were still quite confident when they said that it's their tradition. So I asked them: what purpose does it serve? The answer was that as soon as someone is baptised they receive such a necklace. I said: "Yes, but in Switzerland there are many christians and they don't put a necklace around babies' neck." So I asked again because I was still not understanding: "Alright, but what purpose does it serve?"

I was expecting to hear: "As a protection" or "So you can go to heaven" or "So we can be part of the christian community" or "we find it pretty" or "it's to show that our son has been baptised"

But at this point they were puzzled and said again: "it's our tradition" (circling back).

So I did not have anything to put in relation with what I was saying next. So I said my speech: "It's very pretty (I meant it). What we recommend is to avoid putting necklaces to babies as they can strangle themselves with it. It's my job and my responsibility to tell you that." and moved on to something else.

So it was still two opposing frames, I could not get to reconciliate both sides: tradition and science. I don't mind, however this was my goal: to meet them.

This story illustrate in a a way (there are many other aspects of culture) what culture is. In this case (and I'm accepting of them of course), it was that they had a learned behaviour (putting a cross around a baby's neck) which was a norm: "That's what we do" ("we" being group X).

Even sometimes people have a justification: "we don't eat pork because God has forbidden it." If you ask why God has forbidden it, some people will answer: "Because it's an animal full of disease". That means: "so my behaviour rooted in religion is actually rational". However, in this day and age, many many people eat pork and don't get sick because there are hygiene norms in the breeding and butchering of porks.

Once again, I'm not looking down on anyone. I love culture. However, to me this is how one aspect of it looks like. The part that is the behavioural program.

I'll give a last example. All of this thinking started with poorly educated and closed minded Albanian mothers (the category I was generalising about in my conversation with my colleagues).

We have a big problem with this category of people because there is a ton of obesity in this community. I see obese babies and children on a daily basis. The youngest I saw so far is a 18 months obese baby. If you see the weight, you would be scared.

Why do these women overfeed their babies? Now I know because they told me. In their culture it's good to have a fat baby, it means he's healthy (whereas now we know it's the opposite, obesity is a serious health risk and issue).

So I told her that now I understand her better. I told her that in the past, there was little food so people were valuing this a lot. But now there is plenty of high calorie food. So if we do that, we will have health issue. So it shows the side of culture that is tradition: we do now (in a different context) as we did then.

Mentality and culture are mental and behavioural patterns that are transmitted within a specific group.

I'm happy to hear if you guys want to share your view on Culture or disagree with mine.