The Culture of the Area to Be Ruled - Essay Example

Culture: Culture is not just norms, values, belief, things and ways of being but how such things, values and ways of being are interpreted and brought to conscious awareness through routing communication and social practice. Culture is both a source and resource (noun). "Culture is based on blood and belief, faith and family" Samuel P Hutington. Colonialism: A country if governed and controlled by the foreign country it is known as colonialism. The country affairs are regulated over the territory. In history, there were many great colonies formed like for example England had its colonies made in India for the longest time period which is from 1776 to 1947. Colonialism has few advantages like it is an expansion of religion, culture and expansion of country. While disadvantage is law enforcement, may result in unrest. Orientalism: The term Orientalism appeared in 19th century, it is the study which colonial powers do, so that they fully understand the culture of the area to be ruled, in order to have full knowledge of their lifestyle and language to have full control. Orientalism is the scholarly perception of Asians in West. The orient became a western concept, Orientalism a tool to control and manipulate. For example, when British ruled India they never let Hindus and Muslim come closer to each other because they always had religious differences, while British used the policy of divide and rule. How culture changes: No culture of the world has the power of remain same; every culture is prone to changes. Some people in a culture may remain use the traditional way of living but not everybody in culture has this strong control. So when culture inherently allows changes, the elements of culture keep changing slowly or in result to correspond to pre-industrial societies. Next, change can take place even if some important cultural elements still evolve slowly. Generally speaking, societies in transition to industrialization, colonialism or imperialism have this type of cultures. So this kind of cultures has allowed notable changes during the last 25 years. They correspond to confirmed industrial societies and, mainly, the post-industrial ones. For example, in subcontinent the Hindus and Muslims have lived together for so many years, so now they have so much in common like language, fashion, politics and studies. Indian Cinema: India has one of the largest cinemas in the world with the production of almost 1200 movies per year. Largest regional cinemas are Bollywood, Bengali Cinema and Tamil cinema while small cinemas include Kannada cinema, Malayalam cinema, Marathi cinema and Telugu cinema. Indian cinema makes movie on serious content, realism and naturalism. Indian Cinema has also made its name popular world wide in parallel cinema. Bollywood and Hollywood: Bollywood: Bollywood is the name given to the Indian film industry, just like Hollywood but the B of Bollywood comes from Bombay, a big city in India. Bollywood claims to be the largest of the world with the production of 800 movies a year. The typical Bollywood movie is about the boy who falls in love with a girl and then there is a villain plus a comedy sidekick. The film also includes a lot of colors with all the songs and dances with a lot of costumes. Hollywood: Hollywood is the film industry of the United States of America in Los Angeles. It started with a silent movie in the year 1830. Hollywood is the most popular cinema of the world. There are four main periods of Hollywood, silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood and contemporary period (after 1980). Critique of cultural purity (authenticity): Cultural purity is one of the oldest concept in which that Humanists used to believe one day the Roman Empire will rise again for the restoration of classic cultural purity, and so by the late 14th and early 15th century, humanists likeLeonardo Bruni believed they had attained this new age, and that a third,Modern Agehad begun. So the cultural purity is now a concept which is now considered a myth now as it is impossible to achieve. Various meanings of Culture: Following are different meanings of culture1: Topical: Culture consists of everything on a list of topics, or categories, such as social organization, religion, or economy Historical: Culture is social heritage, or tradition, that is passed on to future generations Behavioral: Culture is shared, learned human behavior, a way of life Normative: Culture is ideals, values, or rules for living Functional: Culture is the way humans solve problems of adapting to the environment or living together Mental: Culture is a complex of ideas, or learned habits, that inhibit impulses and distinguish people from animals Structural: Culture consists of patterned and interrelated ideas, symbols, or behaviors Symbolic: Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned meanings that are shared by a society Culture diffusion: Cultural diffusion is the process by which two cultures starts to share some of the traits with each other. In other word the diffusion of knowledge, language, religion, skills, and technology when spread from one culture to another is called diffusion. The best example of cultural diffusion is something which is done by media which may even result in the drastic change in the social structure of cultural system. Globalization also shows diffusions of cultures around the world. Culture Hybridity: It can be a person who represents the blending of traits from diverse cultures or traditions, or even more broadly it can be a culture, or element of culture, derived from unlike sources; that is, something heterogeneous in origin or composition. While some pejorative connotations still cling to the word 'hybrid', as can be seen in such descriptive terms as half-breed, half-caste, mutt, mongrel, and so on, the concept is here considered in just the opposite light. Cultural Relativism: Cultural relativism is the view that all beliefs, customs, and ethics are relative to the individual within his own social context. In other words, "right" and "wrong" are culture-specific; what is considered moral in one society may be considered immoral in another, and, since no universal standard of morality exists, no one has the right to judge another society's customs. Like in Saudi Arabia, women can only go out with her husband, brother, father or son, so a women which is seen alone in the market will be considered bad according to cultural defined limits. Invention of Tradition The Invention of Traditionis book written by Eric J Hobsbawm & Terence O Ranger in 1992. The book is a collection of articles on the construction of symbolic and ceremonial traditions over the last couple of centuries, particularly by the British. Most of the included pieces are around fifty pages long, allowing for quite expansive treatment of their subject. They are all of high quality andThe Invention of Traditionis an important collection of work, which will interest both historians and those interested in the history of ideas. Later from moving away from Britain itself he also wrote to British imperialism and colonialism. Culture Imperialism: It is a theory which is presented by Herb Schiller in 1973 and it states: "Cultural Imperialism Theory states that Western nations dominate the media around the world which in return has a powerful effect on Third World Cultures by imposing n them Western views and therefore destroying their native cultures." The western media is very popular in Asia; they control the media and show whatever they want people to think about. Like in news if they don't want to highlight the American attack on Iraq they will start giving emphasis on different news. Read More