Analysis of the Advantages and Disadvantages of Modern Western Culture - Essay Example

? Contemporary Western Culture as a Culture of Narcissism Contemporary Western Culture as a Culture of Narcissism Introduction The concept of contemporary western culture as a culture of Narcissism is used to describe the conflict between various psychoanalysis culture and society with reference to the West. Many thinkers, who have discussed the concept, have seen the Western culture as a large and indivisible institution devoid of internal fault lines or contradictions. It is well known that many western thinkers treat their culture as if it is the ultimate development of human species in contrast to treating every other as a lower level of culture. First of all, before any discussion on contemporary western culture as a culture of narcissism, it is important to understand the most important features of western culture. A large number of universities used to have courses on western civilization. I am going to discuss contemporary Western culture as a culture of narcissism from three distinctive points: (1) The Religious (Christian) point of view (2) The materialism and individualism point of view (3) The health (mental) point of view Many have seen Western culture as a fusion of all these three points of view; others have stressed on the correlation and influence among them, the tussle between the Christian religion, materialism and individualism being very consequential and having a major impact on a person’s psychological health. These views of western culture do not portray an outsider’s point of view. This is the western thinkers point of view highly biased by their notions of how they would like to be perceived. Religion (Christianity) The satire is that a culture that lay emphasis on bliss and selfishness to such a high level confesses Christianity – which is a religion founded on grief and distress of Jesus Christ. A feasible explanation for this satire is that Christianity, on the basis of how it has evolved, has got much to do with Church and little to do with Jesus. In order to comprehend the function of Christianity in Western mindset, we can observe the evolution of the concept of Christianity as a well structured religion. Christianity begun in Jerusalem, located in present-day Israel. Thus, we can say that Christianity is an Asian ideology which came to Europe about two centuries after its conception. Jesus was a Jew, who rebelled against the ruling elite of his time, preaching a system of religious practices which upset the people in positions of power. He was tortured and crucified by the ruling elite, but he did not strike back or even recommend his followers to retaliate. If this figure known as Jesus had cooperated with his persecutors, he could have lived a life of luxury. The story of Jesus Christ was not put into writing for a long time after his ascension to heaven, since his followers had faith that he would come back, and only about a century later that the New Testament was written. During the first two to three centuries, followers of Jesus Christ used to congregate and sing hymns; the Church was in its embryonic form, thus had no powers (Almaas, 2001). It was Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in 312 AD that was the paradigm shift in the history of the Church. Prior to the spread of Christianity, each country in Europe had its own individualized religious traditions. The Roman Empire was pagan (Mithraism) although a few Jews and Christians lived in Rome. Emperor Constantine's conversion came at a point when Roman civilization was failing. The period after the fall of Roman civilization culminated into the surfacing of various tribes as the new invaders. These tribes had experienced a life of luxury. Now, they sought after the same luxuries the Roman select few had taken pleasure in. This hunt of wealth by various tribes took the form of bloodshed in the western world which lasted more than a thousand years. The triumphant Kings would encounter stiff resistance from native religions. This was the point that Christianity became useful. The church was readily willing to supply the spiritual backup, considered necessary by triumphant kings, in return for wealth and new followers. The king benefited since the destruction of native religions made certain that he could rule without a fear of revolt (Campbell, Miller, & Buffardi, 2010). Native religions brought with them power structures deeply engrained in the psyche of the people. According to Freud, religious concept is an effort to have power over the oedipal complex, that religion is an avenue of giving arrangement to social groups, wish fulfillment, an puerile delusion, and an attempt to have power over the outside world. From around fourteenth century, we see the Western cultures undergoing a age when each set of ruling elites wanted to annex as much power and wealth as achievable by use of war or consensus. The people at the helm of Western culture had no concern for their own people. They used religion as the psychological soil for amassing wealth and power from gullible minds. The native disorganized religions were perceived by the western cultures as inferior, and were systematically destroyed by the west in order to make sure that people had no belief system. Alternative belief systems could threaten the ‘superior’ establishment of the western cultures. Christianity is the perfect handmaid for western cultures despotic heads even during this period. The Church provided what Karl Marx referred to as "opium for the masses". The Church which originates from the western culture is seen to conduct charity programmes, ran schools and hospitals, and in a broad-spectrum provides the psychological illusion of healing to populations ill-treated by the oppressive powers of the western culture. In the process, the Church is seen to dictate the thoughts of the people making them weak and compliant, ensuring that they had no spirit to rise up in rebellion against oppression and exploitation by the western cultures. The way the western cultures have blended the Church into a supporting institution for maintaining power is interesting. The whole concept of Christianity is much more than what is written in Bible. It is rather a well devised tool by the heads of the western cultures to have psychological strangle hold over the masses, thus being able to dictate their lives. As Lynch would say, ‘take the mind and leave the body’. Jesus lived a simple and frugal life. He never acquired any riches or property as is the case with the current Christianity, which has been transformed into the western culture system. The present day Church heavily indoctrinated by the western cultures is seen to preach the intrinsic worth of poverty to the naive masses, as it keeps increasing its wealth and riches. For example, in history, we see that Pope and Cardinals by the end of first millennium lived in palaces enviable to some Kings. The western cultures have indoctrinated a person through Churches which is a centre of power. In Africa and Asia, it is the Church which helped foster western cultures through the colonialists. The colonialists, in association with the Church, enforced their cultures and destroyed indigenous cultures making local people weak and pliant. Wherever native cultures were too firmly established, the enforcers of western cultures (colonialists) found life difficult. This is the reason why there was independence movement in countries that did not yield to western culture. For example, in India, a leader like Mahatma Gandhi inculcated the local culture to bring an uprising against the western culture. Church is the avenue through which the western cultures erode the Asian cultures and African cultures (Carrette & King, 2005). The church had been leading the campaign of fostering western cultures for centuries. Persecution and killings were what befell the people who were highly active in campaigning and holding on to their native cultures. The power of Church in enforcing western culture has considerably reduced. Other churches based on the native cultures are being established and are thriving. We can also look at a number of Christian festivals which foster western cultures like Christmas day and Easter. Other festivals though not Christian, are being celebrated across the world and based on western cultures. These are Valentine Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Thanksgiving Day just to mention a few (Dixon, 2011). Christianity has changed into a religion of power, of controlling minds and lives, indoctrinating people to the western culture in order to maintain the establishment. Western thinkers like Voltaire, Nietzsche and Marx among others led a confrontation against religion, but they were aiming only the institutionalized form of Christian religion which is represented by the Church. A present western culture (Europe and USA) includes a mix of various currents. Though losing its power in indoctrinating western culture, Christianity is still making great steps in indoctrinating people into western cultures. Materialism and individualism The psychological and sociological literatures propose strong effects of Western culture on psychological well-being. In consideration of materialism, meaning attaching priority to monetary incentives and possessions, it supports these consumption-based economies of the western cultures. A large number of psychological studies have shown that materialism is associated with dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety and other negative factors and not with happiness as is popularly believed. People highly indoctrinated by the western culture illusion evident by their pursue of ‘extrinsic goals’ such as fame, fortune, and glamour as a priority in life, go through a lot of anxiety, depression and diminished overall well-being than people who are oriented towards ‘intrinsic goals’ of close relationships, self-knowledge and personal growth, thus positively contributing to the community (Fellows, 2008). The western culture has bred people with extrinsic goals who in the long run tend to have shorter relationships, since their relationships are characterized mainly by jealousy and luck of trust and care. As the western culture influence of materialism reaches more past the acquisition of materials to the development of an individual, the aim of marketing ends up not only to make us unsatisfied with what we have, but also with whom we are as people. This western culture pertaining acquisition ever seeks more ways and means to colonize our consciousness; the market fosters and exploits the engrained restless, insatiable expectation that there must be more to life. To sum it all, the western culture drives people to be more materialistic, thus the poorer our quality of life. Individualism, which is highly advocated in western cultures means placing oneself at the centre of all things disregarding all other aspects of life. Individualism as per western culture not only diminishes social connectedness and support, but also personal control. Lack of control over one’s life, which is part and parcel of western culture, is part of a defensive strategy to preserve self-esteem. Modern individuals require high self-esteem. One way to maintain that high self-esteem for those highly indoctrinated by the western culture is to believe that the things that threaten it are not within one’s control. It has been proposed that Western culture in respect to individualism confuses autonomy (the capability to act according to our internalized values and beliefs) without being reliant on or influenced by others. Western cultures are seen to make a person hold collectivist values, and not behaving independently, when acting in the interests of the group. The misunderstanding regarding autonomy with independence as is portrayed by western cultures encourages an illusion by individuals that they are detached from others and the environment in which they live and indoctrinated to think by the western culture, thus a higher probability that the personal pressure and social forces acting on us are perceived as external and foreign. The creation of a ‘separate self’ is a key dynamic in modern life, which is predominantly based on western culture. In other words, the result of western culture is not only amplified objective seclusion, but also more subjective loneliness regardless of being in a company or within relationships. An important channel by which western culture affects well-being is due to the influence on values (Ferrer, 2002). Most societies are starting to reinforce values that insist on social commitments and willpower, and discourage those that promote mannerisms that are brought about by Western cultures such as self-indulgence and anti-social behavior. Modern Western culture undermines, to the extent of reversing, universal values and time-tested wisdom. The outcome is not mainly a failure of personal morality, but a loss of moral clarity: a high level of moral ambivalence and vagueness, a dissonance between our apparent values and lifestyles, and intensified distrust about social institutions. When one blindly follows western cultural reinforcement, they will find it harder to do what is believed to be good, since it will take more exertion. Thus, it can be said that western cultures can make one behavior to be adept in justifying or rationalizing bad behavior. However, there are positive results in the process: anti-social values wear off personal and social bond, which in turn, lower the grasp of a moral code on individuals, since these ties give the code its leverage; they are a basis of moral fiber (Freud, 2011). Western culture influence on social perspectives and population health should also put into consideration personality, since new research is showing that our personalities as a result of being exposed to western cultures are in turn shifting in aspects that are likely to have a big influence on the psychosocial lanes between social conditions and health. For example, in a number of studies depicted on psychological tests curried out with American children and college students over a period of 60 years, found major changes in results on a scope of character traits and other psychological persona. These findings show that broad social trends are very important, and impact on personality development. It was also found that increases in trait anxiety, self-esteem, extraversion and in women assertiveness, was as a result of direct influence of the western culture whilst at the same moment, a sense of power and control over life had gone down, meaning that the locus of control had become more external (Fuller, 2001). To demonstrate the extent of these shifts triggered by the western culture, is a study curried out on an average British child in the 1980s, which gives an account of more anxiety than child psychiatric patients in the 1950s, whilst the typical college student in 2002 felt they had little control over their lives than 80–90% of college students in 1962. Incorporating a range of indicators for the anxiety study, which included divorce rate, birth rate, women’s age at first pregnancy, proportion of people living alone, crime rate and youth suicide rate, most of these trends are linked to the influence of the western culture, which tends to induce the rise of individualism and freedom through failing social cohesion and increasing environmental menace (Lacan, 2012). However, economic aspects like unemployment and poverty seem not to be drawn in with respect to the negatives, but trait anxiety has been connected with depression, suicide attempts, alcohol and drug abuse, and poorer physical health; while an external point of control is related with lower well-being, depression, anxiety, poor school achievement, hopelessness, poor stress management and low self-control. The correlations of anxiety and not having control over depression for example, can be greater than those between depression and harsh life experiences like parental divorce, relationship break-ups, unemployment, domestic violence and economic hardship (N/B being observed here are the factors that arise from western cultures). In regards to the positives, the benefits of high self-esteem to the well-being of individuals include that it seems to foster in some aspects in these western culture, which are now being questioned as they might have costly repercussion, which includes aggression and risk-taking. This may also work against personal control as previously stated. While extraversion is related with higher well-being, its blend with the other personality variations may lead to a more contingent self-esteem, which necessitates persistent external rationale or assertion in order to be sustained. This progress is consistent with an extrinsic aim point of reference, which is coupled with diminished well-being as noted above (Parker, 2012). Many of the connections between culture and well-being are co relational, and as earlier mentioned, they do not provide evidence that materialism, for example, causes a decline in well-being; it could also be applicable the other way, with less happy or unhappy people being drawn to materialistic quests as a form of diversion. However, the relations do propose that the western culture promotion of materialism and individualism is not conducive to the overall well-being. These causal relationships are likely to be complicated and reciprocal, and also to engage relations with other more precise stimulus, which includes genetic and socioeconomic factors (Valadez & Clignet, 1987). Western Culture’s impacts on health The western Culture’s impacts are most vividly observed in the study of psychological well-being, shown in the above discussion. Given this, it is important to note the individual and collective costs of mental sickness. Depression is the leading source of disability in the world. Major depression is estimated to go up from fourth in 1990 to second in 2020, according to the global ranking of the affliction of disease measured in terms of disability and death. In western countries and countries greatly influenced by western culture (main focus being financially sound countries), depression and other neuropsychiatric conditions account for much of the disease burden than both heart disease and cancer. Rates of suicide, which is referred to as the mortality of depression, are in the 10th position in rank on leading causes of death in these westernized countries (Vos, 2010). The rate at which we are falling short of making the most of the human well-being, regardless of the falling mortality and escalating life expectancy and material wealth, has been verified in a broad study of individuals in western countries aged 25–74, which look at mental health not just as the nonexistence of mental illness, but as ‘a pattern of symptoms of upbeat feelings and upbeat functioning in life’. The study discovered that 26% of people were either suffering, depressed or both, which is to mean that they are mentally unhealthy; 57% were more or less mentally healthy, that is to mean that they were neither mentally ill nor fully mentally sound or healthy; and only 17% of people were flourishing, that is to say that they enjoyed good mental health. When it comes to physical ill-health regarding heart disease and cancer, cultural influences are likely to be difficult to unravel from the many other societal and individual factors involved, as we have already come to know with other far determinants such as inequality in income. These factors involve health care: in making an effort to gauge the health outcomes of social and cultural determinants pertaining to these western countries, we should have in consideration the increasing role of biomedical advances, which even though they are lengthening life while doing so, they could be covering up the health outcomes of the changes in the social conditions in which we live in. On the other hand, the collective evidence involving culture, by means of psychosocial lane to psychological well-being through behavioral and physiological lane, to physical health, is persuasive. Health authorities nowadays acknowledge that there is firm and reliable evidence for a causal connection between depression, social isolation and deficiency of social sustenance, and heart disease; and that the increased dangers caused by these aspects are of a comparable order to that of more predictable danger factors like smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Mortality amongst people who are socially secluded is three to six times higher than for those with firm ties to family, friends and community. These western cultural aspects, mainly materialism or consumerism, are also concerned with harmful social trends such as increasing obesity and inactivity, which in turn, are associated with a wide scope of physical health problems, which include heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The weight of the subjective of insight, expectations and emotions in impacting health more generally is highlighted in a study which was reported in a psychological but not health literature, discovered that older people with greater encouraging self-outlook regarding ageing lived an average 7.5 years more as opposed to those with minimal positive or negative attitudes. This advantage stayed even after several factors like age, gender, socioeconomic status, loneliness and functional health were taken into account. The study states that this effect on longevity is larger than the endurance rewards related with other studies comprising low blood pressure and cholesterol, not smoking, not being overweight and indulging in physical fitness. The study singles out one likely cause of meager self-perceptions of ageing, predominantly in western cultures to be ‘publicly approved denigration of the aged’. This is a cultural characteristic of modern Western societies with their adoration of youthfulness, which is a trait endorsed by materialism and individualism. A majority of the facts cited above have to do with personal -level health impacts of psychosocial and attitudinal aspects that culture induces. Many of the current studies have also established population or ecological outcomes attributable to culture. A cross-country study of crime discovered that acceptance for a set of ‘materially self-interested’ attitudes like keeping something you have found, insincere in your own concern, or dishonest at tax was greater in men, younger people and bigger cities, and had gone up over time, emulating patterns of criminal offending. These values were also associated with national crime persecution rates, more solidly so than were collective trust and inequity. The relationships between inequality and social trust regarding crime were conditional on the common values of society; thus inequality per se was merely moderately related with increased crime, but when it happens in societies characterized by high levels of self-interested values such as the western cultures, its effects became more obvious. In another analysis, it was found that there is a strong and positive association between national youth suicide rates, mainly among men, and several diverse national indicators of individualism, like the measure of youth’s perception of freedom of choice and control over their lives, but not among suicide and socioeconomic factors like per capita income, poverty, youth unemployment, inequality and divorce. Study of the connection between suicide and deprivation, and social fragmentation in western countries; found that suicide was more strongly related with division than with poverty. These discoveries are consistent with the suppositions of key international reviews in 1995 of the demonstration on trends in psychosocial troubles like depression, drug abuse, suicidal behavior and felony among young people in Western cultured nations. Conclusion The conclusion is that the western culture is a disadvantage to other cultures, since it breeds inequality and is responsible for the escalation of psychosocial disorders. Amongst its recommendations, my assessment advocated for additional investigation into various aspects, and shifts in moral concepts and values pertaining to western culture, which is among the causes in particular, spearheading individualistic values, the increasing stress on self-realization and fulfillment, and the consequent increase in expectations. This discussion has noted that far more negative attributes could be made of the western culture as a culture of narcissism. References Almaas, A. H., 2001. The Point of Existence: Transformations of Narcissism in Self Realization. Boston & London: Shambhala. Campbell, W. K., Miller, J. D., & Buffardi, L. E., 2010. The United States and the “Culture of Narcissism”: An Examination of Perceptions of National Character. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1 (3), pp. 222-229. Carrette, J., & King, R., 2005. Selling Spirituality. London & New York: Routledge. Dixon, V. K., 2011. Western Feminism in a Global Perspective. Available from http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/395/western-feminism-in-a-global-perspective. Fellows, A., 2008. Culture of Narcissism. L'Abri Fellowship, pp. 2-8. Ferrer, J., 2002. Revisioning Transpersonal Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press. Freud, S., 2011. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: Broadview Press. Fuller, R. C., 2001. Spiritual, but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. New York: Oxford University Press. Lacan, J., 2012. Ecrits: A Selection. London: Routledge. Parker, S., 2012. More from the Culture of Narcissism. Townhall Magazine. Available from http://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2011/10/10/more_from_the_culture_of_n arcissism/page/full/ Valadez, J., & Clignet, R., 1987. On The Ambiguities of a Sociological Analysis of the Culture of Narcissism. The Sociological Quarterly, 28 (4), pp. 455–472. Vos, J., 2010. Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism: The Failure of a Critique of Psychological Politics. Theory Psychology, 20 (4), pp. 528-548. Read More