[Neurons] 2008 Meta Reflections #27

[meta]

L. Michael Hall

2008 Meta Reflections #26

June 16, 2008


THE CULTURES

TIME-BINDING CREATES




In March I wrote some Meta Reflections about time-binding and described time-binding as Korzybski's unique definition of human nature. If our very nature involves time-binding then this results in something else. Time-binding creates our cultures and civilizations. The bottom line of "culture" is that it cultivates our minds, emotions, speech, behaviors, and ways of relating in communities. As a human construct "culture" is entirely fallible and, to varying degrees, every culture either supports or undermines our full development and unleashing. Some cultures are very toxic and morbid while others are more life-affirming and nurturing. Do you know the quality of the cultures that you live in? Do you know how to change your cultures to make them more self-actualizing?

In Self-Actualization Psychology, the pioneering person in the area of culture was Ruth Benedict (1887- 1948). As she developed her models and theories about cultures and engaged in extensive hands-on research into numerous cultures, she became highly dissatisfied with the concept of cultural relativity that was popular among anthropologists of her day (the 1930s and 1940s) and with which her name has been closely associated.

Her creative breakthrough occurred as she was comparing different cultures in an attempt to create an explanatory model. Working with four pairs of cultures, she found four cultures wherein the people were surly and nasty and four where the people were nurturing and supportive to each other. At first she described the cultures as low-morale / high-morale. Then she described them as secure / insecure.

"The four good cultures -those she liked-were the Zuni, the Arapesh, the Dakota, and the Eskimo society. The nasty, surly ones were the Chuckchee, the Ojibwa, the Dobwo, and the Kwakiutl. ... She compared them on the basis of race, geography, climate, size, wealth, and complexity, but none of these criteria seemed to explain the differences." (The Third Force, p. 112)

In the book that she's most known for, Patterns of Culture, Ruth wrote, 

"A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action."

That's what she was looking for a pattern or set of patterns. How could she describe the patterning of cultures?

"Cultures are more than the sum of their traits." (Patterns of Culture, p. 46)

The explanatory model that she finally create as her model was that of Synergy- high synergy / low synergy. And her theoretical understanding arose by shifting from focusing on behavior, on what people did or did not do, to focusing on the function of behavior. In other words, she shifted her focus to meaning and intention (the semantic forces driving the behavior). By shifting to why people behaved as they did, rather than on how they behaved, she took her Synergy Model to a higher level. Synergy, referring to the design of behavior, distinguished cultures in terms of whether the activities of individuals led to advantages for others or not.

"The high synergy societies were those where people cooperated together for mutual advantage, not necessarily because they were unselfish, but because the customs of society made cooperation worthwhile." (The Third Force, p. 112)

Benedict used synergy to describe how any given culture is organized. Her focused inquiry now became:

C Does the welfare, wealth, and success of individuals contribute to the whole or does it take away from the whole?

C Does the wealth of those who become wealthier spread around or does it get segregated so that only the wealthy benefit?

The social arrangements in a high synergistic culture work is democratic and mutually enhancing. It is to our advantage to cooperate, to work together, to acknowledge and honor each other, to collaborate. As Maslow theorized about synergistic cultures he noted that they are societies where "virtue pays." If in a given society, virtue does not pay, cooperation and good-will will not be reinforced and it will not govern the customs of that society.

Maslow also noted the relationship between synergy and security. The more secure people, the more they will be synergistic. The more secure a society, the more synergistic that culture will be. And conversely, where people and societies are insecure and living at the lower basic need of safety and security, there will be more aggression, selfishness, greed, competitiveness, exploitation, manipulation, distrust, paranoia, etc.

Synergy at the individual level, at the relationship level of person to person, shows up as nurture, compassion, empathy, care, support, and so on. Conversely, the lower the synergy, the more conflict, competitiveness, secrecy, arrogance, aggression, fear of people, fear of humiliation, parochialisms, etc. When you arrange a synergistic relationship, you set things up so that one person's advantage is also an advantage to other persons-mutually beneficial self-interest. At the cultural level, a synergistic arrangement will facilitate the achieving of the potentialities of the most people. All of this is the healthy, self-actualization psychology of what Stephen Covey popularized as "win-win thinking" and relating.

When I read Patterns of Culture, I discovered that Benedict had described a particular culture that really fleshes-out what a low synergistic society is like and how it operates. Benedict discovered the Dobu people and noted that they seemed to have developed their pattern of culture from the physical environment they found themselves in. That environment was stark, poor, dangerous, ungiving- and so they became.

In writing about the Dobu people on Dobu Island. Unlike the Trobriands who 

"... live in the fertile low-lying islands which provide an easy and bountiful living. The soil is rich and the quiet lagoons full of fish. The Dobuan islands, on the other hand, are rocky volcanic upcroppings that harbour only scanty pockets of soil and allow little fishing." (130)

As the environment was dangerous, so the Dobuans became. They even developed a reputation for their dangerousness. 

"They are said to be magicians who have diabolic power and warriors who halt at no treachery . . . cannibals . . ." 

And living in that environment, eventually that context had a detrimental influence on their psychology. Dobu had no chiefs, no political organization. 

"Dobu put a premium upon ill-will and treachery and make of them [these attributes] the recognized virtues of their society." (p. 131)

The largest functioning Dobuan grouping is a named locality of four to twenty villages "which is the war unit and is on terms of permanent international hostility with every other similar locality." Benedict provided many word pictures of the quality (or lack thereof) of daily life and how the culture was built around non-synergy.

The people with whom one associates daily are the witches and sorcerers who threaten one's affairs (132).

Marriage for the young men is considered an indignity, it is an event is forced upon him by the old witch in the doorway-his future mother-in-law (!).

There is fierce exclusiveness of ownership among them.

Scarcity drove the culture. Benedict wrote that food is never sufficient in Dobu and everyone goes hungry for the last few months before planting if he is to have the requisite yams for seed. The greatest Dobuan delinquency is the eating of one's seed yams. The loss is never made up. As a result of this, 

"All existence is cut-throat competition, and every advantage is gained at the expense of a defeated rival. . . . In Dobu, rivalry is secret and treacherous." (141-142)

Given the harsh, dangerous, and non-synergistic environment, every aspect of the culture became formed in this image. For example, consider their beliefs about religion:

"In Dobu there is no propitiation of supernatural beings, no gifts or sacrifices to cement cooperation with the supernatural. The supernatural beings that are known in Dobu are a few secret magical names. The name gives power of command. The important names are never spoken aloud, but mumbled under the breath to prevent anyone else's hearing. . . . For any result of any kind one is dependent upon the magic one knows." (143)

"The magical incantations, therefore, are of incomparable importance." (145)

Benedict noted also that the magical incantations of Dobu must be word-perfect to be effective, again suggesting a scarcity that creates a demand for utter perfectionism. About synergy, she wrote about a Dobuan belief, "Any man's gain is another's loss" (146). And this meant that "a good crop is a confession of theft." Imagine that! If one person succeed then, in that culture, it means that he must be a thief! Obviously, there was no celebration of another person's welfare and there is every motive to be afraid of letting others see your success!

"It is supposed to have been alienated from the gardens even of one's own susu by dangerous sorcery. The amount of the harvest is carefully concealed, and reference to it is an insult. (148)

"Suspicion in Dobu runs to paranoid lengths and a counter-charm is always suspected. Men are in terror of the machinations of their women, so much so that, believing that Trobiriand women do not practise witchcraft, they put on in the Trobriands a self-confident manner which they do not assume at home." (161)

So, not surprising, their social relationships are not valuable expereinces:

"Dobuan conventions exclude laughter and make dourness a virtue." (166)

"In the gardens we do not play, we do not sing, we do not yodel, we do not relate legends." (167)

The personality cultivated in this culture leads to the Dobuan being "dour, prudish, and passionate, consumed with jealousy and suspicion and resentment. Every moment of prosperity he conceives himself to have wrung from a malicious world by a conflict in which he has worsted his opponent." (168)

All of this feeds fear and takes fear to extreme paranoia levels:

In Dobu eavesdropping is constantly feared because knowledge of an incantation obtained in this way is as good as knowledge obtained in any other.

"Life in Dobu fosters extreme forms of animosity and malignancy which most societies have minimized by their institutions. Dobuan institutions exalt them to the highest degree. The Dobuan lives out without repression man's worst nightmares of the ill-will of the universe, and according to his view of life virtue consists in selecting a victim upon whom he can vent the malignancy he attributes alike to human society and to the powers of nature. All existence appears to him as a cut-throat struggle in which deadly antagonists are pitted against one another in a contest for each one of the goods of life. Suspicion and cruelty are his trusted weapons in the strife and he gives no mercy, as he asks none." (p. 172)

Wow! What a horrible picture of what human culture can become if the idea of scarcity is allowed to grow and developed unchecked so that it forms the structures of a non-synergistic society. Talk about a way to create a toxic human culture and environment! Ultimate it's all about meanings and this story is an example of how one cultural group allowed their environment to set the meanings for their thinking, perceptions, values, social life, and personalities.

May you and I now take full ownership of our creation-of-meaning-powers and be the cultural frame setters so that we can transcend our cultures and together create a more empowering and self-actualizing culture!


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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Ltd., Executive Director
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