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ELIZABETH TROTT
Although the phenomenon of multiple cultures has existed in the world
for thousands of years, the ‘self’ or ‘individual’ as concepts for interpreting
experience have not always been part of common vocabulary. For the
majority today, the ‘other’ (who we are not) is dictated to us by religion, class
structures or economic ideologies. Although the events listed by Scruton can
be experienced as shared, their significance is frequently imposed. Often,
conscious individual interpretation is limited by threats of punishment by
particular culture. Members of a culture can be denied exposure to multiple
conceptual worlds.
In some cultures, the ‘collective’ corresponds to the ‘self’ and ‘others’ are
the greater mass of human beings. ‘Others’ are understood as abstract beings,
not as a particular culture. The cultural ‘collective’ as ‘self’ may regard other
human beings, who are not part of the collective ‘self’, to be unnecessary to
the collective ‘self’s’ survival. That these others are human beings — who the
collective ‘self” is not — may be acknowledged, but, according to this worldview,
mere human existence confers no basic rights and therefore violence and
indifference are possible ‘collective self’ responses to non-members.
Often the ‘other’ is understood as a power, or a goal, a purpose to be followed
though never perfectly achieved, a God or religious orthodoxy, a supreme
leader, etc. The possibilities of human conscious development are suppressed
by fear, promises of an afterlife, beliefs that cannot be challenged or habits
that do not encourage questions. Many centuries of narratives and stories
associated with a specific culture (a group self) reinforce the characteristics
attributed to others. Rational debates or education as the means for developing
pluralism do not dominate some cultures’ conceptual constructs.
Adaptive Culture
In its original Latin sense, the word ‘culture’ means to cultivate (crops). What
is needed in our understanding of culture is a provision for change and growth.
A culture that does not have the provisions to adapt to change will increasingly
impose its constructs on its members, denying them the freedom to learn other
possibilities and explore their creative potential for problem solving.
In his Logic, Hegel recognizes the need to accommodate change and so he
proposes the synthesis of logical binaries, universality and particularity (his
principles of affirmation and negation with self and other being examples).
Ihe synthesis is the individual, meaning the self with a set of characteristics
(particularities).'*
8 William Wallace (trans.), The Logic of Hegel, Oxford, Oxford University, 1963, originally
published 1873. Hegel discusses the formal concepts, Paragraph 164, 294-295. For a more
contemporary translation see Jacob Loewenberg (ed.), Hegel Selections, New York, Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1957, 125.
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