My first post on Medium, I decided to focus on the topic of culture.

Culture

We tend to believe what gets passed down to us over the years is culture. Some may call it tradition. We debate endlessly about how our culture or tradition is being destroyed, as the younger generation chooses not to follow it blindly.

In prehistoric times before the written word, information got passed through from one generation to the other along with the interpretation of the generation soon to be gone. That’s how it was for thousand of years and the quirks that got adopted came to be coined as culture. No one challenged it, atleast we don’t know, for there is no recorded history. Most likely those that challenged were probably put down by the patriarch or matriarch, or both, or the prevailing society elder(s), we can assume.

When writing became the norm one would have hoped the prevailing thought got captured and passed on in stories or dramas or plays from one generation to the next. But for some strange reason a lot of what we ascribe as culture has been what we acquired from our parents or our grand parents. The advent of the Age of Reason hasn’t dented this process much other than perhaps causing some interesting familial tiffs which came to be called the clash of generations.

Let’s take a few examples drawn from my experience. A common argument in our family is when to eat what. Having grown up in a an orthodox Hindu family, I grew up eating mostly vegetarian food. At times, for protein my mom would give me egg for breakfast. Over the years I have grown to become a eggarian, a vegetarian who partakes eggs.

Now you might think that diet is fairly straightforward so what has culture got do with. Well, read on. A constant battle in our household is when to eat eggs for breakfast . As Hindus, we follow a lunar calendar and there are certain days of the week, certain days in the lunar cycle and month that are considered auspicious.

Culture, note I am not using the term religion for I think it’s the imbibed views and not the religious orientation that is influencing this behavior. We tend to eat eggs on weekends or consume alcohol on Friday evenings just because it is convenient. Now this is where there is a clash between culture and convenience. Friday is considered to be auspicious so having alcohol on Friday evening is verboten. You can imagine the conversation on an average Friday evening.

Similarly Fridays(always) Saturday and Sunday and other religious holidays (which we have many) are not always suitable for egg eating. This spawns several arguments over a lifetime on what is the right thing to do. Culture and upbringing lead to these clashes. Unfortunately reason is not an acceptable way to argue yourself out of this predicament.

If you believe that eating eggs or consuming alcohol is taboo, I fully understand. There is no conflict if you can apply that uniformly to all situations. Conflicts come only when you choose to selectively apply the belief and use culture to support your argument. Why do we subject ourselves to this torture? How can eating or drinking something be wrong based on when you do so? How does it matter if you had eggs on a Friday or a Saturday. What’s the big deal?

But then we know reason always loses to what we called culture. As we grow up we sometimes tend to question what we do and why we do it. Just like when we hire hire a new person at work we get challenged on why we do things in a particular way, each generation gets to challenge established way of doing things. A learning organization adapts the suggestions that a new employee brings, but culture does not behave the same way. We criticize those who challenge the norms with quips such as “Ekkade Kettu Po” (forgive my Tamil)

Why doesn’t culture adapt and learn? Why do we have people, who are not willing to adapt and change when we reason with them? Does, not following what we were taught to believe, shake their foundations. Is this why people write books and essays on how our culture is being destroyed by new ideas from the East or West. As humans our genomes have evolved and adapted. When culture does the same why is it perceived as destructive. Does culture make us close minded?

Let’s go back to our example of eating eggs or drinking alcohol. If you are okay with eating eggs and drinking alcohol; then why can’t you consume alcohol on a Friday evening after work, why can’t you eat eggs on an Ekadasi day or on a festival day. Why would doing so be an assault on your culture. Yes it is a change to how you used to be. So your parents or your spouse can think that you are conveniently adapting what you want and you lack discipline. Are you lacking discipline or are you evolving as you adopt new ways of living?

This in more ways than one is the million bitcoin question often being debated I would assume in more families than you could count on your hand.

Do we think that these stringent rules we called culture were imposed to establish control so that the liberal mind doesn’t run wild? So are cultural norms just conservative restrictions imposed to create a rigid lifestyle. How does culture evolve? How did it form? Questions abound. Am I and the millions like me that are everyday challenging the cultural status quo actually evolving culture rather than destroying it. I seem to think the former rather than the latter. So those naysayers who are predicting their culture is being destroyed, I say open your eyes and welcome the changes for like normal evolution only the resilient characteristics will remain and be carried through generations. Don’t fight the change but welcome the diversity for it can only make things better. Don’t lament that the future will be different from the past; for that is the reality.