Case Study On Culture, Governance and Underdevelopment

Submitted To:

Submitted by: Program BBA Summer 2 ! "ate o# Submission: 2$t% August, 2 !

Introduction
We understand culture as "structured space" for the transformation of the person from a biological being to a spiritual being. But its also the culture that causes differences to destruction. On the other hand culture gives people their own identity as the people of a particular region. The article written by Taj I. affected by it. ashmi on !ulture" #overnance and $nderdevelopment discusses the problems of culture and how Bangladesh is owever !ulture is essential for human being. %s from learning the past it is seen that whenever culture has been avoided it created wars. &evelopment is always against culture and whenever development is tried it has wrec'ed peoples hearts. But that doesnt mean we shouldnt develop" there are other ways of developing without changing the culture. It is people who together ma'e culture. It is up to them to decide. To ma'e them decide the best it is necessary to ma'e them worthy of deciding. This is where the government appears. % good government will prepare the countrys people to decide for themselves" which Bangladesh lac' very much. (egular changes of government and the inner clashes are a hindrance in the way of development. )o" as for us" we could stand by the culture and blame the government for creating anarchy. But the government is created by us. The people in government are one of us. )o" in the end it is entirely our fault for having so many problems in front of our way of development. *ay be better government would ma'e a better country" better people" may be we could change our culture and free ourselves from being contented" may be we could live in a developed country" but isnt this our very own responsibility to wor' a way out and ma'e all these come true+

Argument
There are all the positive things that the article lac'ed of. ,or e-ample" !ulture represents the accumulated tradition of a particular community of people. .ot only the individual elements of this tradition / information" e-perience" 'nowledge" values / but above all the systems of their unification are irreplaceable for a person. The specific ness of a given culture is coded in this unification. We cannot base the

maintenance" development and passing on of e-isting e-perience only on rationality1 the integrity of cultural information is secured by wise people" people with lively intuition and imagination / as shown by many simple people and some artists" priests" philosophers and the prophets" whose behavior and lives present spiritual and moral values no less important than the discoveries of science. !ulture is the unifying element of human e-istence. !ulture represents as great a stoc' of information accumulated by selection as any animal species. !onservative preservation of that which was successfully tried innumerable times in the past is an essential mechanism" which fulfills a role in the cultural evolution and cultivation of humanity comparable to the role of the genome in the development of species 23. 4oren56. This does not mean that culture is directed towards the past. 7uite the opposite8 !ulture enables us to ta'e up a position appropriate to the human essence towards current historical processes. *an does not live only in his physical world" but also in a symbolic world / a world of meanings" relationships and values" shaped into languages" myths" arts and religions. In accordance with the development of human thin'ing and e-perience" this networ' becomes ever finer and firmer. On the one hand" it protects the person against contact with an often dangerous reality" and on the other" it develops his conceptual thin'ing 29. !assirer6. The creation of symbols" conceptual thin'ing and syntactic language opened the possibility of widening and passing on individual e-periences. This creates the possibility of accumulating traditions" which is the basis for the development of man and culture. In every culture" a system of organi5ed structures for the most varied learning and picturing processes is a pre/ condition for mutual understanding. It enables e-change of information 2its form and content6 and creates a communication space" which secures the certainty of survival. This system / although we do not always fully reali5e it / has its basis in the psycho/physical and muscular characteristics of the person. Without 'nowledge and tolerance towards these characteristics" contact between members of different cultures and communities is practically impossible. It is generally recogni5ed that the world has several large cultural areas" which are further divided into cultures" sub/cultures and local variants. :arious cultures represent independent integrated systems. The variety of the genesis of symbols" their structuring" and the method of their arrangement and so on stimulated the origin of

hierarchically organi5ed wholes. *embership of various levels of these wholes creates the space for social identification.

Summary
We sound the alarms about political" ecological and economic problems" and do not reali5e that they are the result of the leveling and reductions tendencies of our thin'ing" and in the end flow from a crisis of culture. Our pride does not allow us to see that what we called the "all/sided and harmonious development of man" is his one/ sided development. We emphasi5e tendencies towards profit" appropriation" influence" power over others and over nature" but not towards mastery of ourselves" to a primary interest in our own spiritual development" oriented towards mutual cooperation in a particular society. We are ruled by analytically oriented science" which enables victories in limited areas" but its ray of light is too narrow to illuminate the living space of man'ind in its entirety" with its synergetic lin's and intuitive connections. *an'ind is losing the spell of his many/sided personality" rationality is suppressing emotionality" creativity and intuition" analysis is becoming the decisive mental operation" and its partial successes confirm man in the conceit that he is really " omo sapiens". We are proud of our education. We canoni5e school as an educational institution" in spite of the fact that it does not orient us towards the basic attributes of the culture of behaviors" inter/personal relations" cultivation of consciousness" thought" communication or language. )chool prepares us more or less only for our economic success. When understanding and directing comple- dynamic systems" we attempt to apply conceptual schemes and methods from the area of simpler static systems" directing ourselves according to the principle that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. The result is the fact that many things escape from our hands" we do not guess their effects" and a proclaimed victory is finally a catastrophic defeat. !onfronted with the *oloch of information and global problems" man'ind becomes insignificant" powerless and disoriented. %rchaic structures of human beings come to the surface" and in certain circumstances may manifest themselves with une-pected brutality. % person very easily resigns his "9go" in favor of anonymous authority" resign the elementary postulates of humanism from fear of being left in isolation. Is a situation" which so deforms the learning and e-perience of the person" his orientation and values" still culture+ Is it not more a "pseudo/culture""

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which is becoming a motor of involution instead of the original mechanism securing the evolution of man+

Critics of the Argument

One of the most important tas's of society should be to secure transformation of the individual / the natural person / into the spiritual person" the moral personality" who should be able to see himself and his activity in the conte-t of organisms and systems of a higher order. owever" this means that essentially cultural processes must be educational 2in the broadest sense of the word6 processes" which should / among other things / include stimuli leading to altruism" solidarity" creative wor'" dialogue" which condition the meaning of human e-istence. This creates the pre/condition for discovering and assigning oneself in relation to the positive processes of e-istence and !osmo genesis. In the framewor' of culture" not only the individual" but also other structures of the social macro/ organism" should progress towards spiritual maturity" since culture should play the role of a regulator of societal processes and an integrative factor in society. !ulture cannot be narrowed only to cultural/artistic activity= it cannot be divided into "higher" and "lower"" or loo'ed at only through the prism of its economic contributions. It is necessary to understand it as perception of the world" a way of thin'ing" feeling and behaving" together with their results in the form of the material creations of human activity and activities directed outwards or towards the interior of the person. !ulture is a multi/dimensional" closely interconnected system. The tearing away" neglect or li>uidation of individual elements of the system may lead to its paralysis or deformation" and to the destruction of the system as a whole. Therefore" it is necessary to reali5e that the present crisis in society is not only an economic and ecological crisis" but above all a cultural crisis. It is necessary to wor' out a conception of cultural reform" which would enable a comprehensive solution of the problems mentioned above. It is important to overcome the stage of spontaneity" groping and improvisation. (emaining in this stage will only deepen the crisis further. It is important to give culture a place on the pedestal" which belongs to it1 above parties" above science" above the individual. It is important to protect culture / as a

phenomenon conditioning the further e-istence of humanity / with formal guarantees1 conceiving and adopting a !harter of !ulture" an %ct on !ulture" giving it an appropriate place in constitutions. owever" in any case" it is important to act >uic'ly and energetically / perhaps it is not too late" perhaps everything is not lost.