The Need to Learn about Culture and Cultures
Changes in Culture and Cultures
Learning about Culture and Cultures
The Role of the New Learning Communities
Notes
Culture and Cultures Key Learning Requirements for the Future
by D. Paul Schafer
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There is mounting evidence to suggest that culture and cultures will play a powerful role in the world of the future. As this happens, people will have to learn more about culture and cultures if they want to live creative, constructive and fulfilling lives and function effectively in society.
This chapter is designed to examine this requirement. It is divided into four parts. In part one, some reasons why it is necessary to learn more about culture and cultures are presented. In part two, some basic changes taking place in culture and cultures are analyzed. In part three, attention is focused on some of the ways people can broaden and deepen understanding of their own culture and the cultures of others, particularly in a broader, deeper and more fundamental holistic sense. And finally, in part four, consideration is given to the role the new learning communities might play in initiating educational and cultural change.
THE NEED TO LEARN ABOUT CULTURE AND CULTURES
There are many reasons why it is necessary to learn more about culture and cultures at this juncture in history.
In the first place, culture and cultures are growing rapidly in importance and are destined to play a forceful role in the world of the future. Many developments confirm this. One is the growing importance of culture and cultures in individual, institutional, municipal, regional, national and international affairs, as confirmed recently by the creation of a World Decade for Cultural Development and a World Commission on Culture and Development by UNESCO and the United Nations.1 Another is the emphasis placed on culture and cultures by countries and governments. Whereas culture and cultures were ignored by most countries and governments three or four decades ago, virtually every country and government in the world today is involved in many measures to develop culture and cultures - from passing legislation to protect the heritage of history to executing plans, policies and programs to increase citizen participation in cultural life. Still another development is the use of terms like global culture, corporate culture, media culture, political culture, popular culture, social culture, youth culture, economic culture, cyberculture and environmental culture in private and public discourse. Use of these terms indicates that people are becoming much more "culture-conscious," as well as more aware of the vital role culture and cultures are playing in the world. A final development, and perhaps the most telling development of all, is the establishment of numerous courses, programs, centres, institutes and chairs in cultural studies in post-secondary academic institutions throughout the world. These developments indicate that culture and cultures are destined to play a far more powerful role in the world of the future than they have in the past.
In the second place, every culture in the world today is going through a period of pronounced transformation and change. This is due to many causes, such as all the economic, political, social, demographic, technological and communications changes going on in the world, as well as globalization, computerization and commercialization. There is hardly a group of people anywhere in the world that is not wrestling with these changes, and with it, the need to determine how they would like their culture to evolve in the future.
In the third place, there is the erosion taking place in cultural values, traditions, identities and ways of life - values, traditions, identities and ways of life that have been built up over generations and often centuries.
In the fourth place, there is much more interaction going on among cultures today. While this is bringing with it many benefits and opportunities - such as the possibility of learning customs, traditions and lifestyles that are different from one's own - it is also increasing the threat of cultural conflict and confrontation and "the clash of cultures and civilizations."
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is the need for people to play a constructive role in the development of their own culture and the cultures of others. If, as many educators, scholars and statesmen are predicting, the world is moving into a period of intense cultural interaction and change, it only makes sense for people to broaden and deepen understanding of their own culture and the cultures of others. While it may never be possible to transcend completely the limits of one's own culture and cultural conditioning, surely the world would be a better place if people's knowledge and understanding of their own culture, other cultures, and especially the reasons for cultural differences was enhanced.
CHANGES IN CULTURE AND CULTURES
Given the need to learn more about culture and cultures, it is imperative to come to grips with the basic changes that are going on in the cultural field today. Not only are fundamental changes taking place in perceptions and definitions of culture, but also fundamental changes are taking place in the dynamics, characteristics and composition of cultures.
In general, there are two ways to perceive and define culture. The first is in terms of the arts, heritage, humanities, and finer things in life. The second is in terms of "the whole" or "the total way of life of people." The first is usually referred to as the classical or traditional way of visualizing and defining culture, whereas the second is usually referred to as the holistic or anthropological way of visualizing and defining culture.2
Throughout history, culture has usually been perceived and defined in terms of the arts, heritage, humanities, and finer things in life. This way of perceiving and defining culture is deeply rooted in the practices of most countries, educational institutions, media agencies and governments. In recent years, there has been a tendency to add "the cultural industries" of publishing, radio, television, film, video and sound recording to the list, largely in recognition of the pivotal role these industries play as "communicators" and "carriers" of culture.
There are many advantages to visualizing and defining culture in these terms. Not only does it highlight many of humanity's most valuable activities and worthwhile ideals, but also it puts the emphasis on things that are very tangible and specific. Paintings can be seen, films, videos, television programs and plays can be watched, music can be listened to, art galleries and museums can be visited, and books can be read. Presumably this is why most countries, governments, educational institutions and media agencies prefer to define culture in these terms for funding, administrative, trade, policy, and pedagogical purposes.
During the nineteenth century, a second way of perceiving and defining culture emerged to rival the traditional way. It was based on visualizing and defining culture in terms of "the whole" or "the total way of life of people." This practice commenced as soon as anthropologists and sociologists started studying human collectivities on the ground. Immediately they discovered that there were all sorts of words to describe the specific activities in which people were engaged - social, economic, political, agricultural, religious, recreational, artistic, educational, environmental and the like. However, there was no word to describe how all these activities were tied together to form a whole or total way of life.
Culture was the word they used to describe this process. This is why Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, one of the world's first anthropologists, defined culture as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."3 His intention was not to downplay or denigrate "the parts of the whole," but rather to recognize that the parts are always woven together in specific combinations and arrangements to form a whole which is greater than the sum of the parts.
During the last few decades, there has been a discernible trend throughout the world towards defining culture in these terms. After several decades of defining culture as the arts, heritage, cultural industries and finer things in life, for example, UNESCO has started to define culture in terms of the whole, or the total way of life of people. This was confirmed at the Second World Conference on Cultural Policies in Mexico City in 1982 when delegates at the Conference endorsed the following definition of culture: Culture ought to be considered today the whole collection of distinctive traits, spiritual and material, intellectual and affective, which characterize a society or social group. It comprises, besides arts and letters, modes of life, human rights, value systems, traditions and beliefs.4 This trend towards a holistic conception of culture is coming not only from UNESCO. It is also coming from people and countries in all parts of the world. As long as people and countries are in no danger of losing their culture, it is easy to define culture in terms of the parts. However, as soon as culture is threatened or there is a real danger of losing it, it is amazing how quickly there is a sudden realization of the holistic nature of culture. Clearly there is nothing quite like the threat of foreign domination or cultural extinction to bring about a rapid realization of the all-encompassing character of culture.
When culture is defined in holistic terms, it is concerned with all groups, classes, activities, institutions and people and not just certain groups, classes, activities, institutions and people. Culture is all-inclusive in this sense. It is economics as well as education; science as well as art; recreation as well as religion; technology as well as sports and social activities; popular music as well as classical music; industry as well as politics.
This appears to be what more and more people mean today when they say they are "products of their culture." They mean they are the products of everything that exists in their culture, or their culture as a whole. This includes economic, educational, political, social, technological, religious, spiritual and environmental activities as well as artistic, humanistic, historical and media activities. Presumably this is why the African Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, prefers to view culture as "source" - source from which all things flow and to which all things return.5 It is a way of thinking about and visualizing culture that has much more to do with culture as "the whole" than it does with culture as "a part or parts of the whole."
When culture is visualized in these terms, it is concerned with the entire way people "visualize and interpret the world, organize themselves, conduct their affairs, elevate and embellish life, and position themselves in the world."6 This shines the spotlight squarely on the worldviews, values and value systems that people use to bind the component parts of their culture together to form a whole, and therefore on such key relationships as the relationship between human beings and the natural environment, consumption and conservation, materialism and spiritualism, affluence and poverty, and the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of life.
It is clear from this why a shift is taking place from the traditional way of viewing culture to the holistic way. Without a much better understanding of the worldviews, values and value systems that people use to bind the component parts of their cultures together to form a dynamic and integrated whole, it may never be possible to come to grips with the host of difficult and demanding problems that has loomed up on the global horizon in recent years: the environmental crisis; consumption of the world's renewable and non-renewable resources at an alarming rate; global warming; unacceptable levels of pollution, poverty, homelessness and unemployment; the growing gap between rich and poor countries and rich and poor people; the need to protect cherished customs, traditions, and ways of life; the necessity of cultural diversity and identity; the crisis of maldevelopment; and the clash of cultures and civilizations. This makes broadening and deepening knowledge and understanding of the holistic character of culture a categorical imperative for the future.
So is learning about cultures. For if fundamental changes are going on in the way culture is perceived and defined, fundamental changes are also going on in the composition, dynamics and characteristics of cultures.
During the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century, it was customary to view cultures in uniform, homogeneous and closed terms. The focus was on developing cultures that were internally inclusive, externally delineated, and concerned primarily with creating a unique soul, spirit, or national cultural identity. While this led to the creation of many valuable artistic, scholarly and philosophical works, it also contributed to a period of intense nationalism, the fighting of two major world wars, the slaughter of millions of people, and the clash of several distinct cultures and civilizations.
International events over the last fifty years have served to alter this situation, although there are still many exceptions to the general rule. For one thing, it is now generally realized that there are very real dangers whenever cultures are uniform, homogeneous and closed. Mircea Malitza, the distinguished Roumanian scholar and statesman, summed this up best when he said: Cultures in watertight compartments are doomed to oblivion. Dialogue is essential. The choice between the development of a national culture and an increase in exchanges with the outside world is a false one. Interdependence cannot be denied. The cultures which have blossomed are those which have had the advantage of innumerable influences, received and transmitted in accordance with a process of unceasing enrichment.7 As a result of realizations like this, and others, cultures are becoming much more diverse, open and heterogeneous today. Phenomenal developments in transportation, communications, technology, politics, finance and trade are making it impossible to shut out influences from other parts of the world. In addition, there is much more interaction and exchange going on among cultures today, not only within cultures, but also between cultures. There is also much more interracial, ethnic and cultural mixing, due to population developments, migratory movements, demographic shifts, interracial marriages, and transformations in social structures and institutions. As a result of these developments, cultures are becoming much more pluralistic, multiracial and diverse in character, with many different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, subcultures, and social, economic, political and technological activities interacting under one roof. This brings with it a new set of cultural requirements, especially as more conflicts now take place within countries than between countries.
It also necessitates new understandings of the challenges facing cultures. Whereas the challenge in earlier times was to achieve "unity in similarity" through a homogeneous way of life and a uniform national cultural identity, the challenge today is to achieve "unity in diversity" through heterogeneous ways of life and multiple cultural identities. This will require the development of many more links and connections between all the various subcultures, racial groups, ethnic and religious communities, and different activities that comprise cultures. Co-existence, cross-fertilization, dialogue and exchange - rather than isolation, separation and delineation - are the order of the day.
If profound changes are going on in the composition, dynamics and characteristics of cultures, profound changes are also going on in the international character of cultures. It would not be far off the mark to say that virtually all cultures in the world today - including the smallest, most remote, most inconspicuous and most marginalized - are becoming "world cultures" in the sense that they are compelled to deal with all the changes going on in the world and are unable to tune out developments taking place in other parts of the world. Whereas in previous decades - and centuries - it was possible for cultures to remain isolated from other parts of the world, today this is no longer possible.
Viewed from this perspective, one of the biggest challenges confronting people in the future will be to maintain adequate control over the decision-making processes affecting their cultures while simultaneously learning to function effectively in a "borderless world." Clearly people know their cultures must change. What they are opposed to - and opposed to in increasing numbers - is not change, but rather developments that serve the interests of others rather than themselves. This is why people everywhere in the world are demanding the right to decide for themselves how their cultures will change, as well as how they will order the component parts of their cultural life to form a cohesive and coherent whole.
LEARNING ABOUT CULTURE AND CULTURES
Given all the changes going on with respect to culture and cultures, there is an urgent need for people to learn more about culture and cultures in the broader, deeper and more fundamental holistic sense. This is an exceedingly difficult task in view of the fact that few educational institutions provide such opportunities at present. This means that if people want to learn more about culture and cultures in the holistic sense, they will have to do so largely through self-discovery, self-learning, life-long learning, adult and extension courses, personal observation, analysis, and experience.
It is one thing to learn about culture and cultures when they are visualized in terms of the arts, heritage, the humanities, the cultural industries, and the finer things in life. Here, knowledge and understanding come from products and activities that can be seen, touched, talked about, traded, transported, and enjoyed. However, when culture and cultures are visualized in holistic terms - much as they are in many parts of the world today - they can never be known in this concrete, material and specific sense. They are too vast, complex and amorphous for that. Moreover, it is never possible to see culture and cultures as wholes, as well as to know all the myriad activities, institutions, worldviews, values, value systems and parts that comprise culture and cultures. This means that people must learn to feel and sense how culture and cultures are structured and put together as wholes, as well as piece together for themselves general impressions of culture and cultures from a variety of learning sources, experiences, devices, and possibilities.
For Giles Gunn, an internationally-recognized cultural scholar, the best place to start to get to know culture and cultures as wholes - and indeed any type of human whole - is with the parts and the dynamic interplay that is constantly going on between the parts and the whole: We cannot understand the parts of anything without some sense of the whole to which they belong, just as we cannot comprehend the whole to which they belong until we have grasped the parts that make it up. Thus we are constantly obliged to move back and forth in our effort to understand something "between the whole conceived through the parts which actualize it and the parts conceived through the whole which motivates them" in an effort "to turn them, by a sort of intellectual perpetual motion, into explication of one another."8 It follows from this that if people want to learn more about culture, cultures and their own culture in the comprehensive and all-encompassing sense, they should start with their own particular part of the whole. This could be their job, life, or geographical location in the world. But it is their job, life, or geographical location in the world, not considered in isolation, but rather as part of the larger fabric of culture as a whole. In other words, it is the details of their own specific experiences considered in terms of the larger context or container within which these experiences are situated.
To progress further in this area, it is useful to focus on entities and institutions that function as wholes, and therefore have a great deal to pass on with respect to how culture and cultures function in the holistic sense. The most obvious examples of this are families, neighbourhoods, communities and regions.
Every family is a whole composed of interconnected parts. This is apparent as soon as family members transcend their own particular experiences and become aware of the family as a holistic unit. As soon as this happens, it is apparent that families are constantly evolving and changing in the holistic sense as changes take place in individual family members and especially relationships among family members. The similarities to cultures are striking here, as cultures are also constantly evolving and changing as dynamic changes take place in the component parts that comprise them.
Nor is this all. Families also provide countless other ways to learn about culture and cultures. Not only is every family member distinct and unique - thereby providing valuable learning opportunities for all family members - but also every family is deeply rooted in a particular culture or several different cultures. This brings with it a wealth of possibilities. It is amazing how much people can lean about their own culture and the cultures of others by exploring the genealogical roots and historical traditions of their family. This is especially true when past and present family members come from a diversity of cultural backgrounds, or there is a long history of family involvement in a single culture.
What is true of families is also true of neighbourhoods, communities and regions. Neighbourhoods, communities and regions are wholes comprised of many interdependent parts. As such, they provide ideal learning models for people interested in broadening and deepening understanding of how culture and cultures function in the holistic sense.
Like families, neighbourhoods, communities and regions possess all sorts of fascinating treasures located just beneath the surface. Furthermore, they are close at hand. And yet, how often do we take the time and trouble to dig deep into our neighbourhoods, communities and regions to acquaint ourselves with the infinite constellation of programs, activities, resources, and experiences available to enrich our understanding of our neighbourhoods, communities and regions, and therefore our own culture and the cultures of others? A little curiosity can bring its own rewards. It can do so by opening up a panorama of possibilities: numerous layers and levels of culture; many diverse ethnic and racial groups; countless multicultural events and activities; unique customs and traditions; and scintillating sights, sounds, smells, textures and tastes. These help to broaden and deepen knowledge and understanding of neighbourhoods, communities and regions, as well as culture and cultures.
It is through intensive examination of these possibilities that it is possible to slowly but surely piece together an impression of the distinctive character or ambiance of neighbourhoods, communities and regions as wholes. Amos Rapoport explains: In dealing with the urban order, it may be useful to begin with the sensory, experiential qualities of cities which are also organized and ordered. Cities, among other things, are physical artifacts, experienced through all the senses by people who are in them. They are experienced sequentially as people follow different paths and use different movement modes through them. Cities look, smell, sound and feel different; they have a different character or ambience. This is easily felt, but it is very difficult to describe.9 Familiarity with the distinctive character or ambience of neighbourhoods, communities and regions provides a useful step towards what Raymond Williams, the distinguished cultural scholar and historian, calls "the structure of feeling" of cultures. While this structure of feeling is less particularistic and specific than the more traditional notion of national cultural identity or national cultural character - and therefore less prone to nationalism, chauvinism and racism - it represents the bundle of beliefs, convictions, axioms, myths and assumptions that is used to bind cultures together and determine people's actions, attitudes, preferences and behavioural characteristics: More overt and explicit than some underlying collective unconscious but less determinate and intellectualizable than an ideology, a structure of feeling is the "particular and characteristic colour" that the ensemble of the values, beliefs, and practices of a given culture imparts to the experiences of its members. In particular, a given culture's structure of feeling will at least influence if not determine the patterns of response of its members in resolving or coping with the dilemmas and contradictions that confront them in their daily lives. For Williams, the principal aim of cultural analysis is to discern and understand this structure of feeling as it manifests itself throughout the entire range of a given culture's expressions.10 For people interested in learning more about "the structure of feeling" of their own culture and other cultures - and therefore the worldviews, values, value system, codes, recipes and ordering processes that people use to create the structure of feeling of cultures - it is helpful to turn to artists, scholars, architects, critics, and other types of creative people. These are the individuals who possess the intuitive and sensorial skills and expressive and communicative abilities to "sense" how cultures are put together as dynamic and organic wholes and communicate this to others. They are able to do so through their ability to create signs, symbols, myths, legends, metaphors, stories and similes that "stand for the whole" and convey a vast amount of information about the whole. The old adage, "a picture is worth a thousand words" is a cliché, but it speaks volumes about the ability of artists, scholars, critics, architects and other types of creative people to pass on a vast amount of information about cultures as wholes that can't be communicated in any other way at all, or can't be communicated nearly as effectively using any other device.
While artists, scholars, architects, critics and other types of creative people are the best vehicles for helping people to understand cultures as wholes, they are not the only vehicle. The cultural industries are valuable because they provide the communication channels and distributive mechanisms that are needed to make the works of artists, architects, scholars, critics and other types of creative people known to the general public. Athletes and sports organizations are important because they represent parts of the whole that transmit strong messages and signals about the structure and characteristics of the whole. Anthropological, sociological and historical studies are important because they tend to deal with the totality of cultures, and therefore with the patterns, themes, value systems, social structures, interrelationships and worldviews that comprise cultures. Personality studies are important because, as Ruth Benedict observed, cultures are often personalities writ large. Philosophical studies and theological treatises are important because they deal with human conduct in a variety of cultural settings and circumstances. And ecological, economic, geographical and historical studies are important because they reveal how cultures have imprinted their ways of life and structures of feeling on a very distinct part of the natural, historical and global environment.
What is steadily evolving here are some of ways people can increase for themselves knowledge and understanding of culture and cultures in general and their own culture in particular. When this is combined with other learning possibilities - visits to local libraries, use of computer and internet facilities, formation of workshops and study groups, life-long learning programs, adult education and extension courses, foreign language studies, trips to ethnic cultural centres and the like - a broad spectrum of options and opportunities exists for people to learn about culture and cultures outside the formal educational system.
There is much to be gained from this. Through exposure to different cultures, there is exposure to different worldviews, values and value systems, diverse concepts of space, time and the universe, the nature and purpose of life, the relationship between human beings and the natural environment, the most relevant things in life, and the role of the individual in society. This may prove helpful in "learning a living" as Marshall McLuhan called it, as well as acquiring the skills and abilities that are necessary to function in a variety of cultural contexts and environments.
THE ROLE OF THE NEW LEARNING COMMUNITIES
It is impossible to conclude this chapter without reflecting on the role that the new learning communities might play in bringing about educational and cultural change. Awareness of this role emanates from the fact that there is an intimate connection between culture, cultures and the learning process: culture and cultures impact on the learning process; and the learning process impacts on culture and cultures.
Culture and cultures impact on the learning process in many ways. For example, when culture and cultures are understood in holistic terms, they provide the context or container within which all education and learning takes place. As such, they influence what people learn, how they learn it, and why they learn it. This process is often called "enculturation" because it describes the procedure whereby people are prepared for participation and citizenship in the specific culture in which they are situated. This takes place through exposure to - and education in - the worldviews, values and value systems that are most characteristic of the culture and form the basis of cultural life.
The new learning communities might play a useful role here by helping people to see clearly the strengths and shortcomings of their cultural conditioning and enculturation process. On the one hand, cultural conditioning and enculturation provide a valuable service by helping people to learn what needs to be learned to function effectively in their culture, earn a living, and play a constructive role in society. On the other hand, cultural conditioning and enculturation often cause people to accept the worldviews, values and value systems of their culture without reservation or qualification, even when factual evidence and objective analysis reveal that these worldviews, values and values systems may be injurious to their interests and the interests of others. The most obvious example of this is the environmental crisis, and the response of people in dominant cultures to it. It has proven exceedingly difficulty to get people in the dominant cultures to take the environmental crisis seriously because their cultural conditioning and enculturation process has not equipped them to do this.
Since many of the new learning communities stand outside the formal educational system, they are in an ideal position to help people examine the worldviews, values and value systems of their culture critically and dispassionately, thereby helping them to determine what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. Worldviews, values and value systems predicated on exerting human control over nature, promoting excessive consumption and production practices, sanctioning inequalities in the distribution of income, wealth, resources and power, and fostering social and economic inequities should be contested regardless of one's particular cultural conditioning or mode of enculturation. Surely this is what Goethe had in mind when he said, "Your own epoch you cannot change. You can, however, oppose its trends and lay the groundwork for auspicious developments."11
If the new learning communities can play a valuable role in helping people to see their own cultural conditioning and enculturation process more clearly and objectively, they can also play a valuable role in helping people to know other cultures. If, as the Russians say, all is known by comparison, then it only makes sense to get to know other cultures as fully as possible. Not only does this help people to become more aware of their own culture and its various strengths and shortcomings, but also it increases knowledge and understanding of other cultures and the reasons for cultural differences. An ideal opportunity to realize this will be available in 2004 when the First Universal Forum of Cultures is convened in Barcelona. This 150-day event, which is designed to celebrate the different cultures of the world and will be devoted to such themes as cultural diversity, world peace and sustainable cities, will consist of debates, discussions, exhibitions, and a major World Arts Festival.
For people interested in learning more about culture and cultures, many organizations provide this information.12 Among the more general ones are: UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization); the Council of Europe; ACTC (Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation); ACCU (Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO); ALECSO (Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization); AICR (Association of International Cooperative Research); Centre Européen de la Culture; European Cultural Foundation; Foundation for ACP/EEC Cultural Cooperation; ISESCO (Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization); Maison des Cultures du Monde (House of World Cultures); Organization of African Unity; SIETAR (International Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research); and others. Mention should also be made of several specific organizations that provide valuable services in the area of cultural research, networking, and the creation of bonds, links and connections between cultures and cultural organizations. Included here are: CULTURELINK (Network of Networks for Research and Cooperation in Cultural Development); the South-North Network Cultures and Development; TRANET (Transnational Network for Appropriate/Alternative Technologies); the Intercultural Institute of Montreal; the Zentrum für Kulturforschung (Centre for Cultural Research); CIRCLE (Cultural Information and Research Centres Liaison in Europe); CultureGrams; the Austrian Cultural Documentation Centre and International Archives for Cultural Analysis; the Boekman Foundation; and others.
Utilization of the services of these organizations, and others, could prove helpful in making it possible for the new learning communities to achieve major breakthroughs in the cultural and educational fields in the future. Possessing more flexibility, independence and creativity than most formal educational institutions, they could act as catalysts for improving the quantity and quality of curriculum offerings with respect to culture and cultures, as well as creating the pedagogical methods and techniques that are needed to enhance knowledge and understanding of culture and cultures in the years ahead. For just as we are becoming aware of the fundamental impact culture and cultures have on the learning process, so we must become much more aware of the fundamental impact the learning process can have on culture and cultures. Without this, it is difficult to see how the new worldviews, values, value systems and cultures will be created that are so urgently needed for the future.
1. The World Decade for Cultural Development and the World Commission for Culture and Development were created in 1988 and 1993 respectively. The aims of the Decade were: to ensure that the cultural dimension is taken into consideration in all economic development planning; to assist in the preservation and enrichment of cultural identity, including promotion of the arts and safeguarding of the national heritage; to broaden participation in cultural activity; and to foster international cultural cooperation. The aims of the Commission were to broaden and deepen understanding of culture and cultures and the way culture and cultures function throughout the world. See: Our Creative Diversity: Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development (Paris: EGOPRIM, 1995).
2. See D. Paul Schafer, Culture: Beacon of the Future (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1998, Chapter II) for a detailed analysis of the many different concepts and definitions of culture that have evolved historically and are in active use throughout the world today.
3. Edward Burnett Tylor. The Origins of Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), p.1.
4. UNESCO. Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies (Paris: UNESCO, 1982).
5. Wole Soyinka, “Culture, Memory, and Development,” International Conference on Culture and Development in Africa, April 2-3,1992 (Washington: The World Bank, 1992), p. 21.
6. D. Paul Schafer. Culture - Beacon of the Future. op. cit. p. 40.
7. Mircea Malitza, “Culture and the New World Order: A Pattern of Integration,” Cultures III(4) (Paris: The UNESCO Press and la Baconnière, 1976) p. 102.
8. Giles Gunn. The Culture of Criticism and the Criticism of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 95.
9. Amos Rapoport, “Culture and the Urban Order,” in John A. Agnew, John Mercer and David E. Sopher (ed.) The City in Cultural Context (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1984), p. 51.
10. Jere Paul Surber. Culture and Critique: An Introduction to the Critical Discourses of Cultural Studies (Boulder: Western Press, 1998) p. 238.
11. R. King (ed.), Goethe on Human Creativeness and Other Goethe Essays (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1950), p. ix.
12. See CULTURELINK, Directory of Institutions and Databases in the Field of Cultural Development (Zagreb: CULTURELINK, 1995) for a comprehensive listing of organizations working in the cultural field and undertaking cultural communication and research.
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© Copyright 2000. D. Paul Schafer - All Rights Reserved.
dpaulschafer@sympatico.ca