S605-e1

People, Culture

"Cultures"-1

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One People, One Culture

Before answering the questions that assail us, we must first clarify what "Culture" is and what "People" we are talking about.

A people and its culture are two inseparable sides of the same coin.

A culture only has meaning through the people who created it, and a people only has a true bond through the culture that unites it and maintains its sense of belonging.

This strange and profound feeling does not require being fully conscious [1] . It is enough that it throbs, buried, vibrant, sometimes obscure. It is there, and that is enough.

A foreigner to a culture, even if he speaks the language, perceives its rites, symbols, and values, will not necessarily find this intimate thread that is the feeling of belonging to the people who produced this culture. Thus, People and Culture respond to each other, engaged in an equivalence where one does not exist without the other.

Culture, People: common and universal processes

Humans, throughout time, have forged thousands of cultures. Each is unique, singular in its forms and expressions.

And yet, beyond appearances, they are based on common mechanisms, deep structures that cross borders.

There is a universality to which we all belong.

Claude Lévi-Strauss saw this universality in the " unconscious structures of human relations " [2] .

Jacques Lacan spoke of a " symbolic network in which each child is born, already immersed " [3] .

And René Girard showed how, to tame mimetic violence, societies imagined " rites, giving birth to religion " [4] .

In this universality, there is a promise: that of a common foundation where, perhaps one day, humanity will find the key to true unity.

Culture: the living memory of a People

Culture is not only created by its people; it is their memory. A living memory, one that transcends time.

It is transmitted, like a fire that never goes out, through language, knowledge, customs, myths, and the very idea of "Law."

Edward Burnett Tylor saw in it " a complex of beliefs, knowledge, morals " [5] .

Sigmund Freud, for his part, described it as " that which protects man from nature and regulates his relationships with his fellow men " [6] .

"Our ancestors the Gauls"

Culture travels from one generation to another, from predecessors to successors.

But who are these predecessors? Biological "ancestors"? Not necessarily.

In French schools, we used to recite: " Our ancestors the Gauls... " A phrase that could lead one to believe that to belong to French culture, to the French people, one would need biological ancestry, a "blood" link.

This is not the case.

If we speak here of "ancestors," it is first of all of "cultural" ancestors. What is transmitted is not the "flesh," but the "spirit." A "symbolic" heritage, a collective memory, a shared belonging.

Because culture, ultimately, is that: what connects us, beyond what divides us. It is a human work, fragile and eternal, that we carry and that carries us.

One thing will become clear: culture is not just about blood, but is developed in the mind. Belonging to a people, culturally, is not automatically the result of a "right of blood" or that of "right of the soil", but above all of a feeling of belonging to a people and its culture.

A question we will address in more detail later: " Can one belong to more than one people, to more than one culture? " Yes... but not "at the same time."

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References

[1] Conscious vs. Unconscious : Watch the Series [" INSU "] for initiation to the Model-2L.

[2] Claude Lévi-Strauss , "The Elementary Structures of Kinship", PUF, 1949. Culture: "a symbolic system based on universal unconscious structures which organize human relationships".

[3] Jacques Lacan , Writings, Editions du Seuil, 1966.

Culture: "the symbolic network in which the subject is immersed from birth."

[4] René Girard , Violence and the Sacred, ed. Bernard Grasset, 1972

[5] Edward B. Tylor, "Primitive Culture", ed. John Murray, 1871Culture... is: "that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs, and all other capacities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

[6] Sigmund Freud , "Civilization and Its Discontents (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur), ed. Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1930.

"Culture is the set of achievements and institutions that distinguish us from our animal ancestors and that serve two purposes: to protect man from nature and to regulate human relations with one another."

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