Systems and their Relation to Culture

Our modern worldview results from centuries of Western thought. . .Our beliefs derive from many sources. Among the most important are the Greek philosophers, the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Enlightenment thinkers and the Scientific Revolution, European colonialism, and the Industrial Revolution. But in terms of human history, both our extravagant use of nature and our views of that use are very recent events. Human beings with our current brain structure...have been living on earth for somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 years; our modern worldview and its accompanying resource use has been in place for no more than 300 years (Winter, 1996, p. 28).

Statistics such as these might provoke one to question why people of the United States consume at such a high level. One might also question whether this is a desirable practice. Clearly the answer is no. Not only does the U.S. population consume at a rate that cannot be sustained in the long-term, moreover it often advocates that the people of other countries should have the same rights to this level of consumption. The New Road Map Foundation points out that there is no possible way for the rest of the human world to share this same level of consumption.

The proportion of black men in prison — about 6 percent — is approximately 20 times the corresponding rate for white men...In Baltimore, 56 percent of black men are in prison or jail, out on bail, on probation or parole, or being sought on an arrest warrant. At least 90 percent of black men can expect to be arrested and jailed for a non-traffic offense at some point of their lives.

Statistics such as these might provoke one to question why so many African American men are imprisoned. One might also question whether the connection between this imprisonment and losing the right to vote for one specific cultural population is simply arbitrary or a sign that a system is faulty. There are cultures, where the sick, mentally ill, and disobedient members of society are not locked away as they are in the U.S., but instead are visibly apparent within their communities. One reason for this may be if there were too many people suffering from these afflictions it would surely be an indicator that the societal system was not working.

What does mainstream consumption and the connection between imprisonment for Black men and their loss of voting rights have to do with one another? The truth is that they are intertwined. Both issues reflect the failings of U.S. society. There are many others. The point is that, we often isolate these problems and prescribe solutions without looking at a larger picture. If we continue to isolate them, these problems will persist and/or manifest in different forms in other parts of society.

In order to address issues of sustainability for the urban African American community, it is necessary to look at the larger system that affects it. The problems within these communities cannot be isolated to its members, nor the surrounding environment. All too often, critics of urban communities blame ailments such as poverty, poor health, unemployment, broken families, crime, gangs, and drugs on its inhabitants. On the other spectrum, activists from these communities often blame the government of the United States or the wealthy, predominantly White, consumer class for its problems. While there is validity on both sides, these isolated approaches are ineffective in solving these problems. The solutions will come when the isolated groups within our society get together and look at the larger picture, an intrinsically connected system of being that all of these groups and issues are enmeshed within.

Culture 

...the way of life of a territorially distinct group of people who share a feeling of common identity. Human beings adapt to their social and physical environments through the medium of culture.

In the United States, culture is often generalized as race. While, people with similar racial characteristics may share a close cultural identity, in many cases this is not true. In actuality, many people in the U.S. have cultural practices (i.e. religious celebrations, eating habits, etc) that are not related to living harmoniously with their neighbors. And many "Americans" of different cultural and racial backgrounds live together within the same communities. Even in the rare cases where a community does share a common cultural identity, this identity is usually related to an ancestral homeland, rather than where its members currently live. The significance here is that the cultural laws the community obeys may not practically apply in terms of living sustainably with the natural environment.

Systems theory is a field that surfaced academically within the last 80 years (Kauffman, 1980). This emerging field counters reductionist theories that look at individual parts as containing meaning independent of a larger system. For example, a learning specialist may diagnose a student as having a learning disability because the student is unable to read at an average level. The specialist may believe that the student has not practiced basic skills sufficiently enough to read. In response the student may be required to work on a series of exercises to raise her/his reading level. However the specialist may not consider other factors which may impede comprehension, such as the student's health, home life, or relationships with classmates or teachers. There are numerous factors that may be involved and, in fact, a combination of these factors may explain why the student has trouble reading.

Western system: definition & critique

In this study, the author looks at the western culture of the United States as fostering both environmental and racial oppression. This is due to the concern for these two pending issues. However, the point is not to simply state that western culture is wholly negative, for it is not. There are many beneficial aspects of western culture. Along the same lines, the point is not to label the people of western culture as bad. This type of dualistic thinking will not foster change, but instead place certain groups in opposition to one another. The point is to uncover why these issues manifest within the system of western culture so the people embedded within it can begin to address the system's shortcomings. The author believes that western culture may have been sustainable at the time of its origins, but, at some point, became unsustainable. The ultimate goal is for western system to change from an unsustainable to a sustainable system.

Within this section, the author will explore some of the identifications of and critiques of western culture/system from a range of different theorists that include social scientists, educators, philosophers, and ecopsychologists. The theorists vary in identifying the exact origins of western culture and when it became unsustainable. Some believe western culture originated with the establishment of agricultural societies, others with the written word, others with Greek civilization, others with Christianity, while still others with the industrial revolution. However they all acknowledge, to some degree, that the current manifestations of western culture are problematic.

In her book, My Name is Chellis & I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization (1994), Chellis Glendinning claims human culture lost its connection to the rest of the world when it changed from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural society. She identifies the "original trauma" as:

Glendinning speaks of a time where humans stopped having a dynamic, participatory relationship with nature, and instead erected a relatively static human world. The living world suddenly stopped being the focus for humans. Instead humans had a new mastery of their means of survival where they could store food, settle down in one specific local, and focus more on the human realm, such as home, family, and community life. Glendinning believes that people from western culture are descendants of this agricultural society.

Both Tarnas (1991) and Winter (1996) connect the origins of western culture with Greek civilization. In his book, The Passion of the Western Mind, Tarnas overviews the rise of western culture beginning with the Greeks and continuing with the Romans, Christians, Renaissance period, up through the Scientific Revolution. In terms of the shift from the perception of a living world to a material world, Tarnas identifies that in the Greek civilization:

Tarnas, as opposed to the other theorists presented here, is less critical of western civilization, instead concerned with understanding how it arose.

Here we see two views that are at extremes with one another. The characteristics of the traditional view suggest an inclusiveness and spirituality of the living world. Here nature not only has meaning, it has its own separate identity that is not dependent on human meaning. For example, a tree would be a living member of the community that may contain certain wisdom and energies that the human may or may not understand. In the modern world, the tree might be seen as what it does for the human, such as generate oxygen or supply wood and paper products. The latter view would suggest that the tree could then become the property of a human, because it was not a spiritual being on its own, but merely a material resource to assist the human race.

Winter's chart goes on to suggest that this objectification process was also translated into the human world. Where once the community and survival of the group was the focus, now the individual became elevated. This set up the stage for a hierarchical, linear model for humans. Individuals could achieve higher status based on material wealth. In order to obtain this wealth necessitated competition between humans. Suddenly humans were competing against one another for the material resources of this earth.

In Wretched of the Earth (1968), a book that looks at the oppressive nature of colonization and its hierarchical order, Frantz Fanon makes this point. He acknowledges that when people from traditional cultures come into contact with people from western culture, the western culture tends to dominate. This is one way that the colonization of the "third world" occurred. A culture who is concerned more about harmony among the group and sustainability with the natural environment is quickly dominated by a culture who is competing for natural resources. Humans, like the other natural resources of the earth, became commodities. This is how institutions such as slavery rose in larger scale than ever before. Suddenly, humans from western culture were reaping massive amounts of material resources from foreign cultures. Through technological invention, this type of travel and excavation were possible. However, it necessitated human labor. This labor came from the bottom of the hierarchical chain.

They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned...They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane...They would make fine servants...With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want (p. 1).

Bookchin (1991) recognizes that the rise of western civilization paralleled the establishment of a hierarchical human order.

Bookchin asserts that this hierarchical order occurred with the establishment of capitalism. In contrast to Glendinning who marks the establishment of an agricultural society as the point where humans disconnected from the natural world, Bookchin differentiates between between "technics" and modern "technics". Early "technics" (early agricultural societies) did not result in a loss of human culture. Bookchin identifies it as "a richly communal social matrix that fostered an organic epistemology of design, an aesthetic use of materials, an elaboration of adaptive technics, a deep respect for diversity, and a strong emphasis on quality, skill, and artfulness" (p.259). In contrast, modern "technics" is described as "an armamentorium of vastly powerful instruments for asserting the authority of a technically trained, largely bureaucratic elite" (p. 268). Where in the past a community of workers used technology to produce goods, now individual workers became the products themselves. It was no longer a collective venture where those in a culture worked together towards similar aims, but instead, the community was individualized, each person becoming an object subjected to an hierarchical system.

Applying this idea to African Americans, it can be argued that this population is at the bottom of hierarchical order because its ancestors are from more traditional, non-linear cultures. This is also true of other subcultures within the United States who are more recently descended from non-western cultures. Ultimately, all peoples are descendants from traditional cultures, yet there are groups within the United States that are more recently connected to the characteristics of traditional cultures as outlined by Winters. These groups naturally fall at the bottom of the hierarchical structure.

...the African ethos as being "the survival of the tribe" and oneness with nature". The cultural values associated with this world view are cooperation, interdependence, and collective responsibility. In contrast the Euro-American ethos emphasizes the "survival of the fittest" and "control over nature". The cultural values associated with this world view are "competition", individualism" and "independence" (pp. 61-62).

The combination of the work of Hale and Noble support the connection between western culture and the oppression of both non-western cultures and the natural environment. Both traditional cultures and the natural world fall into the relational, circular category, as opposed to western culture which falls into the linear definition. As a linear culture relies on a hierarchical system of power, both traditional cultures and the natural resources of the earth become dominated when placed within the western system. They both become commodities. Natural resources are objectified and unsustainably consumed because they have no defenses against the material consumption of western culture. They have no voice or power. Similarly, the people of non-western cultures are placed in a foreign system where they have less power and fall on the bottom of a hierarchical system.

This critique of western culture is not inclusive of all the work done in this field. Anyone interested in learning more about the origination and manifestations of western culture can employ the numerous studies in this area. Here, the purpose is to demonstrate how both natural resources and non-western peoples are oppressed when they come into contact with this western system. It is also important to note that even those people who benefit most from the western system often find themselves longing for a different mode of connecting with the living world. This is one aspect of the field of ecopsychology. This field demonstrates how the people of western culture often long for deeper relationships with the living world, including other human beings. Reintegrating in a relational, sustainable system will foster these deeper connections. In order to start the process, it is necessary to identify the characteristics of a sustainable system.

The preceding section highlighted ways in which western culture has been oppressive to the natural environment and peoples from more traditional cultures. However, it does not give a psychological explanation for the unhealthy development of western culture. Psychologist, Annabelle Nelson, provides this. Nelson, like Hale, claims that western culture is based upon a linear system. And similar to systems theorists who critique western culture’s reliance on reductionist (parts oriented) thinking, Nelson associates the linear, western culture with an overemphasis on scientific analysis. As a result, western culture is caught in a dualistic model where "reality" becomes things that can be explained by the field of science. Hence, those qualities that are outside of the scientific model become invalid.

Here, the relational, traditional culture becomes "primitive" to western culture because it is not based upon scientific inquiry. Traditional cultures employ the unconscious mind to interpret their worldview. Things such as ritual, divination, and animism are examples of this unconscious thinking. Western culture devalues and often demeans this type of thinking because its workings are unexplainable.

In sum, western culture is flawed because it places too much emphasis on the linear thinking of the conscious mind. It is part oriented thinking which disregards other types of knowing. Within this linear model, both the natural environment and people from traditional cultures become marginalized, because their way of life does not fixate on the conscious mind. For example, a tree does not have a cerebral cortex and thus, cannot participate in a world based on linear thinking. It is immediately silenced due to its biological composition. However a tree certainly has other modes of intelligence, for it is alive and regenerative. Western culture may not understand the intelligence of a tree, only acknowledging its workings through a scientific model. It chooses to ignore other possible non-scientific meanings found within a tree, because they are unexplainable within the western model. For example, if a child professed to hearing a tree speaking to him, this possibility would be dismissed by mainstream society, for it is not possible within the western framework.

With this information, one might deduce that different cultures rely differently on the conscious and subconscious parts of the brain. Clearly both parts are needed or else the human makeup would not include them. The linear, conscious mind appears very direct and task oriented, while the subconscious is less defined, associated with the unexplainable. One might conclude that in order to reintegrate into a culture that is more holistic, we would need to employ both the conscious and subconscious equally. However, Nelson would reject this idea of equal utilization. In fact, Nelson believes that the subconscious (limbic brain) needs to be emphasized over the conscious (cerebral cortex), and, in fact, the conscious mind is actually a function of the unconscious:

This idea is quite revolutionary when applied to our current topic, systems and their relation to culture. The western culture/system not only fixates on one part of the mind — this part, the conscious mind, is the wrong part to fixate upon. According to Nelson, the conscious mind is simply a function of the subconscious mind. The subconscious naturally regulates the conscious. A culture who bases itself on the conscious is not natural and thus unsustainable. Nelson provides us with one key to how western culture can become sustainable with the living world. It must halt its overemphasis on conscious reality and acquiesce its control to the subconscious. This would necessitate that western culture accept that the human mind cannot explain the reality of existence. Much knowledge explaining existence is unperceivable by the human brain. Humans are simply embedded in a larger system of being that is more intelligent than we can comprehend. Western culture must shift to a living system, one that still employs the conscious mind, but recognizes that it is only a function of a greater subconscious.

This chapter has focused on demonstrating how the system employed by western culture is both unnatural and unsustainable. Nelson demonstrates that the human is physically designed to work within a larger framework, one that is open to the unexplainable phenomena of the universe. With the acceptance that a sustainable system is one that is based upon subconscious/unexplainable phenomena that is more intelligent than the human mind, it is difficult to try and define this sustainable system. This type of information is challenging to articulate and is not necessarily logical.

1. Pattern of organization - the configuration of relationships that determines the system’s essential characteristics

3. Life process - the activity involved in the continual embodiment of the system’s pattern of organization (p. 161)

The "pattern of organization" of a culture would encompass all living entities within the culture. These "essential characteristics" include humans, animals, the natural elements (fire, earth, air, and water), and any other living matter found within the landscape of a specific culture. This composition of culture is different than the standard western definition because it includes more than just people. Typically, people of western society relate culture to a grouping of people. This is one of the problems with our psychology, we tend to place humans at the center of all things, and to silence out the rest of the living world. A sustainable, living culture must include all living entities, because the interactions of these characteristics shape how the culture functions. For example, a culture who lives in a region that is abundant with water will be different than one which is located in the desert.

The second manifestation of structure of a living cultural system is how a group of humans choose to organize themselves in response to the various living entities within their landscape. For example, a population who lives near the ocean who most likely base their sustenance on fishing. This would shape where they built homes, what type of work they did, their modes of travel, the type of clothing worn. This population may pray to gods that are symbolic of water. The types of crops grown would be affected. The possible manifestations would be endless. In contrast, a population that lived in the desert would manifest in very different modes. The point is that a living culture structures itself according to the living world around it.

When accessing these criteria of a living cultural system and then comparing it to the composition and practices of western culture, it is clear that western culture is not a living system. In the first place, western culture does not necessarily consider non-humans within its pattern of organization. Of course it does to some extent, yet non-human entities are not considered members of the culture. Other entities are only considered in terms of how they benefit or disadvantage humans. This point was covered within the critique of western system.

This leads us to the last criteria, the "life process". People of western cultures are not responsive to immediate changes in their bioregions because they are not dependent upon them. Where a fishing village would need to respond when a specific species of fish declined, a western community may not. There are many possible factors involved. First of all, the inhabitants of the village may no longer depend on the fish for sustenance. Their diet has most likely been enlarged to contain a range of foods that are not even available within their local landscape. When the fish population begins to decline, the people may not be affected. And if they are, they have many options to reduce the effects. They can, in the short run choose not to address the problems. Thus, western culture does not continually respond to its immediate world, for it does not have to. However, as the environmental movement has shown, in the long term, western culture will have to respond to the changes within its immediate environment. Moreover, due to its sphere of influence, it will have to respond to global changes as well.

What is the role of place and culture in manifesting a living system?

Ecopsychology identifies the dysfunctional relationships humans of western civilization have developed with the rest of the natural community, over time, as a result of the dominating values of western culture. It is a study of the rift between the human psyche and that of the natural world. A true ecopsychological view recognizes that the individual’s psyche is embedded within the natural world and that the natural world is, in turn, affected by the individual’s psyche. The relationship is reciprocal. This does not mean that humans are half of the relationship and all other sources of life comprise the other half, but instead, recognizes that all of life is interconnected in infinite ways. Currently, this collective world is in a state of crisis due to the underlying assumptions of western civilization and the enactment of these assumptions onto the world. Ecopsychologists seek to heal the rift between the human psyche and the rest of the living world by recognizing our dependent relationship and redeveloping this relationship in ways which attune to nature.

It is important to contrast this definition of culture with that of modern civilization. In this country, we attribute culture to racial groupings. We have Jewish, Hispanic, Anglo, Asian, and African Americans (there are many other racial groupings as well). One’s culture are the customs that have been passed down from generation to generation such as celebrations, customs, cuisines, and many others. However, this idea of culture is not related to a specific place. One can move from their locale and still retain their culture. Yet for indigenous populations, one’s culture is specifically about one’s landscape. It is an interpretation of the natural world in order to derive common laws for living.

The many cultures of the world have developed from isolated groups of people searching for the best ways to live on this planet. They established means for consistently meeting survival needs, and to quell anxiety, they chose the wisest answers they could find to questions about the unknown, such as explaining the power of the forces of nature, or understanding death (p. 140).

...when human bands were displaced from their familiar lands ...and suddenly found themselves in a world where their ritual gestures, their prayers, and their stories seemed to lose all meaning, where the shapes of the landforms lacked coherence, where nothing made sense (Abram, 1996, p. 269).

Conclusion

The first question demonstrated that the western system is oppressive to non-western cultures that are contained within it. Thus Blacks are already at a disadvantage because they are descendants of a more traditional culture which is relational, yet embedded within a system that is linear. When placing the oppression of Blacks within a system’s analysis, it becomes clear that this group is not alone in its oppression. The natural resources of this world are oppressed as well. In fact many groups, such as women are oppressed within the western system. In fact, it could be argued that all living entities within western system are oppressed (including the perpetrators of western culture) because the system itself is unnatural.

The author will carry these principles through the rest of the paper, which directly addresses the issues of urban African Americans. The next chapter, Displacement and Oppression for Urban African Americans, will look at the direct result of the displacement of this population into a western system. First identifying displacement, and then tracing the history of African Americans from slavery to the present. The following chapter, African Nature-based Traditions, will then look at some of the original traditions of Blacks which are sustainable. Lastly, the author will attempt to connect the past and present of urban Blacks to brainstorm some possible future models of sustainability.