Culture: Western World View

Much of the way we in the West are taught to look at the world and ourselves is misleading and unhelpful, and it is hard, from within the culture we have grown up in, to see where we go wrong. Many of our culture’s underlying assumptions are unfounded, and quite arrogant - and they stop us sensing the true limits of our competence and importance in the world.

The West regards itself as the global leader, politically, scientifically and in terms of ‘human consciousness’. We see ourselves as being the vanguard of human development, showing the way for other peoples to follow. But, for example, what we mean by ‘education’ is just that – what we mean by it: what we inculcate into our young, with a view to optimizing their economic chances and social status in our competitive society. Of course, there’s more to it that this – we don’t send children to school heartlessly or cynically – but we can’t help passing on ideas and stories that have shaped us, and it’s hard to see clearly something you are still enclosed within.

Living in Africa in my thirties gave me a glimpse of my own culture as just one way of looking at things. In terms of rural Zimbabwean values and way of life, many of my own received notions were shifted vigorously to one side. At the same time, I was forced to observe the desperate eagerness of everyone around me to get tickets for the Western affluence cruise ship (or, from their point of view, lifeboat) if not for themselves, at least for their children. This was what drove parents to build the school I taught in, and pay school fees for their children to attend – and this is what drives people world wide to learn English, be ‘educated’, improve their chances in this increasingly competitive ‘international’ society spawned by Western capitalism.

updated 19/2/12