Religious / philosophical exotism and cultural identity

by Narkissos 35 Replies latest jw friends

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  Midget-Sasquatch

  As someone whose spent a lifetome on the fringes, I think cultural identity has a strong influence on one's world view. At first, I thought I was becoming more and more alienated from the JWs at the KH and the other students at school (roman catholic system), because I couldn't reconcile the two belief systems, nor could I really agree with everything offered by one or the other. I thought I would find the religious or philosophical worldview I could identify with solely on how closely it matched known objective reality.

  I realized though how the degrees of sympathy I had for one faith/view or another, wasn't just strictly on whether I felt one was closer to "the truth". It was also greatly influenced by the people I had contact with from those religious sub-cultures. The way they treated me, and especially how they treated those I felt were the needy in society, made me take a second look at their particular religious and philosophical take. It either drew more or repelled me from that sub-culture. Even as a severely impaired and awkard social animal, people were an important part of the picture for who I was at that point in time.

  Just my own experience, as an alien in practically every group I've ever been in.
• 

  Terry

  It could be worse Terry -

  Someone could have offered to pray for you
• 

  Terry

  Just my own experience, as an alien in practically every group I've ever been in.

  What you are describing is an individual. An INDIVIDUAL!

  There are far worse plights than being a person who thinks for themselves and doesn't need the approabation of the group to validate your own experience.

  T.
• 

  Midget-Sasquatch

  What you are describing is an individual. An INDIVIDUAL!

  There are far worse plights than being a person who thinks for themselves and doesn't need the approabation of the group to validate your own experience.

  Yeah, I thought we were talking about the individual, and how they were a product of their culture. The thread made me wonder just how set or how flexible are any of us in this area? So I thought I'd throw in my two cents as someone who felt foreign practically everywhere. Would I be less immune to cultural moulding?

  In line with the thread topic, I feel, that in my case at least, despite my being on their fringes, those different groups (sub-cultures if you will) still could influence who I was becoming. Albeit, I think I was more conscious of which facets were affecting me, which means I'm more responsible for how I turned out. Damn it!

  Maybe some are a bit more adept at assimilating different paradigms, but maybe there's just a core imprinted onto us in those formative years that we'll never change.

  I totally agree that its freeing to realize one doesn't need a group's approval. (If only I could totally free myself from needing acceptance of JW family members). Now take someone, like yourself say, in changing one's paradigm and rejecting the JWs, wasn't there necessarily also a concomitant change in their environment, be it physical, social, or mental? So maybe in a way, we're trying to work the process the other way, to make ourselves into who we'd like to be.
• 

  Narkissos

  Thanks everyone for your nice and insightful comments !

  MS, I can relate to what you write. I think one essential distinction to make, as far as cultural identity is concerned, is that of culture vs. subculture. The WT, just as any other Western religion, party, school or club, offers only the latter. One can be alternately attracted or repelled by it, belong or feel strange -- but still we know there is a wider world just outside the door. Even in the most die-hard family of the most freakish cult the wider culture filters through every hole -- language, school, media, etc.

  Now a dominant characteristic of most Western culture, I feel, is its emphasis on the individual, for the better and the worse. It is the culture of the personal narrative (from the Greek tragedy to the modern romantic novel, via the Gospels). This gives potential meaning to our personal story, wherever it should lead us, and gives us the strength never to identify completely with a family, a clan or another group. We can break ties, betray, be shunned, drift, wander, feel marginal or lonely -- and yet we are never cut off from any big picture since we are the main character in the story, and we have learnt to accept, or even enjoy, absurdity, anti-heroes and sad endings. This, I feel, is a big difference from traditional Eastern cultures. On a mystical or rationalistic path our story goes on. This is a source of many misunderstandings when we approach other societies -- we cannot reduce ourselves to being just a cog in a machinery or an anonymous part of universal consciousness. I don't think it is better or worse, it is just our way.
• 

  LittleToe

  Didier:
  I don't know if it's as clear-cut as you seem to be suggesting.

  What about the sub-plot about the "body of Christ"?
• 

  Narkissos

  What about the sub-plot about the "body of Christ"?

  Good point Ross. I think that the basic intuitions of Christian mysticism are not very different originally from Eastern mysticism: die to oneself, deny oneself, lose one's life... and yet, the Western reception of Christianity put the emphasis on personal salvation -- still an individual narrative going on. Even the Christ into which we die and live, or who lives in us, has an individual human face. The born again or resurrected ego lives on individually in the body of Christ or the communio sanctorum. It doesn't vanish into a faceless "all". This may not be what original Christianity (?!) was about but it is, I feel, what the "Western touch" made it.

  I remember reading a book by C.G. Jung a long time ago, about Eastern thinking. At some point he remarked there was an insuperable misunderstanding whenever Westerners tried to approach it. A Westerner practicing yoga, for instance, couldn't help using the concept of breaking free of his/her ego as a means, or tool, for personal development (!) -- s/he could never see it as the real end and so invariably missed the (Eastern) point.
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  jgnat

  Interesting, when Bruce Olson brought Christianity to the Motilone Indians, they converted en-masse, consistent with their integrated culture. It grated Bruce and his Western mindset, but he came to terms that HIS view of how "Christianity should be spread" was contaminated with individualistic western thinking.

  http://www.bruceolson.com/english/english.htm
• 

  LittleToe

  Didier:
  Thanks for that reply. You're clarified it nicely.

  I'm LOL at your comment on yoga. It reminds me of a similar conversation that a fellow student had with my TaiChi teacher

  Btw, any chance of you being in Amsterdam on the weekend?
• 

  Narkissos

  Btw, any chance of you being in Amsterdam on the weekend?

  Unfortunately not, I should be in Germany...