Groups
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Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Groups
In any environment where you have groups of people you'd see a number of underlying cultural rules play out. These will include things like people helping each other, people being respectful of each other’s feelings, everyone supportive of each other’s views and mutual respect.
There is however another element of culture- Groupism. People will tend to form tight groups based on language and regional factors. This may have its origins for.example in language issues where everyone is not comfortable in the common language a group is assigned to use etc. In extreme cases these groups will more or less function as self contained eco systems and make very little effort to invite people in or reach out to others. I go to the extent of saying that they do injustice to others and themselves by excluding others and themselves from others.
Another thing is, if you notice carefully, is that all is not well even within these groups. There is a lot of discord and turmoil beneath the surface. But that’s the thing- it is beneath the surface. And it rarely reaches the surface. So outsiders tend to see these as homogenous groups and communities:)
Why? I think it is because people here are much more willing to refrain from asserting their individual rights in favor of maintaining harmony. The welfare of the group outweighs the welfare of the individual in most cases. I think that many times this is taken to an unreasonable extreme.
And this is something that I have seen everywhere. Perhaps this is part of human nature. This ‘small-group’ nature perhaps constitutes a natural base for racism and all ethnocentrism. But if we recognize it in ourselves we can easily educate ourselves to rise above our small-group nature in order not to become ethnocentric or racist. People need to widen their perspectives from their own self-centered world to one that includes the people around them. Those who do not miss a wonderful life where we could potentially extend our own learning frontiers and experiences .
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Groups
In any environment where you have groups of people you'd see a number of underlying cultural rules play out. These will include things like people helping each other, people being respectful of each other’s feelings, everyone supportive of each other’s views and mutual respect.
There is however another element of culture- Groupism. People will tend to form tight groups based on language and regional factors. This may have its origins for.example in language issues where everyone is not comfortable in the common language a group is assigned to use etc. In extreme cases these groups will more or less function as self contained eco systems and make very little effort to invite people in or reach out to others. I go to the extent of saying that they do injustice to others and themselves by excluding others and themselves from others.
Another thing is, if you notice carefully, is that all is not well even within these groups. There is a lot of discord and turmoil beneath the surface. But that’s the thing- it is beneath the surface. And it rarely reaches the surface. So outsiders tend to see these as homogenous groups and communities:)
Why? I think it is because people here are much more willing to refrain from asserting their individual rights in favor of maintaining harmony. The welfare of the group outweighs the welfare of the individual in most cases. I think that many times this is taken to an unreasonable extreme.
And this is something that I have seen everywhere. Perhaps this is part of human nature. This ‘small-group’ nature perhaps constitutes a natural base for racism and all ethnocentrism. But if we recognize it in ourselves we can easily educate ourselves to rise above our small-group nature in order not to become ethnocentric or racist. People need to widen their perspectives from their own self-centered world to one that includes the people around them. Those who do not miss a wonderful life where we could potentially extend our own learning frontiers and experiences .
posted by madwind at 9:13 AM
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