Culture

According to Geert Hofstede, culture is the “collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another and it includes systems of values and values are among the building blocks of culture”.

As I was searching online, I chanced upon a few articles on recent events that sets me thinking. One of these articles was on the declining birth rate in China and people are debating if the government should abolish the 30 year old one-child policy.

Here is the link: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-10/21/content_8822496.htm

In another article earlier, the government has made a very clear stand about not abolishing this policy as it has helped China to control its population and prevent a baby boom. This is what makes China a different society from that of the USA. It is a highly collectivist country where its people normally conform to government policies. Being a communist country, they believe in equality in reward distribution. And this culture is passed down the generations.

As compared to the USA where only specific aspects of a person’s life is influenced by ingroups, China is a society where the ingroups influences their lives tremendously. For example, their government decides what they want their citizens to think and see through censorship and filtering of news about its own country. They will omit negative reports and only publish news that praises their country. They even spend money to restrict access to certain websites that they deem unfit for their netizens. It has even gone to the exteme that the government had to intervene with the number of children each family can have. This is a result of agenda setting in mass communication.

On the other hand, United States of America is an individualistic society where freedom and social recognition is highly valued. In such a culture, social behaviour is determined largely by personal goals, attitudes and values of collectivities. Whereas Asian countries like China are collectivist society, where harmony and equlity in distribution is honoured.

However, be it a collectivist society or an individualistic one, there is bound to be ethnocentrism in most societies.  Ethnocentrism is a belief that one’s culture is superior to all others and tendency to judge all cultures by one’s own criteria. A few months ago, an outburst of racial riots in Xinjiang, China has caught the attention of the world. A deadly fight between Uighurs and Han Chinese in southern China broke out as Uighurs fear erosion of traditional culture and the persistent violence in the area between the two ethnic groups since 1991. Uighurs identified the information and images circulating on the Internet of the lynching, by a crowd of Han, of Uighur workers in a toy factory in Guangdong as a form of contempt and this led to the outbreak. Cases like this are a common sight in other places of the world. In America, Black discrimintion is evident in today’s society. In Latin America, Latinos are facing discrimination and increasing hate crimes committed against Latino immigrants. Below is the link to a video of one such incident of a Latino hate crime victim:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2009/10/21/lia.shendo.cnn

Cultures is something that determines who we are. To what extent do you feel that our lives are greatly influenced by culture? What are your views on a collectivist or individualistic society?

Below are links to the various articles that I’ve found:
These are on China’s one child policy and related articles

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-10/24/content_8843109.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-10/24/content_8843114.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-03/26/content_7618314.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-08/26/content_8620149.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07/24/content_8466365.htm

This one is on the Latino Americans:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/13-2