Hello and high-quality seeds are not enough to ensure their blooming. For that, the right environment is also necessary: good soil, sufficient moisture, and appropriate amounts of light and heat, according to the needs of the species to which it belongs. Using this image as an analogy, we could say that for a human being, culture is like the soil that provides appropriate conditions for flourishing. Different cultures – whether it be family culture, society, global culture, upbringing, and education we receive – will stimulate different things in us, in the same way that different types of soil and terrain influence the growth and characteristics of plants.
An interesting question is what kind of influence our current culture has on us? Are we living in a culture that brings out the best in people?
An interesting question is what kind of influence our current culture has on us? Are we living in a culture that brings out the best in people? Do we receive valuable “nutrients” to develop human qualities such as compassion, wisdom, and rationality?
Do we still value qualities such as free will, altruism, justice, and perseverance, which have been highly regarded throughout history? Or do we live in societies that bring out our most selfish aspects, encourage insatiable appetites, feed our ego, dull our senses, make us dependent, physically unhealthy, mentally weak, mentally scattered, and spiritually empty? I would like to leave it to each reader to answer that question. However, I remember a lecture from my psychology professor in college who told us that modern civilization is regressing humanity because it took us thousands of years to learn to control our impulses and delay immediate pleasure for the sake of wiser long-term goals. This human achievement is threatened by our contemporary consumer society, which exploits the latest psychological findings to make us want more and want it now.
Powerful and constantly fine-tuned algorithms are turning our world into something resembling an addictive online game. “We are like rats in an experiment designed to say yes.”1 To all temptations in the world, regardless of whether they are truly good for our physical, mental or economic health. In order to choose, we need to say no to our initial impulses, pause and consider the long-term consequences of our decisions.
In order to choose, we need to say no to our initial impulses, pause and consider the long-term consequences of our decisions.
What is stronger: our inner chimp or our inner human? Steve Peters says that our inner chimp is far stronger because every piece of information that reaches our brain first goes to the limbic system. It seems that ancient civilizations had a more positive po View of our human nature. Old metaphors for the inner chimpanzee were: the dragon conquered by St. Michael, St. George or Siegfried, or the bull slain by Mithras, or the Minotaur defeated by Theseus. The message of these myths is clear: the inner man can conquer the inner beast.
So, what kind of education and culture do we need to awaken the inner man? Our future may depend on the answer to that question, as well as our ability to accept and apply it.
1William Leith, columnist for The Observer, London’s Guardian Sunday magazine.