“All forms of culture are of equal value.” My stand on this proposition is that, “Cultures are not of equal value.”
In 1871, Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book entitled “Primitive Culture,” he first used the word culture. He defined culture as an intricate whole that includes belief, knowledge, morals, customs, law, and capabilities or habits, acquired by human being as a member of the society . The definition itself is partly a statement implying that cultures are not of equal value since it emphasized that within the complex whole it composed of different principles or natural laws. In addition, culture has levels that are part of the behavior perceptions learned in society. In cultural traditions, it referred to the shared traditions, beliefs, and languages. In particular, the other level of culture is a subculture that comes from different parts of the world. For example, considering the idea between the cultural religion of Christianity and Islam, both are permanently different in terms of their faith. Religion is a major part of every culture, and each faith influenced the way they behave as believers. Even though people are potentially equal, the cultures are not equal definitely. It is necessary to accept the idea of the moral and social progress. In addition, it is better if people should live in the culture that promotes advancement in humanity. The world is divided in cultures that are defined by the differences with each other.
The concept of cultural differences in religion is to construct an inter-religious discourse that the univocal use of God, substituted by equivocal and analogous uses; the concepts of love, goodness, and wisdom. The discourse of a nation should acknowledge that every nation is unique in terms of religion. Considering the uniqueness of a religion, it is the same as saying that, Christianity and the Islamic religions differ in the concepts of doctrines, traditions, and beliefs. In addition, both religions have their own separate past, present, and future; all nations with its members share common historical experiences, origins, language, and interests. However, the culture of the nations has different religious notions. There are problematic issues, that culture or some religious groups that lack more concepts of perfection. One of the issues is the provisional set of human concepts expressed by identifiable words in different languages. It provides a trans-cultural framework in the analysis and its meaning of many languages or cultures in the form of metalanguage. Some cultures lack the concept of love, and it creates a theoretical issue. The theoretical issue has the emphasis on the forms of argumentative discourse, its effectiveness when it is spoken to a certain language, about God as an ultimate love. Christianity has a different way to worship the Savior, while the Islam religion worships Allah. The inter-religious arguments somewhat construed in the trans-cultural metalanguage if there is no proper place to fill in the concepts of divine perfections, love or wisdom.
People clustered, and there are national traits that embraced economic growth and technology advancement, however, some resisted the traits. The geographic border areas are not limited in specified cultures, and the influences overlapped in other cultures. The different aspects of interests affect the people in terms of religion or language. The socioeconomic status conceptualized the class or social standing of people, and measured according to income, occupation, and education. People questioned about the equally of cultures, and its enduring traits such as being racist. Even some economists assumed history was driven by material factors like resources. The culture is strongly influenced by the socioeconomic status of a person and affects the other classes in the society, a sort of comparison that leads to misunderstanding. However, nobody has the bravery to help elaborate the sense of concern about the disagreement of culture or cultural differences of religion that leads to conflict and inequality. Particularly, in the Australia, there are segmentations of cultures. Australians are integrated economically for years, and lifestyles differ in segments. Historically, when people worked in factories, the lifestyles were the same. In the contemporary world, economic growth created diversified lifestyles. It only implies that capitalism has driven the disintegration of traditional social attachment, and people in terms of economic cultural growth changed gradually. It is rightfully to say that, all cultures are not equal; the cultural religion speaks to it. It is proven for years that cultures all over the world are influenced different factors such as technology advancement, changed of lifestyles, economic growth, and most especially religion.
References
Malik, K. (2002, May 28). All cultures are not equal. Retrieved from
https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/malik/not-equal.htm.
O'Neil, D. (2006, May 26). What is culture? Retrieved from
http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_1.htm.
