Enculturation
Nowadays, in Third World countries, we talk a great deal about "enculturation."
What is this thing called "culture"?
I'm not very happy with the word.
Does it mean you'd like to do something because you were conditioned to do it?
That you'd like to feel something because you were conditioned to feel it?
Isn't that being mechanical?
Imagine an American baby that is adopted by a Russian couple and taken to Russia.
It has no notion that it was born American.
It's brought up talking Russian; it lives and dies for Mother Russia; it hates Americans.
The child is stamped with his own culture; it's steeped in its own literature.
It looks at the world through the eyes of its culture.
Now, if you want to wear your culture the way you wear your clothes, that's fine.
The Indian woman would wear a sari and the American woman would wear something else, the Japanese woman would wear her kimono.
But nobody identifies herself with the clothes.
But you do want to wear your culture more intently.
You become proud of your culture.
They teach you to be proud of it.
Awareness
Anthony de Mello
