Why our culture is declining, and why we are following western culture blindly, is it good to follow or not?


Firstly we will look into definition culture:

According to the classic definition of culture given by E.B Taylor

"Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by the man as a member of the society”

The definition states that culture Is that complex whole i-e a whole made up of complicated or interrelated parts…which includes all the knowledge we have in the form of books and literature, beliefs of a person, art and aesthetics including folk tales, handicrafts, all the moral codes norms, values, traditions, ethics and all the abilities of an indigenous individual acquired by him/her as a member of society…. so its clear that every person living in a given society conscious or unconsciously follows some codes of conduct and has a specific way of behavior which is called as culture…

Another definition states that

“Culture is the man-made part of environment”

So we have two types of environment.

1- Natural environment
2- Man made
Natural is the one which is given to us by god…. it includes all naturally occurring resources like water, minerals, fruits vegetables, sunlight, rainfall natural disasters etc.

Now when we talk about man made environment it refers to all those ways, tactics and procedures adopted by man to utilize these resources… e.g

If we take the example of Eskimos….these people have to face hardships, but the way they manage to live is entirely different from those residing in other parts of the world….this is culture, that how they adopt to their environment. The way they cope with the situations…


If we take another small example of Fruits…fruits are a natural blessing of god…its part of nature…. every society and its people are blessed with different sorts of fruits… now the way people make use of these fruits is different…. for example there can be difference in ways of eating, there can be difference in the way they cut it. Like if we take example of typical Punjabi culture…its totally different from the west…. Mango the most popular and most liked fruit is eaten very openly in our culture…many mangoes are placed in a large utensil usually a bucket with lots of ice or cold water…and than without caring about clothes, face and hands it is eaten very frankly…opposite to the west where it is cut with 100’s of styles and placed stylishly served in platter…and after so many steps finally eaten…this is all part of culture….
I will give another example of dress patterns…. The universal phenomena is that all human beings need some thing to protect their bodies. Its natural… but the way people dress is different in all societies…this is culture and cultural differences.

Reasons for decline in culture
Due to shortage of time I will very briefly discuss some reasons which i consider to be responsible for moribund of our culture…


1-) Mass media…
The main factor, which I personally think, is responsible for culture deterioration is Mass Media…. It includes both electronic and print media…. but I think electronic media is more responsible…now a days all the TV channels are promoting cultures of other nations especially Hindu culture…people are so much habitual of it that they are day by day forgetting their own golden culture and cultural values…people are following the dress patterns of the west, food habits are being adopted, lack of respect among the youth for elders, modernism and many other.

2-) Acculturation…
Acculturation is an other cause of cultural decline…. we are borrowing traits of other’s culture so hastily that we are gradually forgetting our original culture…the adaptation rate is very high…merging up of two cultures results in loss of one.


3-) Globalization…Loss in culture is also the outcome of rapid globalization…. its due to the swift transfer of knowledge, technology, manpower, ideas from one country to another country, due to which our culture is fading out.

4-)Lack of ethnocentrism…
I think due shortage of ethnocentric values among the native there is decline in our culture. People are no more ethnocentric…they don’t have much respect for their own culture.

5-) lack of child socialization...
Its due to parents neglect ion that the youth is going towards western culture…parents have given so much freedom to their children that they don’t even know where their children are going…what type of dress they are wearing…what sort of food they are taking…what are there ideas regarding religion and culture? and they don’t even have time to tell their children about their culture…

6-)Lack of transmission of culture from generation to generation…Due to lack of transmission of cultural values by ancestors there is continuous loss in culture and cultural values…. this will also result in further loss when this generation will have nothing to transmit to their own generation except from the artificial culture which they have adopted of the west…but here we cannot give whole blame to the elders because some times it’s the youth who doesn’t want to receive and adopt their own culture willingly…

7-)Notion of Brain drain…I think the notion of brain drain has also some role for decline of our culture and cultural values…. e.g. when the. the cream of the country is taken away by the west…. When these people return back they become a source of inspiration for others…. these young people have some times fully or partially adopted the international cultures…so they become role models for others…resulting in cultural loss…


8-)No conditioning of people…
Due to lack of social conditioning and proper training of natives…we have to face culture deterioration…people are not aware of the importance of their own cultures…there is no training to create awareness among the masses how to safeguard their own culture…

9-)Propaganda by west…
Unhealthy propaganda by the west is also a cause for cultural decline…these people project their own culture in such a way that I seems that there culture is the only best culture of the world…we can see that even they had not left a single chance to hit our food habits too…. opening of international chains of KFC, McDonalds, or pizza hut…is an example…what they are doing is that they are now finishing this junk food in the own countries due to increasing rate of obesity among their youth, and they are throwing away the junk to country like ours…

10-)Elites as role models…There is a trend in our society that people follow the elite class blinding without looking at the consequences…. like if the high gentry is preferring going to KFC, McDonalds, or pizza hut…the lower class will also feel proud and elevated to visit such places even if they couldn’t afford to go there…

11-)Third world….
Another problem of our country is that we are so called third world country and are so much impressed from these developed nations that we always think what they are doing is 100% correct….and we will surely succeed if we follow..

12-)Migration…
Migration to other countries is another cause of cultural turn down…in our country people prefer infact feel superior to work in foreign states…when lot of people move abroad, settle establish there automatically the adopt many of their cultural traits…. apart from adoption they also transfer many of these traits to their native cultures…. resulting in decline of their own culture…

IS IT GOOD TO FOLLOW:
NOW in my opinion its not good to follow the western culture blindly, but yes we can adopt good things, but only to such an extent that we retain our own culture and stop abondoning our own…

what do u people say....waiting for ur precious comments

regards,