Precis 2013

Original Passage: Culture, in human societies, has two main aspects; an external, formal aspect and an inner, ideological aspect. The external forms of culture, social or artistic, are merely an organized expression of its inner ideological aspect, and both are an inherent component of a given social structure. They are changed and modified when this structure is changed or modified and because of this organic link they also help and influence such changes in their parent organism. Cultural Problems, therefore, cannot be studied or understood or solved in isolation from social problems, i.e. problems of political and economic relationships. The cultural problems of the underdeveloped countries, therefore, have to be understood and solved in the light of larger perspective, in the context of underlying social problems. Very broadly speaking, these problems are primarily the problems of arrested growth (stopped development); they originate primarily from long years of imperialist-Colonialist domination and the remnants of a backward outmoded (old-fashioned) social structure. This should not require much elaboration that European Imperialism caught up with the countries of Asia, Africa or Latin America between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of them were fairly developed feudal societies with ancient traditions of advanced feudal culture. Others had yet to progress beyond primitive pastoral tribalism. Social and cultural development of them all was frozen at the point of their political subjugation and remained frozen until the coming of political independence. The culture of these ancient feudal societies, in spite of much technical and intellectual excellence, was restricted to a small privileged class and rarely intermingled with the parallel unsophisticated folk culture of the general masses. Primitive tribal culture, in spite of its child like beauty, had little intellectual content. Both feudal and tribal societies living contagiously () in the same homelands were constantly engaged in tribal, racial and religious or other feuds (hostility) with their tribal and feudal rivals. Colonialist – imperialist domination accentuated this dual fragmentation, the vertical division among different tribal and national groups, the horizontal division among different classes within the same tribal or national groups. This is the basic ground structure, social and cultural, bequeathed to the newly liberated countries by their former over lords

Precis: Culture of a society has two basic features: external and internal. Social fabric of a society is woven by these features. Therefore, a change in them alters the social structures of a society altogether. So a social problem cannot be solved without taking into account its cultural aspects. Similarly, to solve social problems of an underdeveloped country, her cultural dimentions needs to be studied. Mostly these problems are legacy of Colonialism. Prior to this these societies had their own systems i.e Feudalism and Tribalism. But Imperialistic rule caused the stagnation of the cultural and social development of these systems. Resultantly, only few could benefit from some of the fruits of Feudalism. Similarly, intellectual upbringing of Tribalism was also halted. Both these systems were already in conflict; Colonialism furthered this divide. As a result, the new born countries inherited an immature system.


Title: Social and Cultural affects of Imperialism