Chapter 4, Culture: philosophic perspectives III

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

Goal-seeking in culture

“If it is true, as earlier contended, that all cultures have implicit or explicit goals — that is, purposes toward which they endeavor to move with some sense of direction — then it is also true that all cultures have more or less articulate sets of values that symbolize rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, beauty or ugliness.  But the nature of cultural goals, like that of order and process, may be interpreted again in conflicting ways, depending upon the metacultural assumptions from which it is approached.”  (p. 58)

“Let us consider … the view that the values of culture are primarily determined by the basic interest of human beings — by their striving for satisfaction of needs and wants. . . . These range all the way from the physiological hunger of food and sex to the more subtle but nevertheless equally genuine sociopsychological wants of recognition and cooperation.”  (p. 59)

“Such an approach to cultural goals may be expressed axiologically as a functional theory of ethics — ethics being defined here as the philosophic study of moral conduct. . . . the interests of human beings everywhere in the world can be found to have many common denominators, no matter how diversified cultures might otherwise be.  Thus, one of the typical contentions of this approach is that we need to study the values of people cross-culturally — that is, to compare one culture with another to see how far their goals function in both similar and different ways.”  (p. 59)

“Another approach to the problems of goals … is the theory that cultures are moving progressively toward an ultimate end that is somehow inherent in the order and process of culture.  According to this theory, goals are the driving force of all cultural change in that they provide the ‘magnets’ that draw men onward and, in a sense, upward toward perfection.”  (p. 60)

“In ontological terms, the view that culture … is moving inevitably toward an ultimate goal is called teleology.  The nature of the goal may vary according to different theorists, however.  Marxists, for example, hold that it is the ‘classless society’ — the Communist ideal of pure economic freedom through public ownership and control of all means of production.  Those of Father Teilhard’s [de Chardin] faith conceive that the ultimate goal is eternal salvation, and that all cultural processes are in one way or another a means to this perfect and final end.”  (p. 60)

“. . . one may hold that the first view of the goal problem — exemplified by Malinowski — is perhaps closer to what we have called the reconstructionist orientation than to the others.  Reconstructionists hold that the delineation of human goals is to be achieved through cross-cultural research that enlists not only anthropology but all the sciences of human behavior, such as psychiatry and political science.”  (p. 60)

“The reconstructionist educator also takes the position that not only is it possible to describe the desires of human beings by such research, but that it is possible to arrive at much greater consensus than we have thus far achieved as to the desirability of the most important cross-cultural goals.  In other words, description could lead to both prescription and proscription of goals — both to those that are recommended as culturally desirable and to those that are condemned as culturally undesirable.”  (p. 60)

“The bridging of the gap between described values … and prescribed — that is, normative — values, … is suggested by the reconstructionist theory of ‘social consensus.’ . . . It is necessary first to consider the maximum evidence available as to whether certain goals … are in fact accepted by all or most cultures. . . . . The second step requires communication both among members of one culture and also among cultures that the evidence is what it claims to be.  The third step is the endeavor to express as wide agreement as possible upon the basis of the evidence communicated.  The fourth step is to act in order to test out the agreement by observation and experience — thereby determining whether verbalized testimony harmonizes with behavioral testimony.”  (p. 61)

“Referring back for a moment to the knowledge-getting process, one might say that social consensus involves both inquiring and acquiring.  That is, it involves the kind of social inquiring necessary in collecting and comparing evidence and in reaching maximum communication about that evidence.  It involves social acquiring in the sense that the aim of the collecting and communicating of evidence is to achieve as much active agreement as possible about desirable goals on the basis of the evidence and the communication.”  (p. 61)

The major process of culture, acquiring, is thereby linked with cultural goals and the seeking of them — a good indication of why it is impossible in the experience of living cultures to separate any one of the three dimensions (order, process, or goals) from the other two.  It indicates, also, why reconstructionist education, though concerned with achieving desirable goals by practice with social consensus at every possible stage of enculturation, recognizes that cultural goals in turn demand both effective processes of achieving them and effective order of human relationship within which these processes may function.  (p. 61)

“By contrast, the perennialist theory of cultural goals does not assume that one achieves them primarily by a social or public process of acquiring and inquiring, but rather that the goals of man, already inherent as they are in the nature of culture and universe, will be attained if you and I can somehow learn to recognize the absolute laws of reality, knowledge, and value necessary to their attainment and can then abide by these laws to the utmost.”  (p. 62)

In this recognition of objective law, the perennialist reminds one of the essentialist’s attitude toward superorganic order, but he differs from the latter in his insistence that the value-seeking and value-achieving process requires, no less than knowledge-getting, a strong ingredient of intuition and even of revelation.  (p. 62)

“The ultimate goals of culture are not delineated by a cooperative process of gathering, communicating, and agreeing upon relevant evidence; they are discerned, finally, by one’s inherent capacity to discover their character through one’s own rational and spiritual power — reinforced, of course, by divine power.  Education’s most important responsibility is to share in and enhance this discovery.”  (p. 62)