The Culture of Love

I firmly believe that the culture in which we live - and which we experience, understand, and perpetuate through the media we ingest - has a greater effect than any other factor on how we understand ourselves and the rules of the world around us.

We read about the latest superfood craze, or what our body weight should be, or which foods keep us slim and we try to follow it in our lives. Society tells us being an introvert is somehow wrong, so we force ourselves to appear as something we might not feel like on the inside. We are taught that finding love is like escaping a prisoner of war camp, where luck isn't good enough - you need the Devil's luck as well. So that's what we try to be in capturing a partner.

But culture doesn't just change us, culture changes itself. It isn't static. The thoughts and views of the majority are not placed in bedrock. Films that were banned yesterday, are acceptable today. We wouldn't have thought twice about disposable plastics in yesteryear, or how large our internet economy is. We dazzle ourselves with future technologies, and grumble about present ones. And while we adhere strictly to these modern beliefs, we mock ancient ones. But as that old adage so rightly says, the more things do change, the more they always seem to stay the same.

And we complain about different cultures that clash with our own. Some see exposure to "alien" cultures as valuable, an indication of our acceptance of a different way of life, learning that our way is not the only way. Some see practices and behaviours that are derived from many generations as something to criticise, or at the most extreme, destroy.

Sometimes it's sad the things culture makes us do. Honour killings in Pakistan, young couples committing suicide because of caste differences in India, the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide being a crime in some places, a way to die with dignity in others.

I have to admit that India's caste system stretches my tolerance and judgement, especially when it causes the death of a young couple in love that just want to be together, but I don't think I have any right to criticise it. I feel for the loss of lives taken so young, and in desperation, because their only crime was to love outside their caste, but we have to accept that this is the way of life and the cultural heritage particular to that country. If changes are to come to India, it must be by the Indian people themselves, or not at all.

It is difficult to challenge such deep-rooted beliefs and hope to create a change. A good friend of mine travels regularly to the remote hill tribes of Indo-China and recently told me of a visit to a tribe where she witnessed at first hand many of the rituals of the animist beliefs that are held there. The most distressing story by far was of the twins that were born in the village. Believing that twins are a curse, the villagers carefully prepared the two babies for the sacrificial ritual and with great sadness suffocated them by pushing leaves into their mouths. This was necessary to appease the gods who had expressed their anger by sending these poor children.

These are differing magnitudes of horror, but where do we draw the line at the influence of culture in our lives? And before we get on our moral high horses, let us not forget the wickedness that is prevalent in our own societies. I wonder how those tribes would view the fact that in the West we allow members of our society to sleep in the streets in the freezing cold of winter, while the buildings by which they shiver lie empty? Or the fact that so many of our old people are left neglected by their own children for who they sacrificed so much of their lives, and by the generation for whom they fought and struggled?

The point I'm trying to make is that every society in the world, however supposedly developed, has its shameful sides, and while it's much easier to see the wickedness in others' belief systems our criticisms might start to appear more hollow when we take an objective look at our own way of life.

And really, the only culture we should adhere to, the only universal culture we have, is that of love. When love is absent from culture, these stark and terrible examples crop up, but where the culture of love is stronger, that is where civilisation truly begins.

Yours in love,