by Stephen Popple

Created on: January 15, 2009

For a discussion of this topic it is first important to look at the words used in the title. In particular, 'Cultural Hatred'. So lets start by breaking this down to find out what it means and then we can discuss the rest of the question.

First of all the word cultural or culture. Culture means all the knowledge and values shared by a society. this includes ethics and morality, religion, kinship and marriage customs, aesthetics etc., in short all of the things that define a society.

Second, hatred or the feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action. The important thing here is that hatred demands action. That action is not specified and is dependent on the cultural norms of the society in which the person lives. This, of course, is a generalization and there are exceptions to this as I am sure you will recognize. However, the action involved could direct physical action or more covert action or even implied action intended to encourage others to pursue a particular course of action.

Now that we have a definition of what we are discussing we can discover how cultural hatred may arise and it follows that we can then discuss how this can be influenced by thought processes. Between any two different cultures there will be differences in customs, values, religion ethic etc., that can not be understood by individuals in the other culture. In some instances this may cause action to take place through direct violence, implied violence and other forms of action intended to limit relations between the two cultures. Such actions are not usually random and instantaneous. for example, an individual from one culture is unlikely to simply attack another individual on sight for no other reason than that they are there and they are different. A more likely scenario is one in which an individual has something to fear from members of the other culture, usually in terms of values, ethics or some other socially derived attribute and wishes to restrict the flow of ideas and or the exchange of values which may, in some way, weaken his or her position.

This indicates that the individual is in possession of something of social value that requires protection. This thing of value may be anything derived from his or her culture such as kinship arrangements, ethics or religion. It should at this point be noted that the development of cultural values and social norms relies to a great extent on the determination of physical and or economic value which needs to be sheltered and indeed

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>