MAN AND CULTURE(CHAPTER THIRTEEN)

One unique and undeniable attribute of a human being, taken both individually and collectively, is his ability to change

His environmentThe societyHimself

Still more marvelous is his ability to transcend himself

For when he worksFor instance,he imprints and extends

his personality to the things he makes

When he dies his good deeds transcend his mortal being.

Surviving him in death is his own species, humanity, which then preserves and transmits to posterity all his contributions and his creations for the collective well being if his fellowmen.

“One philosopher defined culture as the totally of the human spirit”

CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE1. Culture is a distinctly human achievement caused and motivated by

man’s natural desire for perfection and happiness.2. This natural urge towards progress and perfection in turn implies

man’s perfectability, i.e., his capacity to improve and perfect himself and his works.

3. Culture is a universal and perennial human phenomenon: it is found in all times, in all places, in all peoples, however poor or primitive these may be.

4. Culture involves all aspects of human life. It is co-extensive and co-intensive with life’s activities, pursuits and aspirations.

5. Culture is the continuous inexorable product of man’s social nature, human association and interaction

6. Culture leads to the realization of the whole Man, or the Universal Man.

Culture, Education, Civilization• Man is the respiratory, the creator, the

transmitter, the dynamo, the cause, the center, the goal, the end-all and be-all of culture.

• Education is the integral, optimal, harmonious, balanced and continuous development, enrichment, and actualization of all of man’s powers, capacities, and natural endowments.

Misconceptions of culture• When thinking and speaking of culture, most people

commonly equate the term with the state of being successful of the country as a result of its economic, industrial, scientific and technological advancement.

• Culture is the full development of all man’s power primarily his moral, spiritual and intellectual endowments.

• Material posterity is only one of the aspect, not the totality of the human culture. To emphasize the importance of the nation – to the neglect of the more important qualities of human culture is to commit the so-called fallacy of “neglected aspect” or “false emphasis” or mistaking a part as the whole.

Fallacious theories of education• To many or most people nowadays, education means mostly

intellectual and professional achievement, skills, and efficiency for earning a living.

• However, education is life’s it uses and pass all of life’s activities.• Man is not body and belly alone but also soul and mind. The

former cannot live without bread; latter is fed not by bread but by the imperishable manna of truth and wisdom supplied by education.

• Nor is man is brain and brawn alone, nor hand and heart alone, nor sense and sex alone, he is the whole human being with all its natural powers and resources and potentialities awaiting full human development through education

Cultural rights• As already pointed out and stressed earlier,

man by his very nature tends towards his own well being and happiness. This natural, inborn quest for self amelioration and happiness is found not only in the individual – It is a social, international, global phenomenon of man.

Culture and civilization• Earlier in this chapter, we spoke of the power

of transcendence in man – to go beyond himself and share his bounty, his good deeds to others. In practical terms this transcendence may be considered as the overcoming of one’s own selfishness and dedicating oneself to the service for others.