The dominating influence of the culture we live in

More and more people are becoming concerned at the human wreckage left as moral behaviour changes. One marker of the damage to individuals, and to the whole of society, is the way suicide rates have surged in the developed countries (see here and here) where the Christian insight into the value of each person has been lost most thoroughly under the onslaught of a mindset that puts the individual above all else, that puts things above the common good, and pleasure before social responsibility.

 That Western society has changed rapidly and without a deliberate decision by society to depart from the traditional Judeo-Christian pattern of life to one that opposes it shows how destructive the tyranny of profit alone, to take one example, can be when it becomes the guiding principle.

The way the societies and their individual members can be the victim of the reshaping of  a culture for business goals or because of neglect of the intangible riches society already possessed can be illustrated by means of this excerpt from Peter Block’s management book The Answer To How Is Yes. Block discusses how the pattern of life that is the culture we live in can unconsciously determine much of our beliefs and practices. And therein lies a vicious trap:

These patterns – personal, institutional, and societal – partially gain their power through their subtlety. As powerful as the culture is, we hardly notice its effects on us. It is the sea we swim in. The culture works on us and through us and even expresses us. In a literal sense, though, the culture does not really determine our actions or even explain why we do what we do. We are responsible for this. The culture is more like a presence in the shadows, ready to step in when we are not paying attention.

One useful way to think about it is as the default culture. In computer software, a whole host of default settings comes with every new program you buy. If you choose, you can change these settings to suit your preferences but if you don’t, the defaults create the rules.

Each time we turn our attention away from our own intentions, we operate, in a sense, by default. In the absence of our clear intention, our willingness to consciously change the settings of the world we are creating, the default culture is decisive. This is hard to see clearly because the culture is able to absorb the rhetoric of our individuality and freedom. It (we) allows space for our own desires, it just does not encourage acting on them. While no one argues against values and desires, we fear they might lead to anarchy and chaos. The result is that although every institution lists its human values on its mission statement, these are often operationally set aside, only to be resurrected during retreats or when public declarations are required.