Chapter 25 Review Questions Answer Key

Culture and Development

The adoption of modernization and scientific rationality has led to an inevitable conflict between the world views of the modernizing elites and the masses who still continue traditional ways of living. Therefore, development in many Southern societies has seen rural peasants being subjected to policies constructed by the educated bureaucrats from the cities. One example is the relief package announced by the government of India in 2006 for the debt-ridden farmers of western India, which included the distribution of cattle to people who had never used them before and in a region that is deficient in water and fodder. Ultimately, the result of the government’s promoting dairying in a region not suited for it was that the farmers spent a lot of labour time in tending to the cattle, as well as the equivalent of three people’s daily wages on the sustenance of one cow, with hardly any return from it. Such examples abound in the history of the development era, not only in the South but also in the North–South relationship, seen especially in the devastating policies designed by institutions like the World Bank without due consideration to the local, material, and cultural contexts of a region. [p. 450]

The resort to culture for legitimacy (of rule) by the elites is seen in the propagation of the “Asian values” thesis by the first prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, who argued that Asian culture is more conducive to discipline and order rather than to freedom and liberty (which suited the West). Such vast generalizations justifying authoritarianism are grievously erroneous, for they completely ignore the enormous diversity that exists within these large blocks called Asia and the West. Once we examine this diversity, we might find a different reality from the one outlined by Lee Kuan Yew. It would be even more obvious if we looked into the accounts of the marginalized and the oppressed, who would have a totally different understanding of discipline and order from that of the ruling classes. The “Asian values” thesis also has been used as a cultural explanation for the economic success of Japan, China, and Southeast Asian countries. But again, as Amartya Sen argues, the problem is that the thesis is too broad and ultimately inadequate for explaining the specificities of the different countries. For example, how do the different traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism prevalent in the region explain the same phenomenon of capitalist success? Moreover, the application of the thesis is further complicated by the success of Islamic Indonesia and Malaysia and the emerging economic power of Hindu-dominated India. Thus, the thesis boils down to a cultural “grand theory” that seeks to explain major economic, political, and social outcomes across the world in terms of cultural differences—the kind of theory that, as in this case, does so rather unsuccessfully. [pp. 461-2]

One of the most important debates within the social science tradition since its origin has been the materialism versus idealism debate. The former asserts the primacy of material factors in social change, while the latter focuses on cultural factors, mental phenomena, and ideas. As we suggested above, this kind of binary distinction is problematic because of the interlinked nature of social phenomena. Privileging one over the other does not aid us in arriving at a proper understanding of culture or development. For instance, it has been a common practice among modernization theorists and also within popular discourse to blame the slowness of economic growth on the “backward” mentality and superstitious beliefs of “traditional” societies. These views, in the absence of an understanding of material factors, portray development as primarily governed by thought processes. Here, social phenomena such as poverty can be blamed on the poor themselves for their lack of “correct” thinking (Allen 2002, 454). On the other hand, material factors such as forces of production do not develop on their own. Labour is not a physical activity alone but also involves a mental component. Modern science and technology could not have originated unless the belief in the sacredness of nature had been substantially altered. Similarly, capitalism could not have originated or flourished without continuous savings and investments, which required a radical change in the meanings attributed to money and its use. [pp. 452-3]

The theories inspired by postmodernism are ridden with problems. Most have adopted an extreme stance vis-à-vis modernity and development, ultimately proving counterproductive for the marginalized and oppressed for whom the theories claim to speak. The fundamental problem is that culture becomes an all-encompassing explanatory variable. At the same time, culture appears to be detached from all other elements in society. Culture is seen as a homogeneous and essentialist whole, without fissures and conflicts. Hence, the large generalized categories such as West/East or North/South, colonizer/colonized, and modernity/tradition replicate the dichotomies created by mainstream theories such as modernization. Fear of the universalizing tendencies of modernity and the Western development model makes the postmodern-inspired theories essentialize tradition and adopt an uncritical attitude toward it. Exercises like seeing culture in benign terms can lead to defending practices such as female circumcision rather than analyzing them in terms of power relations—in this case, patriarchy. Therefore, these theories ultimately end up as a nativist and “Third Worldist” discourse, uncritically upholding tradition, religion, community, and so on while ignoring issues such as internal hierarchies and oppression within these categories. A critique of practices such as female circumcision does not have to come from a perspective that glorifies Western standards of justice. Criticism and opposition are already present in these “traditional” societies, as demonstrated by the fact that coercion, especially physical coercion, is often required to enforce norms. [p. 460]

The variety of understandings about culture is mainly a result of the genuine complexity of cultural formations that exist in the world. At the same time, it would be fruitful to develop a definition that eliminates some of the myths that surround culture. Thus, the evolutionary definition, which holds that culture is a constant movement toward perfection, would not make sense unless we understood the elements that constitute this idea of perfection and the actual social and historical contexts that produce different ideas of perfection. At the same time, we have to account for values that do not meet the criterion of perfection. There is also the need to avoid definitions that narrowly treat culture as a mere by-product of other, “real” interests in society (Williams 1961, 43–4, 46). That does not help us to understand what is intrinsic to the sphere of culture. However, the study of culture cannot remain at the level of culture alone either; it should move on from a mere study of symbolic forms to a study of them in “relation to the historically specific and socially structured contexts and processes within which, and by means of which, these symbolic forms are produced, transmitted and received” (Thompson 1990, 136). For example, while we can easily identify with many of the themes in William Shakespeare’s plays, it would be wrong to assume that we can learn all about the culture of the period from the plays alone; instead, they have to be placed within and understood in relation to the context of 16th-century England. [p. 451]

The most famous theory regarding cultural influence on economic behaviour is Max Weber’s theory of the Protestant ethic, in which certain characteristics of Protestantism (especially Calvinism), such as valuing austerity, discipline, and hard work to attain material wealth and success as a route to personal salvation, were considered by Weber as having played a major role in the origin of capitalism. The theory has been criticized heavily for its inability to explain the economic success of Catholic countries such as France and Italy and non-Christian Asian countries in the twentieth century. However, the Japanese economic miracle has been attributed to a different set of cultural values, “which emphasized group responsibility, company loyalty, interpersonal trust and implicit contracts that bind individual conduct.” These values originate from a variety of cultural traditions, including Japan’s history of feudalism, Confucian ethics, and the “Samurai code of honour” (Sen, 2001: 6–7, 11). In “transitional” and “developing” countries, it is claimed that one of the important cultural barriers to efficient economic growth is the problem of corruption. Former socialist economies such as those of Russia and Eastern European countries are examples of this phenomenon. [p. 453]

An example of how certain ideas gain universal acceptance and acquire an ideological form is the idea of the “American dream,” according to which if a person has talent and works hard, she or he can lead a successful and prosperous life. This dream drives millions of people from all over the world to move to the US. While the concept contains an element of truth, it hides the fact that the United States, despite its wealth, is the least egalitarian society in the Global North, and structural inequalities based on class and race (among other factors) prevent a majority of immigrants from attaining their dream. [p. 456]

Even as the economic mode of production, along with the level of science and technology, sets a limit to the kinds of cultural forms that are produced, we have to avoid conceiving of this relationship as mechanical. The most difficult task is to understand this relationship in a non-reductive manner—that is, to study culture without reducing it to changes in the economic sphere (or vice versa). Development, for a long time, was undertaken with the belief that culture did not matter and that culture would mechanically adjust itself to changes in the economic sphere, the consequences of which could be deleterious. One example is the introduction of smallpox vaccination by the British in colonies while outlawing existing Indigenous techniques that were intrinsically linked with religious practice and worship. Cultural forms produced under capitalism are not necessarily homogeneous, since “the capitalist mode of production does not demand, require, or determine, any one form of politics” (Garnham 1998, 605). While the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom are all capitalist societies, their cultures are not identical. These cultural variations show that culture cannot be explained merely by the distinction between the owners of the means of production and wage labour, as is the case in capitalism. While economic practices “determine the distribution of practices and commodities,” they do not totally determine the meanings circulated by these practices. [p. 452]

The ideology of modernization and development characterized pre-modern subsistence economies as societies existing in precarious and extremely difficult conditions. The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, in a famous study on the hunting and gathering tribes, has questioned characterizing a lack of material possessions as poverty. Sahlins instead argues that the lack of material possessions does not make these tribes poor but rather free. In their own evaluation, this lack is a positive cultural fact, for they privilege the freedom of movement over material accumulation. It is important to ask here why our modern criteria would label people with such few wants as poor rather than as affluent, as Sahlins does. [p. 453]

Culture and development thus are intrinsically interlinked. With recent revisions to our understanding of development, following theorists such as the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, from mere economic development to the enhancement of human freedom in the broadest sense, development has begun to include the enhancement of cultural freedom as well. Economic development also can lead to enhanced resources that can enable the exploration of a society’s cultural history through historical excavations and research. Sen argues that culture can thus become one of the basic ends of development. Culture plays another role for Sen: as a means of development. As we observed above, symbolic understandings can govern behaviour, including people’s economic behaviour. Thus, cultural traditions and norms can play an important role in influencing economic success and achievement. In addition, they can constitute an important source of economic investment and returns through activities such as tourism promotion, which has other positive benefits, including cultural contact and interaction. [p. 454]