Cultural Conservatism essays

Cultural Conservatism essays Culture in ancient times was defined as the sum total of the equipment of the human individual, which enables him to be attuned to his immediate environment on the historical past on the other. It reflects in effect what humans have added to nature. It comprises the spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of a society and includes, in addition to the arts and letters, the value systems, traditions, modes of life and beliefs of the society. Through these aspects it is evident that the basis of growth and establishment of human culture is addition and change. However, in modern America this growth of culture is often resisted until it can no longer be held at bay. Many conservatives see these social changes as threatening because they feel that it will ultimately degrade the religious or social ethics which they personally hold. However, to put it simply, and it's not a problem that only conservatives have, conservatives very often confuse ethics and aesthetics. When people such as Gertude Himmelfarb, a conservative Christian historian, attack our, as she perceives it, "amoral," "sexually deviant," and "perverse" culture they are primarily responding to something that they find culturally foreign and aesthetically threatening. I agree that values are oftentimes a good thing, but only when they are born of an ethical and realistic perspective, not an aesthetic one. We are all trying to make out an existence in unbelievably confusing circumstances. Given our biological inheritance, we need to be more tolerant of ourselves and more tolerant and compassionate in our dealings with others. The standards that we have for human behavior are at times noble, but at times quite absurd. We are genetically designed to be lustful, aggressive, gregarious, productive creatures, and it can be a good thing to hold ourselves to high community standards of behavior, but we need to deal with ourselves as who and what we ...