Problems of Creativity & the New World Order

Culture is a product of a people’s history. It is also a reflection of that history. The quality of a given culture is therefore a measure of the quality of’ life of the makers of that history. This means that we cannot look at culture as an abstract generality. We do not live in a uniform commonality of human beings either within a nation or between nations. A specific history of which culture is simultaneously a product, a reflection and a measure, is a continuous working out of the contradictions within a given society and between that society and others with which it is in contact.

Within a nation, groups are often placed in different positions of economic and political power vis-à-vis other groups. There is the landlord over the serf in a feudal society; the owner over the slave in a slave owning society; the capitalist over the worker in a capitalist country; and men over women in most societies. There develop structures of domination and subordination within that society and which are reflected in the behaviour, values and attitudes of acceptance or resistance or of both. Certain normative values in a so called national or communal culture could be reflecting all sorts of contradictions of which it is a product. In many African societies for instance there are proverbs that essentially belittle women. And yet proverbs are supposed to contain the kernel of collective wisdom.

A given culture develops in contact with other societies in a state of hostility or hospitality depending on how they are placed relative to each other. Some nations are often in a position of economic and political power of life and death vis-à-vis others. The two cultures will be affected adversely or beneficially depending on the relations of power. Societies are at their healthiest stability when they develop in a creative balanced give and take within its interior elements and within the exterior relations. In colonial societies the working out of the interior contradictions within many societies in Africa, Asia, and South America were completely distorted by the impact of imperialist capitalism to the point of extinction in some societies. Others were so seriously wounded that it will take the struggle of generations to heal the wounds.