Culture

"Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries — a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Is the world we live in not merely an attempt to alter the environment for survival and to hold the pettiness of intitial passion in contempt? The original form of impressions is strayed from as we spiral outwards in our lives and as we perceive complexity that begins to explain our initial impressions. Without metaphor and without the image of the other, or the things that holds us somewhat in place, we would remain in a certain perpetual state of flow without discernable rhythm. We would be left with the pattern that we reside within and no more. To step outwith that continous flow and to elevate the self and the neighbour from the origin, there is the sudden outflow of the new and the impermanent. Like the butterfly which has been forced into chrysalis before it truly arrives, humanity endorses the total strangeness of seclusion. 

But, though that seclusion is useful for invention and metaphor which would take us further from the blind acceptance of the pattern that exists and we are part of, it is also a hazard which makes even more unlikely the existence of a cultural change. Cultures can fragment and diversify  without actual innovation. Forms change but these might be based on familiar models. Look now at the vastness of culture yet the sameness of it. It is rare that thresholds are spoken of, and this is ultimately what makes this moment seem like the edge of a precipice. 

But we are always standing on the veer of collapse. That is simply something that we would never be conscious of had we not created metaphorical existence; that beyond which splits are consciousness and makes it extend further than our own thoughts and experiences. If there is anything worth preserving it is culture. It might be argued that culture is not the cause of humanity; that life itself is worth keeping. But consider what is being said here; the human species does not live because it wants to remain the same for all time. It strives for otherness and the extension of itself. Without the understanding of compassion in its broadest sense and the value of life as it is, then this world would be a fool`s paradise. The fool who assumes that the earth entrusts itself willingly to us, and does not hold us over an ever-present fire which forces us to listen to one another more and create a world which is infinite in proportion. It is human to strive for a certain beyond, but there is misunderstanding.

After nearly finishing my dissertation on the Russian revolution, a subject I understood entirely on the basis of its cultural relevance, I found the distinct difference between two figures at the time: Alexander Bogdanov and Vladimir Lenin. Whereas Bogdanov trusted in ideas which bear great resemblance to those of Antonio Gramsci and his notions of cultural hegemony and the importance of variation, Lenin was sure of the absolute nature of physical reality and the existence of  universal norms. There is profound difference here. While the former displays high regard for the potential latent in humanity, the latter expects it to fulfil some expected trajectory. One imposes no sense of structure and the other can think of nothing else. Given the success of Lenin and the subsequent destruction and purge of culture within Russia it becomes apparent which of these two men was the greater humanist.

And it is useful having the particular crystallisation to refer back upon, this moment of rupture in the human past wherin in became transparent that culture itself was most worth keeping; the prospect of crippling political frameworks which do not give it enough emphasis becomes more viable. Variation and difference, shared amongst a mass of people leads to a larger sense of humanity and the sense that the self can be extended not through material wealth but through mutual understanding. It is not a question of imposing a framework of culture but of leading people to a threshold of understanding. It is about availability and the precedence of cultural standards over economic needs. The rest ought to follow.