Against The Motion...

"A culture takes its form after it has undergone a process of growth over a period of time. This time may extend over centuries or over millennia. As the waves from rivulets or a river deposit the fine and rich alluvial matter alongside its banks and make the bank-side land fertile, so also the surge of wisdom from family, the religion, the philosophy and many more, sources deposits layer upon layer and makes the family or the social soil rich and fertile for the growth of the succeeding generations. This social family soil, formed of fine deposits of reflections, observations, experiences, reforms and practices of great people is congenial for growth and is called culture. As bees from honeycomb move and flit from flower to flower, take essence from them and form tasteful and nourishing honey, even so do the sages, the seers, the thinkers, the philosophers and men of wisdom or ordinary people, who have developed a keen sense of observation. They leave some nourishing honey of utterances, experiences, useful practices, and understanding of many a natural phenomenon and these together make culture.

The Culture is a treasure of collected gems of experiences and wisdom of ages, gifted by a lot many earlier generations. It is the essence of distilled experiences of so many people, carried over a past. It is a reservoir of tried and tested values, norms observances and principles that have taken the form of lifestyles, manners etiquette, folk-lore, celebrations, quotations, festivals and visual and performing arts such as dance, drama, songs. conventions, traditions and even rituals. How the youngster should meet, greet and treat the elders and vice-versa. how one should treat a guest, a neighbor or a friend and how one should respect one's teacher or sage, what and how one should eat and drink or what one should not eat and not drink; at what hour in the morning should one get up and at what hour should one sleep ; what kind or form of dress one should wear; how gents should treat ladies or what manners should each gender observe in the presence of the other-all these and thousand more things are included in the term 'culture'.

Culture has a very wide connotation. It enjoins upon people certain norms to be observed on various occasions, in various relationships and various situations. The older the culture, the wider is its expanse and richer are its contents. Its observances start from the time of birth and last till time of one's last breath. In fact, there is no moment in life for which culture does not ask us to observe a particular rule or follow a particular way and refrain from certain things.

Most of the conventions, traditions, norms and practices-which are a part of culture-have some rationale behind them and have the support of experiences of large number of people who observed over a period of time or who, by violating them saw the negative results. So, every point in a culture is not a dogma or a set of whims and fancies or collection of superstitions or meaningless rituals. It is based on some sound laws of living, told by the ancestors and predecessors. Some of the cultural norms may be necessary for a particular section of humankind, living in a particular geophysical setting or in a particular climatic region and some or any of the conventions and practices may be useful for all and may therefore be of universal nature."

I have not written this. It was a comprehension passage given to us in our english exam. This article stands strongly against my views (Reprobate or Rationalist).
This has put me a sort of dynamic equilibrium. Also it has changed some of my views.