WHAT IS CULTURE?
DR. SIR C. P. RAMASWAMI AIYAR
When the word “Culture” is uttered, there is a
tendency in some quarters to confound it with something highbrow and affected.
It is apt to be regarded as something apart from daily life and its struggles
and limitations. It is now and then confused with some special mode of dress or
certain forms of speech or some habits of thought by assuming which its
professors are supposed to behave differently from the rest of humanity. No
doubt, culture has its charlatans and pretenders as have most arts and
philosophies. But rightly understood, culture is more and no less than the art
of living an enlightened life and it may be justly claimed for it as by the
Stoic Emperor that nothing that appertains to humanity is foreign to it.
Voltaire ends his most famous story depicting the chequered adventures of a
philosopher in search of happiness and the El Dorado with the words “Let us
cultivate our gardens”, meaning thereby that in the actual and joyous
fulfilment of the daily work in the right spirit and with the right
perspective, lies true culture and true happiness. It is on such aspects that I
propose to dwell for a few moments in the talk which I have been privileged to
give today by the courtesy of the All India Radio.
Not many days ago, I was asked to give a
message to the graduates of the Travancore University after they had received
their degrees and on that occasion I referred to a passage from the Taittiriya Upanishad as summarising the elements of true culture. The passage
exhorts the students of those days who emerged from their pupilage in the
Indian Forest Universities to speak the truth and do their daily duty and adds
that there should be no neglect of daily reading, daily reflection and daily
teaching; but it does not stop there. For, the Upanishad proceeds to emphasise
that there should be no neglect of efficiency and skill of bodily alertness or
of worldly affairs and no turning away from those means that lead to worldly
prosperity. It is impossible to recapture the rhythm and the impressiveness of
the original but my object in adverting to the old scripture was to point out
the many-sidedness and the composite character of true culture as here
envisaged.
Culture or cultivation is not a matter of
acquiring an accent or a knowledge of language. It does not need the
acquisition of any jargon, artistic or otherwise. It should not be confused
with a display of superiority or incomprehensibility.
Culture is not solely based on wide reading or
scholarship though these are often associated with it. Some of the most
conspicuous exponents and examples of culture, the Lord Buddha, for instance,
and Socrates were probably not versed in book lore. It does not only mean the
appreciation and enjoyment of alt in its manifold forms, though it is difficult
to conceive of a person as truly who is not responsive to the appeal of great
architecture, of statuary and painting of the inspiration of music. What is required
and demanded to the cultured individual is not that he has learnt much and
filled his mind and soul but the harmonious result on him of the influences of
nature, art and literature as well as of life. One of the greatest of poets has
defined the right attitude of a human being towards life and life’s problems as
comprehended in the words “Ripeness is all.” This ripeness excludes not merely
crudeness of thought and behaviour but all extremes of conduct and judgement.
It is incommensurate with sanctimonious hypocrisy or that intolerance which avers that
my doxy is orthodoxy and yours heterodoxy. A most important and formative
element in culture is the concourse and friendship of men that matter. Landor
puts into the mouth of Pericles the sentiment that the festival of life would
have been in-complete in his own case if he had not lived with such men as his
contemporaries, the great poets, dramatists and philosophers of Greece and
enjoyed their familiarity and esteem and thus fitted himself to be a faithful
guardian of Greek destinies.
With all these elements, moreover, has to be
joined that which perhaps is most needed at this time and that which in the
classic Apology of Socrates is strongly advocated, namely, that a life without
investigation is not worthy for a man to live.
I have cited these examples for the purpose of
illustrating how true culture has been viewed by some of the greatest men who
have lived. It were best perhaps to describe it succinctly, not so much as a
possession of this gift, or the other, as the adoption and maintenance of a
certain special attitude towards
this life and the life beyond. A cultured man seeks to acquire knowledge, both
the knowledge of power and the knowledge of beauty. His emotions are trained
and refined by the study of high literature and the contemplation of great
works of art; but he refrains from mere academic theorising or lofty aloofness.
Culture which does not involve contacts with life and all its roughnesses and
smoothnesses is a plant without a root. This is the reason why the seer in the
Upanishad insists on efficiency in the ordinary duties of life as a sine qua
non of culture. Such contacts will alone enable the possessor to be free
from that worst form of intolerance which is intellectual arrogance and
self-segregation.
There is also the danger that a too exclusive
addition either to the sciences or the arts produces a fanaticism which may be
as deleterious as the fanaticism of the ultra-doctrinaire. The avoidance of
such lopsidedness was sought to be produced in ancient India by the insistence
of the householder living the normal life and earning his living and supporting
his family before he betook himself to the things of the spirit. A full life is
a condition precedent to the supreme culture of renunciation.
The art of expounding one’s ideas was again
and again emphasised both in ancient Greece and in ancient India, firstly
because truth and knowledge are always the better for propagation and also because
true wisdom can never be tested and examined unless the process of discussion
and argument accompanies it. One of the dangers of the modern system is that
over-specialisation has become an accompaniment of scientific and philosophic
development. The biologist intent upon the study of micro-organisms, the
chemist in his laboratory and even the astronomer among the stars tends to lose
a sense of perspective and proportion–a loss which is no less characteristic of
the strenuous politician and the official or administrator engrossed in his
particular matter. Each of these is apt to regard his work as the fulcrum of
existence; and a corrective has always to be applied to the views and ideals of
such persons.
One of the main reasons for the catastrophic
developments that we are now witnessing in the world is perhaps the exclusive
and aggressive devotion of the scientist to his forte and the pre-occupation of the teachers of the world with the non-moral
aspects of education. Not less baneful has been the narrowly commercial and
economic outlook that has produced the universal and illogical craze of
self-sufficiency, whereby a small group of nations endeavours to produce
everything for itself and to sell as much as possible to its neighbours and at
the same time to keep out everything from outside. Specialisation, narrowness, exploitation, the
deliberate ignoring of the neighbour’s point of view have all been exemplified
in the present conflict and are, in the opinion of many that count, the result
of wrong national education and the absence of true culture. In the ultimate
analysis, therefore, culture involves and implies a vivid awareness of the
meaning of life, a conspectus of the world’s problems in the proper order and
relative importance and the deliberate choice of the things that are really
worth while.
Religion, as distinguished from dogma or
specific creed, must be an integral part of all true culture, a religion which
will not descend to posturing or fanaticism, which will be constantly aware of the
great forces that mould the destinies of the world and will yet be wholly
consistent with charity, comprehension and tolerance and a mellow
understanding of the drawbacks and handicaps of oneself and society; a
religion which may perhaps be best described as a constant and instructed
criticism of life and a constant understanding of the difficulties of one’s neighbours.
To strive for the best and yet be content with what alone is often attainable,
namely, the second best – this should be the mark of the truly cultivated
person.
Let me endeavour to summarise the essentials
of culture by invoking the words of a modern poet who is not as well-known as
he should be:
“To things, not phantoms, let us cleave–
The gains of science,
the gifts of art:
The sense of oneness with our kind;
The thirst to know and understand
A large and liberal discontent,
These are the goods in life’s rich hand
The things that are more excellent.”
(A Broadcast Talk. 1940)