Philosophy Now Forum

rajeevnaikte wrote:Culture is law and order to protect human civilization from human.
Human civilization is humans working together to survive and culture is to protect this system from human.
When negative emotions goes to extremes it creates chaos in civilization. Culture is to control these emotions.
culture is to control human from getting addicted to things which takes away peace of mind.
But what cultures (religions, communities) have done is diverted human addiction to itself.
Every system has issues, but what makes it failure is addiction to it despite of known issues.

rajeevnaikte wrote:Culture is law and order to protect human civilization from human.
Human civilization is humans working together to survive and culture is to protect this system from human.

Conde Lucanor wrote:

rajeevnaikte wrote:Culture is law and order to protect human civilization from human.
Human civilization is humans working together to survive and culture is to protect this system from human.

Culture is not imposed on humans from the outside. Culture is created by humans.

WanderingLands wrote:

Conde Lucanor wrote:

rajeevnaikte wrote:Culture is law and order to protect human civilization from human.
Human civilization is humans working together to survive and culture is to protect this system from human.

Culture is not imposed on humans from the outside. Culture is created by humans.

That's not really true, because in society there are always three groups: the leaders, the followers, and the 'outsiders'. For the most part, the leaders always influence people to adopt customs and act in certain ways, whether being political, social, or economic. The 'outsiders' are those who play the role of scapegoats and are usually persecuted for not 'following the leader' in society.

Conde Lucanor wrote: You seem to forget that all of these groups are still part of human society, so it still holds true that "culture" in the general sense is an universal and necessary condition of humanity, not something imposed accidentally over it to fulfill an external purpose, which is implied in the wording of the original post of this thread.

WanderingLands wrote:

Conde Lucanor wrote: You seem to forget that all of these groups are still part of human society, so it still holds true that "culture" in the general sense is an universal and necessary condition of humanity, not something imposed accidentally over it to fulfill an external purpose, which is implied in the wording of the original post of this thread.

Of course they are all part of human society, but the type of 'society' that has long existed and is still existing is the one that is made up of a specialized hierarchy from the elites down to the masses, or the 'herd'. The 'herd', or most of the ruled who conform to the masses, merely go along with whatever fad there is out there, without even being critical of whether or not it's good or not. You see this in politics, where politicians, rulers, and 'revolutionaries' try to sway the public to partake in a 'common cause'; they do this often by manipulation techniques that involve using emotion and languages that the followers can understand. Then there is a more cultural aspect, which is especially present in Capitalism, where people buy into whatever fad in things that the mass media (radio, television, newspapers, internet) offers.

Conde Lucanor wrote: That may be true, but the point being argued here is that this happens within the confines of human society, not imposed externally as a teleological cause. Culture is not there to serve a purpose outside of culture itself.

Some of the public relations and marketing campaigns Bernays worked on:

1913 Bernays was hired by the actor Richard Bennett to protect a play that supported sex education against police interference. Bernays set up a front group called the "Medical Review of Reviews Sociological Fund" (officially concerned with fighting venereal disease) for the purpose of endorsing the play.[21]
1915 Diaghilev's Ballet Russes American tour convinced magazines to write articles that told people that Ballet is fun to watch.
1920 Successfully hosted the first NAACP convention in Atlanta, Georgia. His campaign was considered successful because there was no violence at the convention. His campaign focused on the important contributions of African-Americans to Whites living in the South. He later received an award from the NAACP for his contribution.
In the 1920s, working for the American Tobacco Company, he sent a group of young models to march in the New York City parade. He then told the press that a group of women's rights marchers would light "Torches of Freedom". On his signal, the models lit Lucky Strike cigarettes in front of the eager photographers. The New York Times (1 April 1929) printed: "Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of 'Freedom'". This helped to break the taboo against women smoking in public. During this decade he also handled publicity for the NAACP.[22]
Bernays once engineered a "pancake breakfast" with vaudevillians for Calvin Coolidge in what is widely considered one of the first overt media acts for a president.
Bernays used his uncle Sigmund Freud's ideas to help convince the public, among other things, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast.[23]
In October 1929, Bernays was involved in promoting Light's Golden Jubilee. The event, which spanned across several major cities in the U.S., was designed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Thomas Edison's invention of the light-bulb (though the light-bulb had been previously invented by Joseph Swan). The publicity elements of the Jubilee – including the special issuance of a U.S. postage stamp and Edison's "re-creating" the invention of the light bulb for a nationwide radio audience – provided evidence of Bernays's love for big ideas and "ballyhoo". A follow-up event for the 75th anniversary, produced for television by David O. Selznick, was titled Light's Diamond Jubilee and broadcast on all four American TV networks on October 24, 1954.
Bernays attempted to help Venida hair nets company to get women to wear their hair longer so they would use hairnets more. The campaign failed but did get government officials to require hairnets for some jobs.
Bernays worked with Procter & Gamble for Ivory-brand bar soap. The campaign successfully convinced people that Ivory soap was medically superior to other soaps. He also promoted soap through sculpting contests and floating contests because the soap floated better than its competitors'.
Bernays helped the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and other special interest groups to convince the American public that water fluoridation was safe and beneficial to human health. This was achieved by using the American Dental Association in a highly successful media campaign.[24]
In the 1930s, his Dixie Cup campaign was designed to convince consumers that only disposable cups were sanitary.[citation needed]
In the 1930s, he attempted to convince women that Lucky Strike cigarettes' forest green pack was the most fashionable color. Letters were written to interior and fashion designers, department stores, and prominent women of society pushing green as the new hot color for the season. Balls, gallery exhibitions, and window displays all featured green after Bernays got through with them. The result was that green did indeed become a very hot color for the 1934 season and Lucky Strike kept their pack color and female clientele intact.
He was the publicity director of the 1939 New York World's Fair.
After his semi-retirement in the 1960s he worked with the pro-health anti-smoking lawyer John Banzhaf's group, ASH and supported other anti-smoking campaigns.

Conde Lucanor wrote:You're still stranded at the same terminological confusion.

Once again: all that you are saying may be true, but it still goes on within human society. There is people in power and they usually impose their ideologies. If you want to use the term "culture", well yes, the hegemonic classes impose their particular cultural vision upon the others. But all groups or classes, all particular ideologies or cultures, whether hegemonic or not, belong to the more general category of human society or human culture.

What the forum member rajeevnaikte suggested in the initial post was that culture was imposed on that all-encompassing human society by a third (external) agent, which he does not specify. He says that culture is "to protect and control humans", therefore devised with a purpose (an implicit rationality) by someone else outside of humankind. Which is, of course, absurd.