Context is everything part I

So what is the context.

 Context is simply a three dimensional concept made up of place, time and space. it is the geographic place, corporeal time and the volume of the space as a relates to corporeal time and geographic location. It is the chronological time you find yourself In, decades or generations create benchmarks of human time. the geographic and living environment that human beings develop successfully.  Context is lastly the use of space and resources as the geographic environment supplies.

Time, space and geographic location create positionality, that context is created given a  specific position and that people are trying to do their best to adapt to that context.

The adaptation to the context

 The adaptation to the context is what we typically referred to as culture. Culture then with that understanding starts to take on a different meaning and a different way of human beings relating to each other. Because once we understand that context is the driving force behind culture then we get a better sense of why culture exist and how it is trying to achieve a goal.

Given a specific context cultures of develop ways of interacting with that context that I was supposed to yield the best results from the learnings of those groups of people. As I look at religion, how people go about using nature and agriculture, what human relationships are to nature and to the spiritual world we begin to see examples of how people interact with each other, our roles and responsibilities that lead to the successes of people groups. When we look closely to culture, what we would find if we look close enough is that all of those behaviors stem from people trying to adapt to their context.

So what is at the root of the of this adaptation why are people trying to adapt to their environment? one might argue that there is a twofold  root of all human behavior, one is the procreation of the species. Making sure that human beings are in environmental states or are able to survive environments that let their genes continue to procreate to keep the species of human beings alive.

The second reason for these adaptations are the higher functioning levels that allow the first  of adaptations to to take place for the second is really about passing along the memes, the ideas of what success means for group of people as well as it's spiritual meanings as a relates to the afterlife or the world beyond the physical corporeal realm.

Alfred Adler often talked about the need that human beings have and they can be summed up in these three statements that human beings are looking for significance, for looking for belonging, and are looking for safety. One could argue that those three things being at the center of people's desire for adaptation will allow not only that the spiritual connectedness of our being but also our are corporeal existence to be continued, that our genes will continue that are memes will also continue.

So with this understanding that people are looking for safety, significance and belonging given their context. We start to see culture in a more defined way and that people are exhibiting certain behaviors, certain attitudes and certain thought patterns because in the past they have been found successful within the context they were developed.

Culture clashes

So why do we have culture clashes. We have cultural clashes because often times people are coming bringing their cultural experiences their cultural success is their cultural means with Dave what they've learned in their culture into a new context.

Often times the behaviors that we learned in a given context, in a specific culture as we branch out of those cultures and as context change it often times is difficult for people to adapt to or takes time for people to develop a new culture and the adapt to a new context.

I can recall my parents telling stories of whipping, of beatings ,of capital punishment that they received as his children. As I listened to them, as they defined why those things were happening to them, why they would get a spanking by the neighbor and then come home and get a spanking because the neighbor spanked you. The context of those things became very important. My grandparents are coming out of the context of two generations or so after slavery and so it became very important ,specifically in the south, that people know their place. If "one" stepped out of their place, particularly if you were African-American or appeared to be African-American, retribution for not knowing or coming out of your place was ultimately death and at the least it would be physical punishment.

As a result of that mentality that desire to make sure that the gene of our young people move forward that the memes, the things that we've taught our young people, also can continue forward it became acceptable, particularly in the African-American community, to use physical punishment to train your child. Given the context that my great grandparents were coming from and that their parents were coming from, that was a useful and needful however in today's society using that physical punishment to train your child is not as necessary.

Time and time again you still hear stories of people using physical violence to train their children. In the culture that we currently find ourselves, that is no longer necessary.  So this is where we start to have cultural clashes. That's where we start to have the cultural conflicts because the context is changed and so the culture must also change to adapt to the new context. Many of our refugee families many of our new immigrant families often times wrestle with this because the old world contacts the old world culture dictated certain types of relationships.

And now in this new context, immigrants and refuggees have difficulty adapting to this new American culture. We have clashes because those two ways of thinking, those two ways of being, don't congeal well together and so we must give time and we must give tools for families to help them adapt to the new culture while still maintaining the things that work right from their old culture.