Enculturation

All these considerations about the interactional structures apply to both hardware (biologically given) and software (culturally programmed) structures. For example, two systems may not interact for a lack of connection in the sense that their basic neural paths, built into the hardware of the human being, do not allow such interaction. Or, two software structures may not interact for lack of connection because in the enculturation, the programming of the person, the appropriate connections were simply not created. 

A culture can be seen as a group which has selected certain human potentials as good and developed them, and rejected others as bad. internally this means that certain possible experiences are encouraged and others suppressed to construct a "normal" state of consciousness that is effective in and helps define the culture s particular consensus reality. The process of enculturation begins in infancy, and by middle childhood the individual has a basic membership in consensus reality. Possibilities are partially shaped by the enculturation that has already occurred. By adulthood the individual enjoys maximum benefits from membership, but he is now maximally bound within this consensus reality. A person s "simple" perception of the world and of others is actually a complex process controlled by many implicit factors. 

Figure 4-4, then, indicates that in developing a "normal" state of consciousness, a particular culture selects certain human potentials and structures them into a functioning system. This is the process of enculturation. it begins in infancy, possibly even before birth there has been speculation, for example, that the particular language sounds that penetrate the walls of the womb from outside before birth may begin shaping the potentials for sound production in the unborn baby. 

I do not believe that the conversion process is completely free to go wherever it will. By the time a person has reached adolescence (or later, if conversion takes place later), many human potentials he possessed at birth are, for lack of stimulation, simply no longer available. Of the latent potentials that still could be used, cultural selection and structuring have already made some more likely than others t o be utilized in a conversion. Thus even the rebels in a society are in many ways not free the direction that rebellion takes has already been strongly shaped by enculturation processes. 

The question of its ultimate reality is difficult, if one starts from the conservative view of the mind, where awareness is no more than a product of the nervous system and brain, the degree of independence or objectivity of the observer can only be relative. The Observer may be a semi-independent system with fewer characteristics than the overall system of consciousness as a whole, but it is dependent on the operation of neurologically based structures and so is ultimately limited and shaped by them it is also programmed to some extent in the enculturation process. Hilgard 26 has found the concept of such a partially dissociated observer useful in understanding hypnotic analgesia. 

One obvious prediction of the systems theory is that because the differing properties of structures restrict their interaction, there is a definite limit to the number of stable d-SoCs. ignoring enculturation, we can say that the number is large but limited by the biological/neurological/psychical endowment of man in general, by humanness. The number of possible states for a particular individual is even smaller because enculturation further limits the qualities of structures. 

The first value scale is depicted in Figure 17-1. it is the value-scaling of d-SoCs implicitly held by most western intellectuals. I stress that it is held implicitly it is conveyed along with the general value system of our society in the enculturation process, without need for a teacher to say explicitly, "Complete rationality is our goal and anything less than that is an inferior, lower state of consciousness."... 

This, then, is a picture of samsara in six consecutive instants of time. The process, of course, does not stop with six instants of time it continues through one s lifetime. The consensus reality in which a person lives limits the reality that impinges on him the physical world is generally known people generally act toward him in "normal" ways. The internalization of consensus reality he learned during enculturation, his "normal" d-SoC, matches the socially maintained consensus reality, so culturally valued experiences continue to happen to him. This is shown schematically in Figure 19-2. 

Some kinds of experiences are actively blocked by enculturation, not simply passively neglected these are represented by a pair of bars between some categories within the wheel and the rim of the wheel. You will not experience certain kinds of things, even if they are happening, unless you are subjected to drastic pressures, internal or external. 

Personal reason for desiring a way out may involve initial poor enculturation, so we don t fit in well, knowledge of other cultural systems that seem advantageous in certain ways, and/or hope that a more satisfactory substitute can be found for our faulty culture, various kinds of personal discontent make it difficult or impossible for an individual to find meaning in his life within the consensus reality of the culture, if he acts out these discontents, he may be classified as neurotic or psychotic, as a criminal, or as a rebel, depending on his particular style, if he acts out in a way that capitalizes on widespread cultural discontent, he may be seen as a reformer or pioneer. Or, he may outwardly conform to the mores of contemporary society but be inwardly alienated. 

Many structures and subsystems are an intimate part of a person s enculturated personality, however, and are not only highly resistant to change by insight, but may be incapable of being perceived well at all. They are so connected to prepotent needs and defense mechanisms that they cannot be observed clearly, or else they are so implicit that they are outside awareness. They are never observed, so observation and mindfulness techniques do not work. 

Much of our early enculturation and conditioning occurs before we have acquired much language. I suspect that language vastly increases our ability to associate information, so this lack of language further contributes to the dissociated quality of the child s mind. When we try, as adults, as predominantly verbal thinkers, to understand our enculturation and conditioning, it is difficult to recall because it is not stored in verbal form. This further increases the power of early enculturation. 

A second major cost of identification comes from the fact that most of the things and roles you automatically identify with were not your choices in the first place. As part of the enculturation process, the induction of consensus trance, you were cajoled and conditioned to identify with many roles, ideas, people, causes, and values that may have had little or no interest for your essence or that were even contrary to it. Indeed,... 

Repression of our essence was instituted in the enculturation process and for many people is now very thorough. As a vital child, you could not have walked by a strange animal on the sidewalk without stopping to look and wonder. As an adult, chances are you don t even feel the urge to look. You re too important you have to get to work. The widespread repression of most of our native curiosity, so that you are only allowed to be curious about things the culture defines as important, is one of the most horrible things about enculturation. 

By moving up higher in the hierarchy of needs, to the need for social acceptance, social control mechanisms can be constructed that do not use up so many human and physical resources. You need fewer policemen and jails. One such method is used in what are called shame cultures. Building on the natural desire to be accepted, the harmony of the group is stressed. Children are enculturated and conditioned to feel especially bad when this harmony is disrupted. If people knew that you had done such-and-such a forbidden act, you would be so ashamed, you would disgrace them as well as yourself, and the harmony of the community would be shattered. 

Building on the need for self-esteem, what anthropologists call guilt cultures go even further. Enculturation fragments the mind into the ego, the conscious part you ordinarily identify with, and the superego, the part that is above or superior to the ego. The superego mechanism... 

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