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Basic
idea is the imagination
of cultural systems as
the result of the consensory discourse of a group of persons, who, at
the moment of accepting the idea or fantasy, refer to it in an
autopoietic
(autopoietic and autopoiesis
are basic terms of constructivistic philosophy; they refer the process
of reciprocal maintenance of systems, either biological, psychic or cultural
ones or even combinations) way. That is,
they accept the idea because it guarantees them an individual as well
as a collective identity for a period of time. In order to maintain this
identity, they must create and undertake strategies, activities, events
of repetition. This leads to the origin of cults, rituals, and other formations
in both religious and secular contexts. The endless repetition of events
supports an imagination of non-linear reversible time, which may be represented
in the form of a spiral. That means that the participating individual
has the feeling that time stands still in the endless horizon of continuously
repeated and repeating events. This conveys a sense of identity and evident
existence, a kind of being, invulnerable and indestructible, embedded
in an objectified reality. The only thing which reminds the individual
observer of the uni-linear axis of time is the biological existence: the
body which is, despite all efforts, continually and clearly deteriorating.
To avoid the bottomless fear of the complete dissolution and disappearance,
the fiction of being embedded in an everlasting construct of reversible
events in non-linear time must be preserved as well and as long as possible
at a secular as well as a religious level. This is the basis of the creation
of cultural systems. Jan
Assmann, who has analysed and described the process of stabilizing
cultural systems through strategies of memory and repetition, confirms
the powerful role which religious cults play in the stabilization of every
fiction of collective identity, especially ethnicity. He sees religion
as the most effective medium to guarantee the permanence of ethnic identity.
One reason for the importance of religion in the collective maintenance
process is clearly, that religious practices often combine all possibilities
of human sensory expression. Spiritual ideas and philosophical thoughts
are combined in cults, which engage all senses: sight, smell, hearing,
and taste, and they can also engage the sense of the body in dances or
in ritual hand gestures, such as mudras. Through sensory embodiment of
religion, the immaterial background of ideas and philosophy becomes objectified.
And as the micro-structure of a body-mind network is combined with a macro-structure
of continual and authentic repetition of the same rituals throughout centuries
and eons, the objectification of a consensory reality becomes so evident
and convincing that the individual loses awareness of that the reality
is a fiction which was created long ago through a consensory discourse,
and a veil of self-evidence is drawn over the way the collective sees
itself.
References:
Thanks
to Paul
Greene for "native speaker assistance"!
Appadurai,
Arjun: Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. University
of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London 2000
Assmann,
Aleida: "Zum Problem der Identität aus kulturwissenschaftlicher
Sicht". In: Lindner, Rolf (Hg.): Die Wiederkehr des Regionalen. Über
neue Formen kultureller Identität. Frankfurt/Main 1994
Assmann,
Jan: Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Verlag C. H. Beck, München
1992
Claus-Bachmann,
Martina: "Cultural Identity and Educational Possibilities in Humanistic
Studies". In: the world of music 42 , 2000(1):13-24; http://www.ulme-mini-verlag.de/english.html
Claus-Bachmann,
Martina: Musik
kulturell vermitteln - Musikpädagogik und kulturelle Kompetenz
+ CD-ROM (Audio-, Video-Beispiele, didaktische Materialien); ulme-mini-verlag,
Giessen
Cramer,
Friedrich: Der
Zeitbaum. Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Zeittheorie. Insel Verlag,
Frankfurt/Leipzig 1996
Gumin,
Heinz/Meier, Heinrich: Einführung in den Konstruktivismus.
Veröffentlichungen der Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung Band 5,
Piper Verlag, München 1998
Smith,
A. D.: The
Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford 1986
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