Humans are, to greater or lesser extents all creatures of habit. It saves energy to just repeat the exercise we last carried out, rather than re-evaluating the possibilities each time. But the danger of course is that we slip into habits which may later be seen to be destructive or otherwise inappropriate. And, on a cultural or societal level, whole lives may fail to question certain principles or beliefs.
Money and its purpose is certainly one such example. I would imagine very few of us ask ourselves the basic question- "what is the purpose of money"? And its a fairly important question in today's world where the majority of us are almost totally dependant on cash for simple survival- it wasn't always so. Isn't it rather strange then that the "purpose of money", where it comes from etc are rarely if ever taught at school?
Love is another example. The word is used glibly all the time in modern society- "falling in love", "making love", "love child" etc. But its one of those words and concepts which has almost totally lost any meaningful content. We use the word out of habit without really understanding its meaning.
And how about "education" or "schooling"? In the modern Western world it has become virtually synonymous with being civilised or associated with a progressive society. And yet the concept of education and schooling in particular are relatively recent developments in the history of man. Most indigenous societies would not recognise our understanding of what it takes to become "educated" and our practice of incarcerating young children for years to "educate" them would appear positively absurd to them.
As the film "Schooling the world" http://schoolingtheworld.org/screenings/host/ points out, western imperialism used education as a strategic tool in its taming of conquered lands and peoples. In India, the British aim was to create a population brown on the outside but English on the inside. Similarly, the indigenous North American population was subjected to an education system which effectively extinguished all their cultural roots.
And now, one can find schools the world over using a Western education model, promoting Western principles and ideology, often in stark contrast to the cultural values prevalent in the host nation. Often, these schools were originally established by missionaries having a particular religious agenda, or by well-meaning foreigners who thought their efforts would improve the lot of the host population. Whatever the original motive, many of these schools promote an ideology which stands in stark contrast to the indigenous culture.
Even if our ideological model was perfect, imposing it on another culture cannot be justified. However, Western "culture" is increasingly displaying a raft of serious deficiencies and seems unlikely to survive too much longer and our energies would be better directed in developing a new cultural myth to replace the existing myth of "progress".
