CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION
There are two conflicting views about the growth and accumulation pattern of culture. One theory maintains that in any community culture grows quite independently of similar events happening elsewhere or predominantly with reference to local needs and local situations. The other group believes that culture grows by diffusion. A single invention or discovery is made at one place and ultimately this cultural trait diffuses throughout the world. Sir G. E. Smith was the most ardent advocate of the diffusion theory.
In one of his papers, “The Disposal of Human Placenta”, published in 1937, Ghurye examines the practices of human beings with regard to the disposal of discarded human body like first out hair, nail pairing, first fallen teeth and the after birth. The purpose of this paper is, as he says, to compare the methods of disposal of the human placenta in the different regions of the world to see if they shed any light on the problem of diffusion of culture.
Culture diffusion is essentially an anthropological theory, which is concerned with the nature of cultural contact operating principally among the preliminary people. According to Ghurye, culture constitutes the central or core element for understanding society and its evolution. In fact, culture is a totality involving the entire heritage of mankind. Ghurye’s abiding interest was to analyze the course of cultural evolution and the nature of heritage which mankind has denied in the past.
Culture relates to the realm of values. It is a matter of individual attainment of excellence and creativity. Ghurye had a strong faith in the power of man to preserve the best of his old culture while creating from his own spirit of a new culture. He was more concerned with the process of evolution of Hindu civilization, which has been termed as a ‘complex civilization’.
And Ghurye thought that for analyzing the dynamics of culture in such a long historical civilization. In this context, the process of acculturation is more relevant than the process of diffusion. He thinks that the challenging task of a sociologist is to analyze this complex acculturation process in India.
According to him, India has been the home of many ethnic stocks and cultures from pre-historic times. In his analysis of caste, Ghurye refers to how the caste system was developed by the Brahmins and how it spread to other sections of the population. The operation of the process of Hinduization also provides the general backdrop of his analysis of the trial phenomenon.
Ghurye was promoted by the belief that there is a “common heritage of modern civilization”, and that civilization is a “collective endeavour of humanity”. He holds that behind the rise and fall of civilization, there has occurred a steady growth of the culture. Cutting across the vicissitudes of civilization growth, there are certain values, which have been established as final. These values have been termed by Ghurye as the ‘foundations of culture’.
He delineates five such values or foundations of culture. These are:
Religious consciousness
Conscience
Justice
Free pursuit of knowledge and free expression
Toleration
According to Ghurye, “civilization is the sum total of social heritage projected on the social plane”. It is also an attribute of society. Different societies can be differentiated with reference to their civilizational attainment.
Ghurye makes four general conclusions with regard to the nature of civilization:
Firstly, there has been no society, which has been either completely civilized or very highly civilized.
Secondly, Ghurye believes in the law of continuous progress.
Thirdly, the gradation of civilization is also correlated with the distribution of values. In a high civilization, humanitarian and cultural values will be accepted by a wide cross-section of the population.
Fourthly, every civilization, high or low, possesses some distinctive qualities.
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