Personal and cultural expression are concepts that go
hand in hand. It demonstrates the identity that we
believe ourselves to have according to the environment
around us. But if the influence of our culture
determines our ideas and values, then are we truly
who we are ourselves?
They say that through painting, through singing,
through dancing, we express who we are and the
place we belong in, but what is this phenomenon
that we can’t control, yet it allows us to show what we
believe in the most. Essentially, what makes creative
expressions such as significant and meaningful
impact in our lives?
First of all, what is culture? Is it tangible? Can we
touch it? Or is it simply a non-existent thought in the
back of our minds that we have taken to be part of
our personality. Then how exactly do we know that it
shows a part of who we are as a person? In school or a
workplace, you might all sit in the same room and in
the same table beside each other, but there would
always be an unproclaim statement between you
and that desk mate due to the cultural differences
that you guys have. Our beliefs and thoughts all
comes into play in how we determine what culture is
to us in a personal level and how we decided to live or
think would directly have an effect on our society and
those around us.
Sociologist Nicole Sweeney says that culture can be
divided into 2 sub categories, low and high culture.
To make it more precise, low culture is another term
for something that a majority agreed upon. It is the
cultural behaviors and ideas that are popular with
most people in society. High culture are cultural
patterns that distinguish a society’s elite. These are
all ideas that express who we are, although they
appear quite different and seems to revolve around
what we called a class system that places us with
different categories as others. So how do these
concepts come together as one significant culture or
representation of our community and character?
Through symbols, values and norms that are a
representation of the society’s cultural, ethical and
moral beliefs.
The thing is, culture can be anywhere around us, as
long as that particular represents our thoughts and it
comes together to form a way of life. They are often
iconic symbols or something that we immediately
link to a train of thought, like the peace sign. This is
material culture and within those object, they
contain specific meanings which differs within each
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Preface
individual, depending on how our culture associate
with it. These abstract concepts are all non-material
culture shaped into something that we can see and
touch. Such as the idea of resolving conflict and
creating harmony within the peace sign.
Symbols don’t have a defined form, it can be a small
gesture, an item, a pattern. It is a non-verbal method of
communicating with others about our traditions or
heritage They contain values, our morals and what we
perceive to be the ideals and guidelines that we should
live by. Similar to how you would stay silent when a
teacher holds a finger to their mouth. Beliefs is intact
within the individual as it is the nature of reality and
whatever we chose to believe in.
The West tends to value individualism whilst in the
East, collectivism is placed foremost, with a dominant
emphasizes placed on groups over oneself. These are
what we called norms and it helps to express the
formation of different social structure that humans
believe an individual to be categories in according to
the culture and they are often express through the
means of art as a neutral standing. Creative
expressions enable us to show who we are in the inside
in a positive light, yet some art forms have been
undermined and rejected for that purpose.
When you see someone walking down the streets
wearing a sleeveless shirt and the washed out color of
the distinctive mark of a tattoo, most likely you would
feel intrigued and unconsciously, passes your
judgement upon it.
This is called ethnocentrism. The act of judging
someone else’s culture or custom through your own
standards. When we see someone acting differently
than how we suppose one should be thinking or
behaving, conflict arises regardless of whether it is a
personal and cultural expression. But why do we
undermine such creative act of expressions even
though it has such a meaningful value of materializing
our thoughts and ideas.