Culture has to be dynamic but the fundamentals do not have to change. The queen of England still wears a crown on ceremonial occasions. Judges in America still wear robes and are referred to as ' your honor' a tradition that ... read full comment
Culture has to be dynamic but the fundamentals do not have to change. The queen of England still wears a crown on ceremonial occasions. Judges in America still wear robes and are referred to as ' your honor' a tradition that has been in existence for centuries and therefore there is nothing wrong with riding in palanquins on special occasions. The things we have to eliminate fr our culture are superstition and harmful practices
Nii Mantse 8 years ago
I would like to know what Sarfo has been able to do for his family, with his free thinking,to redeem them from their cultural bondage.
I would like to know what Sarfo has been able to do for his family, with his free thinking,to redeem them from their cultural bondage.
Culture 8 years ago
Every year the English blacken their faces and engage in some mundane cultural practise called Morris dancing. They call it their culture.
Every year the English engage in something called Hill Cheese Rolling to the astoni ... read full comment
Every year the English blacken their faces and engage in some mundane cultural practise called Morris dancing. They call it their culture.
Every year the English engage in something called Hill Cheese Rolling to the astonishment of health and safety officials,yet they are defiant.They insist it is part of their culture.
Americans practise a complete pagan ritual every year called Halloween.They call it culture.
Every year some English,French,Welsh,Irish gather around some pre historic stone monument in Cheshire.They pray,worship,and perform their ancient rituals.They have been doing it before Julius Caesar set foot on their soil and they still do it.Their reason, culture.
Every week/month,rich Arab kings leave their opulent palaces and cars and head to the desert on camels to live the sort of life their ancestors did before oil transformed their economy.Their reason, culture.
Dalai Lama, dresses similar to how our chiefs do and the whole world respect him for that. The Greeks paraded in front of the whole world during the 2000 Olympics in toga dresses.Nobody called them primitive.Reason,culture. American cheerleaders parade in near nakedness on Tv.Reason,culture.
Obesity was as "rare as a hen"s teeth" in Ghana when we ate Ampesi,Cooco,Fufuo etc.Today, western style foods has made half of us obese.Reason, sheer stupidity.
I cannot recall any incident of death as a result of a chief sitting in a palanquin. We are not going to throw away everything that we hold dear to please the west. We will always choose what is good from the west and blend it with what we have and cherish.
The Asantehene,Okyehene etc are all brilliantly educated.They know how to balance traditional values/culture and modernity. They do not need a lecture from Sarfo.Enough of your arrogance!
Uncommon Sense 8 years ago
That has to do with your Western education. You started off with Western examples...in effect, 'Westernisms'. Perhaps you know this area better than your own cultural heritage.
I agree that each generation is responsible f ... read full comment
That has to do with your Western education. You started off with Western examples...in effect, 'Westernisms'. Perhaps you know this area better than your own cultural heritage.
I agree that each generation is responsible for evolving cultural heritage, and that responsibility falls to us. Yes, we can make new songs, new poems and such. But within which paradigm? Do we even know our heritage well enough to evolve it in a way that is true to that heritage? Or are we just going to append 'Westernisms' to what we perceive as our stagnant culture. The culture itself is not stagnant. Those of us that have become cultural hybrids, spouting so much 'Westernisms' may believe so, and I don't pretend to be above this. There are however those within the African continent (and not just Ghana or Akan or Dagomba or Ewe or Ga or Gurma etc...and all those other ones in other countries) who are still living lives within the true spirit of the heritage and evolving the culture.
To me, it is a veritable challenge, especially for those of us who have become cultural hybrids. We should not necessarily think of ourselves as being 'better' than those more steeped in our cultural heritage. Perhaps from the Western perspective, yes. We may have more critical, more structured and analytical minds.
But as far as I'm concerned, it's really much more than just 'the mind', which is the strong point of what I'm calling 'Westernisms.' A huge challenge, if the goal is to evolve our culture within boundaries true to the culture.
This requires re-education, in my opinion. The advent of Islam in Africa destroyed much of what our culture was back then. Take the Akan as an example. In order to avoid the transformative effects of Islamic culture, our ancestors opted for the migration option. They kept moving away to build new city-states so they could live in ways more true to themselves.
Guess what? Now there's nowhere else to go! No more migrations. Groups are all settled now. No surprise that much of our recent history includes migration.
But then the Europeans came by sea, and their influence has changed the direction of our people (coastal people at least). So, the original flair and flavour of our culture now seems antiquated because it is no longer mainstream, having been superseded by mainstream European (English and French mostly) cultural influences. Add to that the earlier Islamic influences and you have a difficult situation.
So, that's my contribution. I think it's far to easy to sit in an armchair and lament the lack of evolution of our cultural heritage. The way forward is a huge challenge for us all: What do we take forward with us, and what do we leave behind. How much should we dwell on the inevitable influence of 'Westernisms' on our pre-Western cultural heritage, in working to evolve and move our culture forward?
I believe I see what the challenge is, but I'm afraid I don't have the answers. I do however believe that if we work doubly hard, as cultural hybrids, to also truly know and live our original cultural heritage then we may stand a chance....
....otherwise the easiest and natural thing to do, imo, would be to successively 'bastardize' our pre-Western cultural heritage with 'Westernisms', being schooled in that and thinking that it is 'better' than what was before. In that regard, we'd be no better than the African agents of Islam that had such influences on earlier African groups that were unable to migrate away from transformative Islamic influences.
...perhaps that's our lot...perhaps stronger cultures necessarily mutate weaker ones...but I'm not yet fully sold on that idea...
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 8 years ago
You write too much without saying much.
We have no cultural heritage of a national character. What is called "our cultural heritage" is simply the archaic and frozen notions and acts we enact through dance and rituals and ... read full comment
You write too much without saying much.
We have no cultural heritage of a national character. What is called "our cultural heritage" is simply the archaic and frozen notions and acts we enact through dance and rituals and other spectacles on special days and occasions. And even here, we have no idea what to select as uniquely ethnic, Ghanaian or even African. And in this context, nobody can state one piece of it that is even representative or relevant to any tribe, let alone the whole nation.
Because if we have any piece of cultural heritage worth its name, it will not be uniquely peculiar to us; it will not be western; it will be universal.
So far what we perceive as our culture and tradition is only worthwhile in the anthropological evolution of primitive peoples. Thus our so-called culture is simply to feed western curiosity or ancient studies. That is why any statements made in reference to it (like the gods are angry) become a subject of ridicule and comedy.
kosoko 8 years ago
Arrogant Sarfo is back again! He knows nothing but thinks he is better than everyone. He is better than Kwame Nkrumah first and foremost. Sick and Pathetic!
Arrogant Sarfo is back again! He knows nothing but thinks he is better than everyone. He is better than Kwame Nkrumah first and foremost. Sick and Pathetic!
Uncommon Sense 8 years ago
To say that I wrote much but did not say much? That by itself sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? I suppose you are referring to the content of my post. You did not think much of it.
Well your best response was denial, of ... read full comment
To say that I wrote much but did not say much? That by itself sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? I suppose you are referring to the content of my post. You did not think much of it.
Well your best response was denial, of this idea of ‘cultural heritage’. By saying that we have no cultural heritage, it seems we are at different ends of a spectrum of opinion on this issue.
Seems to me that you’re a firm and devout adherent of the ‘scientific materialism’ mindset. Mind is supreme. There is no such thing as spiritual phenomena. Death is the end. Thinking can solve all of the world’s problems and bring humanity to the greatest heights. In spite of all the problems brought about on this planet by minds unleashed and unchecked, there is hope, in the thinking individual. The solutions to the world’s problems lay in the abilities of the thinking individual. Am I right? Or perhaps I should allow you to comment on these for yourself.
My position is different. If we measure what I still maintain as our pre-modern culture, that which is has been common to many black groups in various parts of Africa, by the yardstick of modern scientific thinking, then yes I shall agree with you, we do not measure up to much. And being a firm and devout adherent to scientific materialism, you correctly relegate what you appear to know very little about (from my estimation of this article and the previous one you wrote, which I have just now read) to the annals of anthropology and the curiosities of a primitive people.
My reality is different, apparently. To me, culture is in language, in values, in ideas and actions around social orientation. That includes ideas around axiology, ontology and even cosmology. Those you term primitive embraced a more encompassing epistemological paradigm that not only engaged their minds but their bodies and their spirits. “Materialistic science” (at least the mainstream kind) at its present stage ode development seems unable to measure anything beyond gross physical phenomena. Therein lays the root of denial of all but that which the epistemological aids of science can access.
This is a dead end, as far as I’m concerned. Science, the methods and the means of knowing and learning about phenomena through empirical means is great! Don’t get me wrong. I don’t deny that. But there is still much that mainstream materialistic science can’t measure, can’t access with its tools and methods, and thus denies.
For instance, you seem not to believe in any spiritual phenomena. I doubt you even know about any other ways apart from the empirical means provided by the epistemology of science, to learn about the world.
I wouldn’t be so quick, or so arrogant, to assume that humanity has reached its highest stage, due to the ideas that have become ‘modern’ and ‘current’ over these last few hundred years.
Perhaps (if you’re still reading) you may have reached the point where you will ask me to provide proof of my assertions, at which you will readily apply the only means you know to verify that proof…some scientific or rational method of knowing. Haha…well, yes, those are very valuable, but you are not just a rational thinking being. You are much, much more.
You will find out soon, in years or decades to come, after you die. That is when you will find out for sure, whether you like it or not. You will not escape this, and I am not threatening you.
You will find that you survived death, a part of you, that is, and it will be a MAJOR shock for you. The physical envelope will drop dead, of course. What will remain, you probably know very little about, and by the way you seem to think and write, I doubt that will change anytime soon.
Science will not help you then. But fortunately, your fine mind will. And you do have a fine mind, I must admit that much. The developed mind survives death, because the mind is not just ‘in the brain’. It is an actual energetic matrix that is imprinted into your bio-energetic field. The biological brain is just a “quantum space-time transducer”, in effect like a ‘radio’, in common parlance. And this will obviously not survive death. But the field it modulates most certainly will. In the post-death state, in that realty, much knowledge gained from scientific materialism will be useless.
Perhaps I am one of those you will term having been educated but still have space in my mind for superstitions! I found what you wrote about that to be amusing.
Anyway, so that is my position. I applaud science and scientific methods. They are useful means for accessing and navigating physical reality. I happen to be good at employing them. But I KNOW that there is much more. For me it is not belief. Some speak, or write, with such confidence, and to me that says that they do not know. Yet they think they do.
The extent of existence is a marvelous reality, far beyond the imagination of average and even most ‘educated’ minds.
Abubaar M. M. Azindoo 8 years ago
Hahahhahhaaa! Doc! Though I disagree with you on portions of the subject matter, I rise in your honor for the excellent display of pragmatics and argumentation. I am particularly impressed by your effective application of "Pa ... read full comment
Hahahhahhaaa! Doc! Though I disagree with you on portions of the subject matter, I rise in your honor for the excellent display of pragmatics and argumentation. I am particularly impressed by your effective application of "Parallel Structure" to advance your arguments. You are indeed a critical thinker ready to question the scientific basis of any claim in life. Many of us who have unquestionable respect for religion and culture would certainly have problems with your anthropological viewpoints. But I see them as norms of scholarship that should rather challenge us to mount a serious defence of our religio-cultural heritage in the context of liberalism and intellectualism. Once again, I salute you for the excellent use of language and ideation.
Culture has to be dynamic but the fundamentals do not have to change. The queen of England still wears a crown on ceremonial occasions. Judges in America still wear robes and are referred to as ' your honor' a tradition that ...
read full comment
I would like to know what Sarfo has been able to do for his family, with his free thinking,to redeem them from their cultural bondage.
Every year the English blacken their faces and engage in some mundane cultural practise called Morris dancing. They call it their culture.
Every year the English engage in something called Hill Cheese Rolling to the astoni ...
read full comment
That has to do with your Western education. You started off with Western examples...in effect, 'Westernisms'. Perhaps you know this area better than your own cultural heritage.
I agree that each generation is responsible f ...
read full comment
You write too much without saying much.
We have no cultural heritage of a national character. What is called "our cultural heritage" is simply the archaic and frozen notions and acts we enact through dance and rituals and ...
read full comment
Arrogant Sarfo is back again! He knows nothing but thinks he is better than everyone. He is better than Kwame Nkrumah first and foremost. Sick and Pathetic!
To say that I wrote much but did not say much? That by itself sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? I suppose you are referring to the content of my post. You did not think much of it.
Well your best response was denial, of ...
read full comment
Hahahhahhaaa! Doc! Though I disagree with you on portions of the subject matter, I rise in your honor for the excellent display of pragmatics and argumentation. I am particularly impressed by your effective application of "Pa ...
read full comment