Preface - The Cosmological Conception of Culture

During the last few decades, there has been a rapid escalation of interest in culture. Not only are many countries actively involved in measures to strengthen their cultural programs, policies, practices, and possibilities, but also the United Nations recently declared the decade from 1988 to 1997 as the World Decade for Cultural Development.

A concomitant feature of this escalating interest in culture has been the quest to clarify the nature, scope, and subject matter of culture. Is culture the arts? Is it the mass media? Is it leisure time activity? Is it shared values, a state of mind, a way of life, or a means of interacting with the natural environment? Or is it all of these things? Obviously, this is not an easy problem to solve. A group of scholars intent on clarifying the meaning of culture several decades ago discovered that there are well over a hundred different definitions of culture.

The world has paid a severe price for the inability to clarify the meaning of culture. Not only is culture the source of a considerable amount of suspicion and controversy, but also it is the cause of a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding.

Rather than adding another definition of culture to the already lengthy list, what the present monograph attempts to do is make the case for an all-embracing, cosmological conception of culture. It does so by proposing that culture is "worldview" and cultures are "worldviews". In order to give this idea a solid grounding in reality, Canadian culture is used as a case study for illustrative purposes.

The monograph is divided into four parts. In part one, the connection between culture and cosmology is traced. Here, an attempt is made to show that while cosmology is concerned with worldview in a physical sense, culture is concerned with worldview in a biological, ecological and human sense. As such, culture is concerned with the way in which different species and especially the human species view the world, organize themselves, conduct their affairs, and position themselves in the world. In part two, attention is focused on the way in which the human species creates specific cultures that are different from one another because they are based on different cosmologies or worldviews. It is at this point that Canadian culture is introduced to illustrate how one particular group of people executes this activity. In part three, the anatomy of cultures is probed by examining sixteen key "focal points of cultural analysis." Each focal point is examined in general terms first, and then applied specifically to the Canadian situation. And finally, in part four, an assessment is made of the way in which it is possible to identify the distinctive worldviews or cosmologies of cultures most effectively in the real world. By tackling the problem in this way, it is hoped that individuals and institutions in all parts of the world will be assisted in their quest to understand more about the nature, functioning, complexities and intricacies of culture in their own societies.

Like other monographs in the World Culture Project series, the present monograph is intended to be exploratory and illustrative, rather than authoritative or definitive, in nature. Its purpose is to broaden and deepen our collective understanding of culture in general and cultures in particular.

It remains to express my gratitude to Joy MacFadyen, Sal Amenta, and Archie Bahm for their valuable contributions to this monograph. While recognizing these contributions, I nevertheless assume full responsibility for everything contained in the text.