I must admit my buttons were pushed today in class. Red flags were waving for me. When I read in the summary :
A society which functions harmoniously (with a minimum of maladaptive behavior) displays Cultural Integration, which is another way to say its practices are adaptive to the circumstances and provide for the health, well being and competitive success of the larger group.
I ask the following questions:
From what perspective are you judging the amount of maladaptive behavior?
Is it from the large group that is in power?
What about the oppressed minorities that don't fit the norm? What about the community that has 66% unemployment rate and a large % living in poverty. I am talking about the community of people with disabilities. This community deals with inaccessibility to society; whose quality of life is called into judgement in matters of who gets health care and euthanasia. Is our society functioning harmoniously? By the way, the Chuch lobbied and succeded to be exempt from the ADA. Businesses only need to prove undue financial hardship to not meet reasonable accommodation requests. What happenned to: If one person is oppressed all are oppressed?
You raise excellent questions! I read them and then reread the summary statement you quoted and was stopped in my tracks by the last five words: success of the larger group. Whoa! After reading your questions, the implication of the whole definition is quite different than the first time through. Thank you for leading me to this realization. It leads me to remember that these kinds of descriptors and definitions operate in the theoretical and objective world- the big picture. However, in ministry and in life we live in the smaller, subjective world. I frequently ask myself (especially in this class) the question, "how does this apply to ministry?" It's easy to get lost in the theory and academia of what we are learning and what you have done is pointed out an area that the question needs to be asked- one that I had completely missed. While we might discuss our society as exhibiting signs of Cultural Integration in the big picture, it is imperative that we carry in our awareness that there are plenty of people whose experience is outside of anything that would be described as integrated. And I am also reminded that we are a capitalistic society, who by definition is not committed to the 'success of the larger group.' Laws are frequently created to protect the wealthy and to create and maintain a healthy working class. Those who fall outside of the working class, and thus are not 'valued' by the capitalistic engine, are not well provided for in health, well being and competitive success. This applies to the elderly, persons with disabilities, and children to name a few.
ReplyDelete