Indian Culture vs. Western Culture

Religion & spiritual beliefs

We study different religious faiths in order to understand other people. Many people have strong religious convictions, and it would be impossible to understand them without first understanding their beliefs.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are monotheistic faiths practiced by about half of the world’s population. Monotheism refers to the belief in one God. The faiths are often called western religions to distinguish them from the eastern religions practiced primarily in Asia. While western religions are centered on the belief in one God, many believers of eastern religions seek to find enlightenment by looking within themselves. Hinduism and Buddhism are popular faiths in India.

The relationship of India with other religions is integration, whereas the relationship of western towards others is opposition. The uniqueness of Indian culture is its composite and pluralistic nature. In no other part of the world has religious and cultural plurality co-existed and cross-fertilized each other so creatively. While Christians fought their denominational wars in the western hemisphere, Indian Christianity remained free from confessional conflicts and sectarian tensions. Togetherness is the essential character of our way of life. It is this spirit of togetherness that welcomes and blends diverse elements that seem disparate outside of that framework. This mytho-spiritual character of the Indian ethos has never failed to mystify western observers. India is a spiritual-cultural unity-in-diversity that can host the different and the contrary. On the other side, the West degraded religion into a theatre of conflict. The great battle between Christianity and Islam and a thousand battles within Christianity were fought either within Europe or on account of Europe. Christianity, in particular, suffered gross distortions on account of its domestication in the western culture.

The main differences in the beliefs of India and western world are that, in India the belief is “The true key is inside. What is valuable – is the inner world of the human being and his natural ability to control and develop it. The way ahead – is through self-development (inside intervention)”, whereas in western world it is “The main values are success and happiness that can be achieved in different ways, but rarely through developing ones inner strength. The majority of the criteria for success and happiness have outer nature (money, faith, popularity, etc.). The way ahead – is through active outside intervention.”

"Happiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative." – Aristotle

Culture.............

Before we start with this topic, we must first know what culture means. Culture has been defined in a number of ways, but most simply, as the learned and shared behavior of a community of interacting human beings. Culture describes what people develop to enable them to adapt to their world, such as language, gestures, tools to enable them to survive and prosper, customs and traditions that define values and organize social interactions, religious beliefs and rituals, and dress, art, and music to make symbolic and aesthetic expressions. Culture determines the practices and beliefs that become associated with an ethnic group and provides its distinctive identity. Every culture is enriched with some good and bad features.

Broadly the world has been classified into the western and the eastern culture. The East-West dichotomy is a sociological concept used to describe perceived differences between Western cultures and the Eastern world. Cultural rather than geographical in division, the boundaries of East and West are not fixed, but vary according to the criteria adopted by individuals using the term 

 .

Aspects of culture:

When asked, “what is(or was) that culture like?” one person may respond by telling about the food and the types of sports played, while another may tell about the religion and the types of art works produced. Below is just one way to break the culture of a place down into six individual aspects.

1. Government & international relations

2. Resources & economics

3. Religion & spiritual beliefs

4. Learning & technology

5. Family life, community & society

6. Arts & crafts

A Poll...........

Our team carried a Voting Poll.............

Here are the questions And Their answers that we recieved...................

.
Q1.What is Better INDIAN CULTURE or WESTERN CULTURE?
       To this question 35 out of 50 people answered that WESTERN CULTURE is better and 15 answered   
       INDIAN CULTURE.

Q2. Do you get pocket money?

       40 out of 50 people answered yes and the remaining said no.

Q3. Do you have your own separate room?

       30 out of 50 answered NO and the remaining said YES.

Q4. Do you have your own separate appliances?

       To this question 20 answered NO and the remaining said YES. Those who said yes usually had their 

       own  MOBILES and LAPTOPS.

Q5. What is better INDIAN ''PAU BHAJI'' and ''CHOLA BHATURA'' or WESTERN ''PIZZA'' and 

        ''BURGER''?

        To this question 45 people said PIZZA and BURGER meaning they like western food more than 
        INDIAN FOOD.

Q6.Do you haves your own separate room?

       To this 30 persons answered YES others said NO.Mostly those who said yes were SINGLE CHILD of
       their parents.

EFFECT OF WESTERN CULTURE ON INDIAN YOUTHS........

Its really a very good topic to discuss with an open mind so as to bring awareness among all the people.

Culture is something that has no bounds and thus it spreads from one land to another.

Indian culture is good enough to influence people all around the globe. Its rich in variety and colors. Indian culture gives equal impotance to all the forms of life on the earth. Its eco-friendly as well.

Western culture is large and good too. But it is differnt from that of ours. It misses out some of the core values and ethics that we do consider to be very important.

Its a clear crystal fact that our youth are being tremendously affected or rather influenced by the western culture.

Where is the fault?
This question is to be addresse at this time.

The fault is with the Western people.-- NO
The fault is there in the Indian Culture.--NO

The fault is with the Indian parents, teachers and the people who design our study syllabi.-- Yes, Yes

This is perhaps the most apt answer to this question. We cannot know everything on our own, But things are best learned when we understand their importance in our life.

But we very less often find that parents discussing their culture with their children. Our books do not deal with our culture. Our teachers do not talk about culture.

In India, there are so many people but every one is busy blaming the West and nobody wants to take the responsibility to preach the Indian Culture in its true sense to the youth of the country.

We learn History, Science, Geography but not Culture.

I think we are at fault. We should look into this matter seriously. Culture should be given the top most imporatnce.
I am not against incorporating new patterns into our culture but at the same time we cannot just igniore what we already have.

Please think about this and make sure that this message reaches to all your friends. Ask them to think on these lines.

WHY Western Culture Is Coming More & More Among YOUNGSTERS?

That the western culture is engulfing the youngsters is not a new thing. It came with the arrival of the English people in our country. Now it is more rapid because there is an open exposure of the western Culture which our youngsters find more fascinating to imitate. If the good part had come with equal proportion it would have been better but what is coming more is the negative factors. Due to this the social value in our country has degraded.

The reasons for coming western culture more and more among youngsters are,

1. Western culture are more liberal. Ours is still more conservative.
2. Western culture is easy to follow whereas in our culture lot of formalities.
3. Western culture is very simple and easily perceivable ours is not. In our culture one has to inculcate flair for it then you can distinguish.
4. If there be any deviation in western culture, nobody worries whereas in our culture deviation means social scolding or punishment.
5. Western culture is more or less international use whereas ours have still limitations.

Western cultures are fast adopted by the young generation because they are attractive and appealing too. The people of western countries live their life to fullest. They enjoy their life and their lifestyle is really very attractive to attract everybody. Just imagine a night at a dance bar with wines in your hand. No worries, tensions, just chilling with the high beat of music, dancing to the tune of wine. It is really very relaxing provided we are occasionally adopting it. The cultures of westernized countries are rich when it comes to living our life.

Much has been said and written about how the youth today is far removed from the values that make a good human being. While the elders continue to fret over the loss of values and morals among the young, they, on the other hand, are treading on a path, unaware of the consequences.

The Page 3 culture, which has become the hallmark of this generation, is being adopted by almost everyone.

In their bid to be counted among the ‘in’ crowd, youngsters have failed to see the good and the bad of this phenomenon. They consider it ‘cool’ to be seen at the most happening parties in the city. At parties like these, alcohol flows freely and all inhibitions are shed. Unfortunately, we are bracing this culture with open arms.

The generation Y seems to have lost respect for elders. They are blindly aping the western culture where elders are considered to be the interfering radical. Massive cultural erosion is corrupting the innocent minds of the young. They seemed to have lost sanctity for all relationships and are leading a self-conceited life.

WESTERN CULTURE............................... ♬ ♫ ♪ ılıll|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|llılı ♪ ♫ ♬

Roots of the Western civilization may be traced back to 9000 BC, when the first great cultures grew out of agricultural cores in South-West Asia, China, India, Mexico, and Peru. The Westernmost of this Old World's agricultural cores, the area around the headwaters of the Euphrates, Tigris, and Jordan Rivers in South-West Asia, spread outwards across Europe. Western culture in its strictly European geographical range began with the Greeks, was enlarged and strengthened by the Romans, reformed and modernized by the fifteenth-century Renaissance and Reformation, and globalized by successive European empires that spread the European ways of life and education between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. European Culture developed with a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism and mysticism, Christian and secular humanism. Rational thinking developed through a long age of change and formation with the experiments of enlightenment, naturalism, romanticism, science, democracy, and socialism. With its global connection, European culture grew with an all-inclusive urge to adopt, adapt, and ultimately influence other trends of culture.

The term "Western culture" is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies. Specifically, Western culture may imply:

• a Graeco-Roman Classical and Renaissance cultural influence, concerning artistic, philosophic, literary, and legal themes and traditions, the cultural social effects of migration period and the heritages of Celtic, Germanic, Romanic, Iberians, Slavic and other ethnic groups (especially from the Islamic world), as well as a tradition of rationalism in various spheres of life, developed by Hellenistic philosophy, Scholasticism, Humanisms, the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, and including, in political thought, widespread rational arguments in favour of freethought, human rights, equality and democratic values averse to irrationality and theocracy.
• a Biblical-Christian cultural influence in spiritual thinking, customs and either ethic or moral traditions, around Post-Classical Era.
• Western European cultural influences concerning artistic, musical, folkloric, ethic and oral traditions, whose themes have been further developed by Romanticism.

The concept of western culture is generally linked to the classical definition of the Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, scientific, political, artistic and philosophical principles which set it apart from other cultural spheres. Much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon.

The term has come to apply to countries whose history is strongly marked by European immigration or settlement, such as the Americas, and Australasia, and is not restricted to Western Europe.

Some tendencies that define modern Western societies are the existence of political pluralism, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Age movements), increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human migration.

India..................

India's languages, religions, dance, music, architecture, food and customs differ from place to place within the country, but nevertheless possess a commonality. The culture of India is an amalgamation of these diverse sub-cultures spread all over the Indian subcontinent and traditions that are several millennia old.

Regarded by some historians as the "oldest living civilization of Earth", the Indian tradition dates back to 8000 BC and has a continuous recorded history for over 2,500 years. Several elements of India's diverse culture — such as Indian religions, yóga and Indian cuisine — have had a profound impact across the world.