Releasing Old Understandings of Our Culture

What holds us back? This question can arise frequently over the course of a lifetime—whether we’re talking about the lifetime of a person, a community, our nation, or our culture. What prevents us from thriving, from being the best version of ourselves? It might be pain or trauma that needs care and healing. It might be misunderstandings that need to be discussed and worked through. It might be divisions that prevent us from finding solutions together for the good of the whole.

I’ve been thinking recently about what holds us back as a culture. Unfortunately, throughout human history, cultural norms have explicitly limited roles for people of certain genders, skin colors, ethnicities, etc. People have been kidnapped, enslaved, and forced into manual labor. Their innate wisdom has been ignored, suppressed, and criminalized.

This has prevented us from benefitting from countless bright ideas that could have improved life and society. How much “further along” would we be if our culture had been able to embrace such marginalized peoples’ fresh insights and implement their savvy new ideas?

Well-established (even entrenched? calcified?) cultures too frequently thwart helpful transformations. Denying the reality of climate change prevents communities from working together to develop solutions using our inherent (God-given) creativity. Enshrining the ideal of owning a (freestanding suburban) house prevents us from investing in communal solutions to an overcrowded world. The cultural myths of American individualism and “bootstrapping” notions of success too often prevent us from combining resources and collaborating for a better future for all.

When we cling to old understandings and assumptions, we are unable to fully thrive. Yet cultures also create and support common understandings and important connections that help us to navigate life in community and care for each other. Without some cultural concept of the “United States of America,” it would be even more difficult for us to work together than it already is.

Eventually, every culture disintegrates. Every nation falls—or falls apart. We may be witnessing that right now. The culture that built this country (and harmed many of its inhabitants in the process, even as it helped others to thrive) may not last much longer. Honestly, I’m actually okay with that. I think some fundamental changes might be needed—but that doesn’t mean the process will be easy to live through!

What cultural understandings have formed, inspired, and perhaps also limited you, both nationally and regionally? What cultural assumptions might you need release?