We didn't start the fire

Part 1 - Questions

This Billy Joel song came out when he was 40. It consists of 119 references to major events around the world from 1949 to 1989. Now and then, I consider writing of subsequent events. After all, my year of birth picks up from where he left off. I should write about the next 40.

I hope to include a good mix of events. Sadly, wars and armed conflicts are part of the mix.

Is it really an exaggeration to say that over half the world is fighting?

One source lists 42 ongoing wars and armed conflicts globally (World Population Review 2024). Another source monitors around 110 of them, of which 45 are in the Middle East and North Africa alone (Geneva Academy 2024). Some benefit from better media coverage than others.

This essay will not cover warfare. I won’t look into the geopolitical narratives of war, rebellion or intervention, nor the rationales of power and control. I feel there is something more elusive at play that sets the stage for conflict.

To be sure, the importance and benefits of culture cannot be overstated. There is no civilization without culture. It is from which all meanings come. If we were to abandon culture, we would go back to living in caves.

However, since I have become somewhat politically and culturally conscious, it seems to me that culture is inextricably linked to conflict. Differences in cultural values and beliefs seem to put people at odds with each other. There always seems to be 'them versus us,' not only in conversations among lawmakers, commentators and activists, but even around the dinner table.

My deliberations about conflict and culture have led me to a series of questions. Before I present them, I attempt to give a working definition for culture and briefly introduce Galtung’s triangle of violence.

Culture and Cultural Violence

[Disclaimer: Culture is a vast subject. It has many sub-fields of study, including those that critique it. There are many definitions of culture. And I try to keep it simple to begin this informal philosophical inquiry. It is also important to state that a strict academic treatment is beyond the scope of this essay.]

Culture is peculiar to humans. Its basic function is expansion and security of life. Early humans acted on instinct, but over time, they developed learned behaviors determined by survival. These evolved to patterns, handed down through generations, and finally to a system of things and events beyond senses alone (Britannica 2024).

To put it simply, culture is a shared way of life for a group of people. It includes common beliefs, values, behaviours and assumptions. It also includes a shared model of thinking, feeling, reacting and problem solving. There is also the unfamiliar culture problem, because individuals cannot accurately perceive, interpret, explain and predict the behaviour of people from different cultural backgrounds (PSU 2023).

Not only that all humans are cultural beings by virtue of being raised in them, but culture yields a massive influence on personality. Britannica quotes "Culture is stronger than life and stronger than death” highlighting practices of celibacy in some cultures and the ritualistic suicide by disembowelment (seppuku or hara-kiri).

I am changing gears here. Johan Galtung, sometimes referred to as the ‘father of peace studies,’ gave the triangle of violence which enumerated three types of violence: direct, structural and cultural (JSTOR 1969, 1990). Direct violence is physical violence or direct abuse. This violence is more visible and the perpetrators and victims are generally known.

Structural violence is that which is built into the social, economic or political structures. For example inequality between groups or discrimination against a particular group. This form of indirect violence is often less visible.

And finally, cultural violence, which refers to the existence of dominant norms so deeply rooted in a given culture that it makes direct violence and structural violence seem natural or acceptable. Cultural violence includes certain features or aspects of culture, and not entire cultures, that can be used to legitimize or justify violence. Culture has many domains: for example religion, ideology, language, art, economics and sciences. And cultural violence can be present in any or all of them. This type of violence is very difficult to identify.

The three types work together and reinforce each other. I encourage readers to think of examples for each type of violence from the past or present.

Before moving to the next section, some of the ideas are worth repeating: that culture has evolved into a system beyond senses alone; that culture has a powerful influence on humans; that there is the problem of unfamiliar culture; that cultural violence are those values and beliefs so integral to a given culture that makes violence acceptable; and that of the three types, cultural violence is the most elusive.

In the beginning I alluded to a possible link between cultures and conflicts. I argue that cultural violence is that link, and therefore, it is the primary theme of this essay.

Now the questions that eat me

Cultural diversity is a reality.

That there are cultural differences, is also a reality.

Do reasonably peaceful people exist in all cultures? Yes, with certainty. Unfortunately, the peaceful majority aren’t causing the conflicts.

Let’s nuance the question a bit - do violent people exist in peaceful cultures? The answer is not so straightforward. Do peaceful cultures exist? Is there even one that is a hundred percent peaceful? And if there are such cultures that are close to being peaceful, how big or relevant are they?

Why do cultures survive?

A culture must fight external influences to prevent its extinction. It survives by ensuring that its subscribers continue to grow. It survives by reproducing itself through generations. A culture survives by protecting itself.

It’s important to develop the last point - protection from whom? Other cultures? And will a culture survive if there are not those who would die to protect it? Will a culture survive if there are not those who would kill to protect it? And if such people do not exist, will a culture survive at all? And is the need to protect itself the gateway for cultural violence?

Is culture both a refuge (for insiders) and a tyranny (for the unwanted)?

A culture emphasizes its importance. A culture is designed to stay relevant. They compete with each other. If war is the continuation of politics, I wonder what is the continuation of culture. If two cultures are different, will it not always be “them versus us”? And as long as a culture exists, is cultural violence not a means to an end? Can culture exist without cultural violence?

On coexistence - can someone respect all cultures equally? Can someone respect all cultures and respect all of humanity at the same time? Can humanism trump all cultures? Can any culture respect all of humanity equally? Is it possible for someone to follow a particular religion while considering people from other faiths as its equal? To be clear, treating all cultures with equality is not the same as cultures treating each other as their equal.

In graduate school, once in a lecture, we played with the idea that ethnic origin is the source of all differences, that ethnicity precedes any culture. Now if the root cause for conflict is buried in ethnicity, then who the hell knows how they came to be. Needless to say that various cultures differ with respect to the beliefs concerning the origin of our species.

Cultural violence is deadlier than it seems. And I wonder, is this the fire we didn't start? As the song goes - “It was always burning, since the world’s been turning.” To fight the fire surely means to contain cultural violence.

To end with a small positive, I believe those who explore different cultures are the real changemakers. Those who don’t are part of the problem. Galtung discussed cultural peace, which aims to be the opposite of cultural violence, as an area for further research. However, I feel it is crucial to understand the nature of culture itself. And that can mean welcoming paradoxes in our lives. Examining culture may lead us to confront questions about human nature itself - on how we are all capable of love, as well as enmity. If you break down the iceberg of culture, you get more icebergs.

So who really did start the fire? Or are humans engineered to never find out?

Part 2 of this essay will feature freshest, original answers from contributors of the Permeate magazine.