You Have Your Own Microculture, or Virtual DNA (IOW, "Personality")
Do Differences Produce Discordant Cacophony or Sublime Harmony?
I think everybody is familiar with microclimates. As an example, although they are in the same California county, and in fact are located just a handful of miles from each other, everyone who lives on the Monterey Peninsula is aware that Marina’s weather is typically cooler and foggier than Monterey’s.
People are like that, too. Not so much that some are sunny and others are more inclement in their nature (although that’s true, too), but in that each individual has their own microculture.
There is a world (or human) culture. Each nation has its own culture. Each region within a nation also has its idiosyncrasies. And going further, each family, and even each individual in the family, has their own peculiarities — their own private and distinct culture.
Caveat emptor: I don’t like to use the word “Americans” to refer to citizens of the United States, because America is much more than just the U.S. To use precision, an American could reside anywhere from the remote north of Canada to Tierra del Fuego. So I prefer the term “UnitedStatesians” (one word). I’m guilty of being a neologist; sue me if it irks you. But even that nomenclature (“UnitedStatesian”) is not specific enough, as there are two United States within North America, since Mexico is also officially the United Mexican States (“Estados Unidos Mexicanos”). So maybe “UnitedAmiStatesian” (as opposed to “UnitedMexStatesian”)? Pretty awkward sounding. Any suggestions?What I mean by culture is not only the arts, such as music and books and paintings and such that are enjoyed by a given group of people, but also the food for which a group is known, the words it uses (the language they speak as well as the subset of that language that they actually use), the accent they use when speaking, the way they pronounce or emphasize certain words, their style of dress and grooming, the sports that are most popular in that area or within that group as well as specific teams that are followed, the types of recreation it enjoys the most, places to which its members tend to travel, the movies, TV shows, and plays that are popular there, the philosophies or worldview they espouse, and so many other things.
Each culture (world, national, regional, family, and individual) has its own set of preferences, tendencies, inclinations, and predilections. Of course, there are always variations within the general theme (as the proverbial “black sheep of the family” personifies) — none of these things are universal within a group, they simply tilt in a certain direction in general/as a whole.
As an example of this, when it comes to football (which is called “American Football” in much of the world, because plain old “football” to most is what we UnitedStatesians call soccer), world culture seems to prefer Manchester United; U.S. culture favors the Dallas Cowboys (not me, but hey, they’re “America’s team”); my region’s culture favors the San Francisco 49ers; my family’s culture is fundamentally uninterested altogether; whereas my individual culture, my microculture, has always fervently favored the Green Bay Packers (in other words, I have favored them).
In my family's case, my father is a (somewhat fair-weather and only mildly interested) 49ers fan, and I’ve always been a Packers backer, but of my two sons, one chose the Cincinnati Bengals as his team, and the other one, as I do, follows the Packers. Which of my sons is more like me as far as "football fan culture" goes: Kelvin, because he chose his own team, and one not located in his home State, as I did; or Morgan, who did adopt the very team I have always followed? It’s debatable, right? Truth be told, I think Morgan mainly chose the Packers as his team because his formative years were spent in Wisconsin (whereas I was a Packers fan long before we resided there for several years).When comparing your microculture (in other words, your personality, or what might be called your virtual DNA) to the other cultures surrounding and enveloping it (your family, regional, national, and even world culture), you might find that yours most closely resembles your family’s, then your region’s, then your nation’s, and has the least in common with world culture.
From generation to generation, a family’s, region’s, nation’s, and even world’s culture can and does change; take music as an example: When I was growing up, the older generation (“old fogeys” to us then) derided rock ‘n’ roll as demoralizing neanderthalic noise. That generation was hooked on jazz and show tunes. But how many of them would have enjoyed rock ‘n’ roll had they only been born a generation later? Probably most of them. And how many of us rockers would have been jazz aficionados had we been born when our parents were? Probably most of us. The same is true of any fad — although the parents are often confused and/or repulsed by what their children’s generation is up to, maybe they should stop and reflect on whether they (the parents) followed the fads and fashions of their day. If they did, they probably would have followed the current fads and fashions, too, had they only been born when their children were. So changes in culture appear to be more about generational changes than actual changes in personality between parents and their offspring. The cultural changes themselves take place at least partly because the young want to differentiate themselves from their parents — just as their parents wanted to differentiate themselves from their own sires and dams.
As a part of this mental exercise (some may call it navel-gazing), you might want to compare your microculture with the microculture of your “significant other” —who is not necessarily a person with whom you have a romantic relationship, but could be whoever it is that you spend the most time with (such as a coworker) or whose own microculture affects you the most (which I just realized could be a dog, cat, donkey, duck-billed platypus, or some other “pet”).
The differences between our microculture and that of others, and that of our family, region, nation, or entire world, could either be “heard” by us as discordant and cacophonous, like cats yowling and trashcan lids banging, or as sublime and harmonious, such as the dulcet tones of [insert the musical preference that’s part of your microculture here, whether it be J.S. Bach, The Beatles, CSN&Y, or someone else].
How we hear the cultural differences between us is, to some extent at least, a personal choice. Mind control is not just for Jedis to use on others. We can control our own thinking, and doing so is to our mutual advantage when we try to hear the differences in each other’s cultures as beautiful harmony that creates a fuller, richer sound rather than irritating noise. After all, variety is the spice of life. Vive la différence!