Culture vs. Ideology

cassandra

Wed, Jun 03 2009, 1:37 pm

I think a trap that many of us fall into when discussing different forms of Orthodoxy is that we fail to distinguish between cultural identification with a group and ideological adherence to a group's belief system. Living amongst a certain group of people and dressing like them, sending your children to their schools, and generally enjoying the camaraderie of communal life does not necessarily mean that you believe in the fundamentals that a certain community stands for.

Some examples:

-A Modern Orthodox person who does not care much about the value of secular education or the value of halacha.
-A yeshivish person who enjoys the black hat way of doing things, sends their kids to the right schools that don't allow TVs but still have them in their house and allow their children to watch certain shows because they want them to be "with it", and the classic case of women who dress technically tznius but nowhere within the spirit of tznius.
-A yeshivish person who believes in Torah U'Maddah.
-A chasidish person who does most things right externally but does not believe deep down that shunning the outside world is the best way to go about things and therefore immerses themselves in outside culture, albeit privately.

So let's bear this in mind when speaking about other groups: are we talking about what a group's ideals are, or are we talking about how certain adherents behave? In my opinion the former is an opening for discussion, the latter closes the door to discussion completely.

gryp

Wed, Jun 03 2009, 10:11 pm

cassandra wrote:

You're absolutely right.
But what happens in these discussions, at least with me, is that those unfamiliar with another group might not know exactly in which category what's being said belongs. Or even if one is from that group, she might not realize the inaccurate impression she has of her own type.
I think that's why it can get so confusing and even frustrating.

ruth

Thu, Oct 29 2009, 9:19 pm

I agree with the point of your post. the culture vs. ideology dialectic is why it has been so hard for me to decide which sub-forum to join. what am I? Its a haval that we can't "visit" the subforum in order to learn more. This would help me define what it is I align myself with. (truth is that I resist having to select a catagory.)

I belong to the "sephardi" sub-forum, but my dh is temani (which is really not sephardi.) Which doesn't say much hashkafah wise. On the Sephardi forum most of the discussions do not involve theology, ideology. Most of the discussions are about various cultural issues: cooking, head covering, minhagim for life events, etc.

It would be nice if some women would be interested in a virtual round-table so to speak. (I guess we have this in an informal way on the intellectual stuff forum.) Where the hashkafah/ideological differances could be presented. Norms of tzniut (dress) have become a major identifying factor. But it is good for us to trully examine deeply what we believe. Kind of a heshbon hadaat (to coin a phrase.)