Culture and Moral Behavior

The overarching aim of this paper is “to explain the influence of Filipino culture on the way students look at moral
experiences and solve moral dilemmas” (Commission on Higher Education). In particular, at the end of this paper,
students should be able to articulate the importance of culture in moral behavior, making decisions, judgments, and
understanding social norms. This paper will also help them understand how Filipino culture influences the way they
think about themselves and the actions they take as moral agents. Moreover, through discussions on the different
aspects and features of a culture, students should also be able to recognize and appreciate the differences in moral
behavior among different cultures. In so doing, they will be able to evaluate, at the same time, the issue of cultural
relativism.

Introduction: The Question of Culture

Moral values, judgment, behavior as well as moral dilemmas and how we perceive them are largely shaped and
influenced by history (i.e., historical contingencies), power dynamics (i.e., competing ideas and interests), and
the religion of a society. The way we appreciate and assess things are not created out of nothing (ex nihilo) or
simply out of our imagination. They are conditioned by external and material elements around us that, in turn,
provide the basis for principles that orient our judgment and valuation of things. Combined as one structure or
phenomena, these external and material elements make up culture. In other words, culture is what shapes and
influences social and personal values, decisions, behavior, and practice. Thus, to understand how culture works and
its features is to also grasp the reason why things are done in a particular way and why we do these things the way
we do them.

In the field of anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies, scholars have demonstrated why culture is the best site
for consideration as the material condition that shapes the way we judge and value things, and how through culture
these things come into concrete expression. That is to say, culture can tell us a great deal about one particular
society. Let us think about this idea concretely in and through our very own context, the Philippines.

To understand Filipino values is to understand Filipino culture.[1] However, in order to understand Filipino culture
one must recognize that it has been profoundly Christianized.[2] After hundreds of years of colonization by Western
Christian empires, the Filipinos’ moral and ethical imagination cannot be understood outside Christian values and
morality. Christianity is pervasive in our culture so that the way we judge and value things and how things ought to
be follows the doctrinal grid of Christian theology. An example of this pervasiveness and influence of Christianity to
Filipino culture is how Filipinos value more neighborliness (i.e., “bayanihan” or “pakikipagkapwa tao” or
“pakikisama”) more than, say, the filial piety (of Confucianism). Filipino moral universe is framed through the ethos of
the Judeo-Christian tradition. In this particular case, the way we relate to others is greatly affirmed and influenced by
what the Hebrew-Christian scripture teaches us to do, that is, to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.
Christianity reinforces the neighborliness of the Filipino bayanihan system. In other words, within Filipino culture,
biblical teachings found their way as foundational principles for a social norm. Put differently, the intertwining of
Christianity and culture in the Filipino context is the base upon which we can understand why Filipinos do the things
the way they do or why Filipino believe things as they are.

Being aware of these “external and material elements around us” which we interact (implicitly and explicitly) with and
incorporate (consciously and unconsciously) into how we do things with and for ourselves and in relation to and with
others is, therefore, necessary in understanding why we respond to issues and to situations of our lives in a certain
way. In this chapter, these external and material elements around us will be described, as indicated above, as
culture. However, to limit our discussion, these external and material elements here refer to people and their
practices. And in relation to this, culture is normally understood as what people do and how they do things—
people and do/action.

Outline of Discussion: A Study on Culture and Moral Behavior

To further our reflection on Filipino culture and in order to place ourselves in a better vantage point, it is important for
us to first lay the historical foundation of our modern-day culture as it is currently (re)configured today. It is
necessary to thus start our reflection on the history of colonialism. The immediate antecedent of our (Filipino) history
that shaped our collective memory and experience is Western colonization. The discussion that follows below
suggests this idea: we cannot understand contemporary Filipino culture without our collective memory and
experience of Western colonial enterprise. Insights from postcolonial studies (Edward Said) will be utilized in order
to clarify and advance this reflection.

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Philosophy, Education, and Psychology

Culture and Moral Behavior
The overarching aim of this paper is “to explain the influence of Filipino culture on the way students look at moral
experiences and solve moral dilemmas” (Commission on Higher Education). In particular, at the end of this paper,
students should be able to articulate the importance of culture in moral behavior, making decisions, judgments, and
understanding
This social norms.
study source was downloaded This paperfrom
by 100000831390362 willCourseHero.com
also help them understand
on 06-30-2022 19:47:58how
GMTFilipino
-05:00 culture influences the way they
think about themselves and the actions they take as moral agents. Moreover, through discussions on the different
https://www.coursehero.com/file/70795402/Culture-and-Moral-Behaviordocx/
 aspects and features of a culture, students should also be able to recognize and appreciate the differences in moral
behavior among different cultures. In so doing, they will be able to evaluate, at the same time, the issue of cultural
relativism.

Introduction: The Question of Culture

Moral values, judgment, behavior as well as moral dilemmas and how we perceive them are largely shaped and
influenced by history (i.e., historical contingencies), power dynamics (i.e., competing ideas and interests), and
the religion of a society. The way we appreciate and assess things are not created out of nothing (ex nihilo) or
simply out of our imagination. They are conditioned by external and material elements around us that, in turn,
provide the basis for principles that orient our judgment and valuation of things. Combined as one structure or
phenomena, these external and material elements make up culture. In other words, culture is what shapes and
influences social and personal values, decisions, behavior, and practice. Thus, to understand how culture works and
its features is to also grasp the reason why things are done in a particular way and why we do these things the way
we do them.

In the field of anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies, scholars have demonstrated why culture is the best site
for consideration as the material condition that shapes the way we judge and value things, and how through culture
these things come into concrete expression. That is to say, culture can tell us a great deal about one particular
society. Let us think about this idea concretely in and through our very own context, the Philippines.

To understand Filipino values is to understand Filipino culture.[1] However, in order to understand Filipino culture
one must recognize that it has been profoundly Christianized.[2] After hundreds of years of colonization by Western
Christian empires, the Filipinos’ moral and ethical imagination cannot be understood outside Christian values and
morality. Christianity is pervasive in our culture so that the way we judge and value things and how things ought to
be follows the doctrinal grid of Christian theology. An example of this pervasiveness and influence of Christianity to
Filipino culture is how Filipinos value more neighborliness (i.e., “bayanihan” or “pakikipagkapwa tao” or
“pakikisama”) more than, say, the filial piety (of Confucianism). Filipino moral universe is framed through the ethos of
the Judeo-Christian tradition. In this particular case, the way we relate to others is greatly affirmed and influenced by
what the Hebrew-Christian scripture teaches us to do, that is, to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.
Christianity reinforces the neighborliness of the Filipino bayanihan system. In other words, within Filipino culture,
biblical teachings found their way as foundational principles for a social norm. Put differently, the intertwining of
Christianity and culture in the Filipino context is the base upon which we can understand why Filipinos do the things
the way they do or why Filipino believe things as they are.

Save
CLICK the image to access our free online learning materials in Ethics
Being aware of these “external and material elements around us” which we interact (implicitly and explicitly) with and
incorporate (consciously and unconsciously) into how we do things with and for ourselves and in relation to and with
others is, therefore, necessary in understanding why we respond to issues and to situations of our lives in a certain
way. In this chapter, these external and material elements around us will be described, as indicated above, as
culture. However, to limit our discussion, these external and material elements here refer to people and their
practices. And in relation to this, culture is normally understood as what people do and how they do things—
people and do/action.

Outline of Discussion: A Study on Culture and Moral Behavior

To further our reflection on Filipino culture and in order to place ourselves in a better vantage point, it is important for
us to first lay the historical foundation of our modern-day culture as it is currently (re)configured today. It is
necessary to thus start our reflection on the history of colonialism. The immediate antecedent of our (Filipino) history
that shaped our collective memory and experience is Western colonization. The discussion that follows below
suggests this idea: we cannot understand contemporary Filipino culture without our collective memory and
experience of Western colonial enterprise. Insights from postcolonial studies (Edward Said) will be utilized in order
to clarify and advance this reflection.
This study source was downloaded by 100000831390362 from CourseHero.com on 06-30-2022 19:47:58 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/70795402/Culture-and-Moral-Behaviordocx/
 Today, to study about a culture, one must, at least, engage the insights of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu.
They are the two of the more important thinkers in this area of study as they did not only transform the terrain of this
field, but also demonstrated why power and social structures are critical in understanding how culture works. They
can, therefore, help us understand the elements and nuances of a culture. In this second section, the aim is to
deepen our reflection on culture, particularly on the way in which culture becomes a conflicted and contested site of
various interests and power dynamics.

To conclude this discussion on culture, let us consider a work in contemporary cultural studies particularly as it
relates to the question of religion and culture. The aim of this concluding section is to emphasize the fact that culture
is not a homogenous space nor has a singular operative logic. It is infused with “other” elements that may have
shaped its logic. This discussion highlights as well the point that a Filipino culture today is, by and large, shaped by
a religious ethos of the Christian faith. Thus, to talk about Filipino culture is to talk about Filipino
religiosity/spirituality. In this sense, Filipino culture is an expression and way of being of the Filipino people that
manifests their “ultimate concern” (Paul Tillich, 1959).

In the Analysis Section, I will further elaborate more on the stake of the question of culture by way of looking at it
through the concept of apparatus of Giorgio Agamben. It is here as well that I suggest some theoretical points about
culture that have bearings on the question of moral behavior. The Conclusion Section outlines the important insights
from the discussion.

In the Learning Exercises section are activities that could enhance reflection on the issue of culture in general and
Filipino culture in particular. The exercises are for group and individual activity. This section may be used to aid
discussion or to deepen further reflections about culture and the way in which it influences moral behavior.

In the end, this chapter hopes to provide an introductory discussion on and about culture, and to offer a cursory
outline of a framework through which one may think and reflect about culture’s role and place in moral behavior.

On Culture: History of Colonialism, Power, Domination, and Religion

In its broadest description, culture is a structure of collective experience and shared practices which are commonly
expressed in, but not limited to, arts, music, dance, literature, behavior and social norms. Or, as defined above,
culture is made up of the external and material elements around us. In its simplest form, anthropologists describe
culture as a way of life. In any of this description, we see culture as life or an attribute ascribed to a particular form of
life, be it a society or a group of people that manifest their collective and particular way of doing, thinking, and
valuing things that are identifiably and distinctively theirs. For example, this is evident when we compare Western
culture as opposed to African culture. Western culture is often described as individualistic (independence and
autonomy as more important than anything else) as opposed to African culture which is considered more as
collectivistic (e.g., the Ubuntu: “I am because we are”) wherein the “I” is only secondary to corporate entity or
communal interest.

In the discussion above, the highlight is on the significant core of what culture is: that culture is a particular feature of
a particular form of human life. As will be shown at the end of this section, it is precisely because of this link between
culture and life that the question of ethics and morality is necessarily interwoven with culture. Culture also has to do
with what makes life flourish, what makes life continue from one generation to another, and what counts for life’s
possibilities. A Ghanaian scholar, W. Emmanuel Abraham (1992) suggests this core fact about culture: that culture
contains and encompasses not only the material but also the emotional, intellectual, and ethical aspects of a society
or a social group. In short, culture is undeniably related to and is about life and everything related to it.

In the Philippine context, as the core of culture is shaped by the history of colonialism and Christianity, Filipino life is
infused with Western values and ethos of the Christian faith. Filipino culture is postcolonial as well as Christianized.
It is precisely for this reason that culture becomes a form and bearer of a form of life. To further elaborate on the
stake of this thesis, let us first reflect on the question of history, particularly the history of colonialism, as a way to
situate the formation and current form of Filipino culture.

What is Culture?: Reflecting on the Question through the Prism of the History of Colonialism

Let us first describe this history and experience of colonialism as “thick history”; thick because

this history not only shapes the current configuration (politics, governance, religion) but also because this history
continues to influence the psycho-social consciousness, define self-identity of the Filipino people, and determine
their interest and place in the geopolitical and global monetary order. The thickness of this history, therefore, defines
a great deal of contemporary culture of the Filipino people. Evidence of this thickness can be easily seen in how our
taste for fashion and music are Westernized, our love for Hollywood movies, our desire for Western and American
literatures, and our reliance on sovereign debt and Official Development Assistance (ODA) from other countries. In
short, colonial history is thick because it penetrates the social and the psychic reality of the Filipino people not to
mention how it continues to interrupt and intervene in its political, economic, and cultural affairs.

In recent memory, postcolonial studies became an area of academic inquiry that investigates the issue of
colonialism and the colonial residues that remain operative in the cultural life, and as it pertains to our discussion, to
the Filipino people. Edward Said, a famous postcolonial literary critic and professor at Columbia University, is one of
the pioneering and towering scholars in this area. He provides us with an elucidating account as to why the history
of colonialism defines an important contour for cultural studies, criticism, and analysis.

In Orientalism (1979), a groundbreaking book in this area of study, Said addresses how non-Western cultures are
(re)produced through representation in Western imaginaries and in Western academia. In this particular work, he
focuses on the way in which Western literatures have represented non-Western cultures in unflattering terms—
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While he focuses on 19th century literatures, we still see this representation to be evident in contemporary popular
https://www.coursehero.com/file/70795402/Culture-and-Moral-Behaviordocx/
 culture—in movies, for example, the Arabs are portrayed as religious fanatics and terrorists and Black Americans as
thugs. This is what makes the insight of Said on representation of non-Western cultures, which remains relevant and
significant, then and now, profound.

But more importantly, for Said, representation is a matter of operation of power; in a Foucauldian sense (discussed
below), representation is a mechanism that shapes “knowledge” about other people. Such knowledge is not neutral.
Because in this representation of other people, such knowledge creates differentiation of people and culture—
particularly, biases, prejudices, and stereotypes against other people.

Moreover, this is highly problematic because the way other people and cultures are represented have been
determined and shaped by their subject position in the colonizer/colonized power relations. In the history of
colonialism, this kind of representation is utilized and employed to shore up the superiority of the colonizers and the
inferiority of the colonized—i.e., they are barbaric (non-Western culture), we are civilized (Western culture); they are
irrational, we are rational. In this othering of non-Western culture, representation is not only misleading but also
inaccurate misrepresentation of others. It is also, unfortunately, an operation for justification to the violent
subjugation and inferiorization of others.

In his pioneering work, therefore, Said offers a new way to look at the history of colonialism as not just history
determined through arms and armies but through literatures, not only about conquest but also about anthropology,
not just about oppression but about justification of colonialism through a narrative. Although this is more developed
in his later work, particularly in Culture and Imperialism (1994), we already see in Orientalism the way colonialism
changes and influences non-Western cultures, one that is not immediately visible to the naked eyes. These colonial
codes embedded in non-Western cultures are hidden and veiled ideas—for example, white race is superior and
Western ideas are civilized and objective. Without the sharp analysis of Said, these colonial codes will just appear
as self-evident and natural, and as a result, continue to reinforce the superior/inferior dichotomy of the
colonizer/colonized relations.

This kind of trenchant analysis and critique of colonialism (through representation in literature as in the case of Said)
is described as postcolonial criticism. Such kind of criticism is critically important in our reflection about culture
because this only demonstrates the way in which culture is not only molded within itself but also, more importantly,
without itself. A culture is not isolated from history, indeed, from world history. In modernity, it is affected and
infected, for bad and for good, with Western imperial enterprise. A culture is always intertwined with the affairs of the
world. To use a postcolonial concept, culture is hybrid, like a halo-halo. Culture is constituted by different elements
that became part of what it is―a mixture of assorted ingredients, like chopsuey. In the schema of Said,
contemporary culture is entangled in, one way or the other, the Western/non-Western divide.

Moreover, along the insights of Said, colonialism operates insidiously; it is pervasive and it pervades even in how we
imagine what and how things are and should be (e.g., in literature or fashion). An example of this is how we love to
pattern our fashion after Western style—i.e., even in a tropical weather, we love to wear coat and tie. This is the
postcolonial Filipino culture, a mixture of style and preferences acquired through the reality and experience of
colonial relations, and an incorporation and integration of various things into a particular way of life. In this respect,
the history of colonialism made Filipino culture what it is today. How we appropriated the experience and reality of
colonialism is a testament of our creativity and ingenuity. But how we use it to enhance our collective life as a
Filipino people and our cultural identity remains an unfinished task.

Finally, although he focuses on the problem of representation in Western discourse and literature, Said provides us,
nonetheless, with a way to understand the dynamics between Western and non-Western cultures, between the
colonizer and the colonized, whose relationship continues to shape contemporary perceptions and practices of non-
Western cultural subjects. Entanglement of Western and non-Western cultures have become problematic because
of its history and uneven power relations. Postcolonial criticism makes us aware of the problems and issues,
particularly as they relate to the question of Filipino culture. Indeed, postcolonial Filipino culture is an amalgam of
local and colonial ideas and practices, shaped by Western colonialism.

In sum, what I hope to simply illustrate here is this: it is necessary to understand culture, or as in our case, Filipino
culture (a non-Western culture but now a Western non-Western culture), in and through the history of colonialism. In
this way, we also see how culture is (re)configured, and how subsequently, it can produce subjects and practices in
a way that it does. As I will discuss below, the Foucauldian (Michel Foucault) idea of discourse/knowledge is central
to this thesis—discourse/knowledge produce subjects and practices. Let us proceed to this train of thought, first, by
way of the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu on practice or habitus.

What is Culture?: Reflecting on the Question with Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is known for his works in a number of different areas of study, such as sociology
of culture, education, language, and literature to name a few. Many of his key concepts like habitus, doxa, practical
logic, and cultural capital have become integral and influential in social sciences and humanities.

For our purposes of thinking about the processes or practices of social patterns, particularly in relation to behavior,
the concept of practice and habitus is especially relevant. By practice, Bourdieu refers to the things that
people do as opposed to what they say; and the way he theoretically develops this idea of practice is through the
notion of habitus. In his best-known text, Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977), he defines habitus in this manner:

…durable, transposable, dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is,
as principles of the generation and structuring of practices and representations which can be objectively “regulated”
and “regular” without in any way being the product of obedience to rules.

Simply put, a habitus is a set of predispositions that generate and structure human actions and behaviors. While it
shapes
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https://www.coursehero.com/file/70795402/Culture-and-Moral-Behaviordocx/
 surroundings, we acquire habitus specific to our social location. We internalize them—again, unconsciously and
informally.

Another important element of this notion of habitus that needs emphasis is this: it appears or expresses itself into
different manifestations, contingent on a particular social or cultural markers. For example, the habitus of a
corporate executive with an advance degree (say, Masters in Business Administration or Juris Doctor) who eats his
steak with red wine, watches cultural shows and symphony concerts is different from the habitus of a factory worker
who does not have a college degree and eats “pagpag” meal (a dish made from leftovers from food establishments)
for dinner, and drinks Vino Kulafu. Put differently, a habitus is a specific set of disposition particular to a specific
social or cultural location. This is not fixed or static however. As in the case above, the worker may overtime become
a corporate executive. Or, he or she may win a lottery—which may provide him or her with disposable income that
allows her do whatever a corporate executive can do.

To study the specific trait and element of habitus may be difficult to grasp, but it certainly allows us to understand
why we do the things we do and explains them in way that allows us to see how social structures structure social
practices and behaviors. The concept of habitus then is the explanatory account of social practices. It provides
explanation to our actions.

More importantly, for Bourdieu, “the notion of habitus reveals that while a person’s behavior may be in part
determined by formal social rules and mental ideas—uncovered and described by the social scientist—a significant
determinant of behavior is hidden, implicit knowledge learned informally and embodied in specific social practices”
(Deal and Beal, 2004).

The theoretical insight of Michel Foucault, a colleague of Bourdieu at College de

France, the most prestigious academic institution of that country, provides us with a better account on how the
“hidden, implicit knowledge” significantly determines why we do the things we do through his notion of power. For
Bourdieu, power relations already exist as embodied in habitus between, as cited above, social classes (the
executive and the worker). Foucault however gives more weight on the issue of power and treated it more
systematically and directly to the issue—why we do the things we do.

While his work is expansive, ranging from such topics as madness, punishment, medicine, and sexuality, Foucault is
particularly relevant for us because of his work on (the history of) power—particularly, how power operates to
produce particular kinds of subjects and their practices.

To go about it, let us first establish cursorily how Foucault arrived at such theoretical insight. In his early works,
Foucault writes about various institutions like psychiatric clinics, prisons, and schools. He analyzes how these
institutions operate and forms “body of knowledge” that come to be seen as natural and self-evident through
assumptions and operations. In these works, for our purposes here, he particularly investigates the way in which
these institutions produce “discourses” or “knowledge” which then constitute practices relative to that body of
knowledge. This is the naturalizing operations of discourses/knowledges of the aforementioned institutions.

For Foucault, the effect is disciplinary. People become disciplined subjects within a particular discourse. Disciplinary
power here is not coercive power. It is by and large provides the “hidden, implicit knowledge” (Bourdieu) as to why
we do the things we do. And this disciplinary process, for Foucault, demonstrates how the “hidden, implicit
knowledge” and subjects are intertwined.

Analyzing how institutions produce this discourse or knowledge and how in turn knowledge makes subjects is what
Foucault is known for. This historical analysis of such process of production of discourse/knowledge and subjects is
known as archaeological or genealogical critique.

So far we have a sketch account on discourse/knowledge and subjects. However, the question that remains for us is
this: how does power come into play in this equation? In his later investigation of social processes of
subjectivization, that is, the process by which a human subject is constituted or made “subjects”, Foucault came to a
conclusion that what made this process possible is the operation of power. For Foucault, “power is not some
monolithic force that appears in the same guises throughout all times and places. Instead, power has a genealogical
history and is understood differently depending on place, location, and theoretical perspective” (Deal and Beal,
2004). In other words, power is an effect; and its manifestations vary depending on different situations in a particular
society. Or in its theoretically nuanced definition, Foucault defines it in his famous text, History of Sexuality, in this
manner:

…not something that is acquired, seized, or shared, something that one holds on to or allows to slip away; power is
exercised from innumerable points, in the interplay of non-egalitarian and mobile relations…. Power is everywhere;
not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere…power is not an institution, and not a
structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with it; it is a name that one attributes to a complex
strategically situation in a particular society (Foucault, 1978).

Put simply, as an effect, power is a name that we attribute to social operations and mechanisms that produce
various kinds of subjects. It is also equally important to qualify—and repeat—that this power is not ahistorical. Its
“form” differs and varies across history. Corollary then, the kinds of subjects produced by such power also differ and
vary in every historical milieu. Thus, for instance, the difference between the subjects of before and after the advent
of Facebook is qualitatively different, either also here (Philippines) or elsewhere in terms of location.

Through this Foucauldian lens that we see why we do the things we do is through power—particularly, as this is
inscribed and articulated discursively. “Power” produces “disciplined” subjects and “hidden, implicit knowledge.”
Also, here we are able to recognize the way in which social institutions, body of knowledge, and discourses operate
insidiously,
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 To summarize the theoretical insights of Bourdieu and Foucault as they pertain to the question of culture, there are
prominent features that we must consider. First, habitus as structuring structure for social behavior manifests not
only differently in terms of its social or cultural markers, but also, second, in terms of its historicity. Social or cultural
markers are historical, thus, their manifestations and logic varies from one milieu to another. Third, any social
practice or behavior is produced by power, indeed, through power relations (as power is always relational and
social). What makes this persuasive and more relevant account is that, social practice or behavior is produced
through knowledge, or more precisely, through the ruling episteme/knowledge of a particular time. This explains, for
instance, why Filipino cultural and social norms and practices are Christianized. With the arrival of colonizers on our
shores, “Christian doctrines” have been the ruling episteme/knowledge of our society; and this, in turn, shaped our
moral consciousness and imagination. A concrete example of this connection is how we think of marriage rights (a
right of a citizen but conflated with religious doctrines and religion of the person) or reproductive rights (a human
right but always understood through the lens of natural theology of Christian theology). In short, Christian
episteme/knowledge saturates the moral universe of the Filipino people. If Christian episteme/knowledge is a
reading glass, this provides us with the capacity to read the text before us.

In the end, the theoretical accounts of Bourdieu and Foucault provide us with explanatory insights to the way in
which our action and practice, and the way we think about them, is shaped by historical and social conditions.
Importantly, they give us a way to think about our culture that is shaped by Christianity—a theme that I will now
reflect on.

What is Culture?: Reflecting on the Question with Cultural Studies—the Filipino Culture

Finally, while we have already outlined significant theoretical considerations in order to not only define but also to
describe and understand culture, we have yet to directly reflect what it means to reflect on culture as it relates to the
question of what is right and wrong. The hope is that the foregoing discussions have sufficiently already laid out the
basic premise of this discussion: postcolonial Filipino culture is shaped by Western civilization, and, more
importantly, that the ruling regime of knowledge (Christianity and its institutions) introduced to (enforced on) us by
Western colonizers shapes our moral sensibilities and ethical orientations. Indeed, it penetrates and sticks into the
core of our being—our subjectivity and cultural identity. Who we are, who we think we are, and what we are, are
extensively determined by the Judeo-Christian ethos. In this respect, Filipino culture is primarily a religious-culture
or, specifically, a Christian culture.

In his classic and influential text the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), Max Weber suggests how a
religion/religious teaching is consequential to public life and order. Particularly, he argues that secular and
materialistic culture of modernity is indebted to the spiritual revolution of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth
century. But more relevantly for our reflection, he demonstrates in this work the relationship between religion and
culture. As contemporary theologians affirmed and as sociologists demonstrated how this is still operational in
contemporary society, the Weberian thesis remains a lingering and influential idea to reckon with today.

What is worth highlighting in Weber’s thesis is that it also seems to suggest a direct correlation between religion and
culture. How they are to be understood as constitutive in contemporary Filipino culture will be discussed below. To
frame and further advance this discussion, it is instructive to adopt here the argument of Dwight Hopkins. Hopkins
(2001) writes:

Culture is always religious insofar as the way of life of all human beings entails some yearning for, belief in, and
ritualization around that which is ultimate—that which is both part of and greater than the self. Culture is religious
because the ultimate concern is both present in cultural material and transcend it.

In this argument, Hopkins particularly builds on and broadens the definition of culture of Raymond Williams (“whole
way of life”) in order to understand the way of life and everyday practices of enslaved African Americans (during the
time of slavery in the United State of America). He argues that the previous definition of culture does not capture the
essence of the culture of the slaves. In his study, religion is inseparable from their everyday life. Slave experiences
and cultural practices are interwoven in their religion as they encounter “sacred word power” in the form of “the Bible
(as written word), prayer (as words of hope), spirituals (as singing words), and naming (as words of self-definition)”
(Ibid.). Hopkins defines “sacred word power” as an example of their everyday experience that is part and parcel of
their culture—the experience of co-constituting themselves in a harsh and cruel environment filled nonetheless with
the presence of divine power. Thus, whether they are inside the church or outside of it, enslaved African Americans
embody such encounter. For instance, Negro Spirituals (“singing words”) is not just a solo effort of a gifted enslaved.
But it is a process through which the enslaved shares his or her pain while it is also a communal participation in
such pain. For Hopkins, in this experience and articulation of such experience, therefore, religion and culture are not
separate. A cultural expression through songs, for example, is a manifestation of their religious yearning for that
which is ultimate and sacred. They are interwoven, so much that Hopkins strongly suggests that the most
appropriate way to describe this “culture” in this situation is to name it as religious culture.

Along this line, I suggest that contemporary Filipino culture is religious culture insofar as it is the product and
expression of the collective cultural memory of the colonized Filipino people. Historically, Western colonialism is
unintelligible without the support and sanction of Western Christianity and vice-versa. The Christian Cross arrived in
the Philippine islands through the Spanish armada. The Bible landed on the Philippine shores with the American
empire. Substantially considered, therefore, colonialism and Christianity are inseparable experience of the Filipino
people, and hence not a detachable reality from the collective cultural memory of the Filipino people. Thus, the
postcolonial Filipino culture is unquestionably Westernized, and deeply infused with Christian doctrines and values.
In this particularly respect, the contemporary Filipino culture is a religious culture. But what makes this different from
the account of Hopkins is that this emphasizes the operation of colonialism in its substance and process. Put
differently, the link between culture and Western colonialism and Christianity is at the heart of the religious
culture in the Philippines.
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 Moreover, I highlight this dimension of contemporary postcolonial Filipino culture because this has direct
consequence to connecting the dots between “behavior, judgment, value” and “culture”. In the Philippine context,
any assessment on Filipino behavior, judgment, and value is insufficient without taking into account its religious
orientation and substance. Whether we think about issues ranging from marriage (same-sex), sexuality (LGBTQIA),
reproductive rights (condom, pills, abortion), environmental issues (use and utilization of natural resources), and
human rights (extra judicial killings), we cannot ignore Christian interest and agenda in these issues. In Philippine
context, cultural value is a religious value. Making this relation explicit is to recognize the historical link, and at the
same, the substantial (ontological) bind between religion and culture in the lives of the Filipino people.

The tenacious tentacles of colonialism are also highlighted in this context because it seeps into the consciousness
and imagination of the Filipino people. As Filipino psychologists have pointed out, colonial residues remain
determinative in the life of the Filipino people. One example of this residue they have identified is “colonial
mentality”—we mimic and pattern our values and preference after the values and preferences of the colonizer. Such
problem is a colonial legacy that pesters Filipino life and culture. In From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The
Philippine Experience (1992, 33), Virgilio G. Enriquez, thus, argues the need for sikolohiyang Pilipino to work
against a psychology of “colonialism and its attendant characteristics among the Filipino people”. He highlights the
fact that this is a virus that needs to be taken out from the Filipino body. This highlights as well the historical and
substantial fact that colonialism has penetrated in the inner sanctum of the being of the Filipino people—an
evidence of how invasive colonialism is to Filipino culture.

In this brief discussion of religion, culture, and colonialism, the link between and among them is highlighted. By
following the insight of Hopkins, the necessary feature of culture is brought to the fore, and in the process,
identifying the essential categories that explain postcolonial Filipino culture as fundamentally constituted as and by
both religion and colonialism.

Summary: Culture as a Contested Site and as a Site of Contestation

As discussed above, culture is not homogenous nor a value-free site. Rather, as in the case of the Philippines, it is
coated with the “thick history” of Christianity and colonialism. Filipino culture is constituted and inflected with
Western culture and Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus, any discussion that reflects on the relation between culture and
moral behavior is inadequate without any consideration for the layers provided by Christianity and Western
colonialism. While the discussion above does not comprehensively address such relation between culture and moral
behavior, it at least indicates important themes that must be considered in to order to address such matter.

What is not highlighted above, but one that has great consequence to further understand culture and its relation to
moral behavior is this: that culture is a contested site and a site of contestation. Let me discuss few points here
as a way to conclude this section.

First, culture is not just an expression or embodiment of what people do and how they do their things. Nor is it
simply just a representation of their ideals or aspirations. Rather, to develop further the insights from Foucault and
Bourdieu, culture is a product of power relations (M. Foucault) and hence it is also a generative field (P. Bourdieu)
that reproduces and sustains itself in such power arrangement. Thus, culture does not only reinforce but also
reproduce social values and social norms of a particular power arrangement of a society. It is in this respect that
cultural representation is necessarily contested and cultural performance is a struggle among contending interested
groups.

Second, culture is not eternal. Nor is it transcendental. As it is a product of human labor and aspiration, it changes
its forms and substance. Its particular form only lasts a particular historical, social, and political milieu insofar as it is
a product of a particular form of power relations and social arrangement. Thus, its influence on moral behavior is
contingent and transitory. The substance and form of human culture is like a chameleon; they change according to
exigency of time and place. Its influence to moral behavior is, thus, limited. Nevertheless, and precisely because of
its malleability, culture is susceptible to power configurations and relations of a particular society.

Third, since culture is deeply interwoven in “power configurations and relations” of a society, it is thus implicated in
political dynamics of a society. It becomes and is part of a power struggle. As discussed above, in relation to the
work of Bourdieu, culture reflects and embodies class struggle in the society—thus, there is high vs. low culture;
dominant culture vs. non-dominant one; elite vs. popular. All this to say, the influence of culture on moral behavior
depends on its status in relation to the power and social configuration of a given society.

In sum, culture is an important site through which to study human behavior, social norms, and, as such, human life.
Because it is a product of human labor, culture is also a vital site through which to investigate assumptions about
human action, human interaction, and human relationships.

Analysis on Culture as Apparatus

As discussed, culture is a human artifact that embodies and encompasses human life and all things related to it. As
such, it is an inherent part of human life. Humans cannot extricate themselves from culture. Neither can culture be
separated from human life. Culture and human life is deeply interwoven with each other.

In this section, an idea discussed above will be presented using an insight of Giorgio Agamben—particularly on the
idea that culture is an operation that manufactures a form or forms of human life. Agamben is one of the most
important thinkers today, especially in the field of human sciences. His multi-volume work on homo sacer outlines
some of the most significant theoretical terrains mostly discussed in humanities today. Directly relevant to our
discussion here is his work that is immediately related to the work of Foucault, whom we have already discussed
above.

In study
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“government of men” into a full blown account of techniques of power operative in modern forms of governance and
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 economy. He calls these operative techniques of power as apparatus. For our purposes here, the concept of
apparatus of Agamben is useful as we think about culture as operations and practices and insofar as it has the
“capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or
discourses of living beings” (Agamben, 14)—or more relevantly, culture as apparatus that is capable of orienting and
modeling and manufacturing behaviors and opinions.

To employ the Agambenian concept of apparatus to further our reflection on culture, let us consider culture as a
privileged site to think about human behaviors and social norms and how it manufactures them. Culture is a
(re)productive machine. Moreover, let us consider that it is in culture that a form of systems of belief and feelings,
rules, processes or institutions become concrete. Culture is the site where ideas and practices, supported by
knowledge and systems of beliefs and feelings, become visible and concrete in and through, among other things,
behavior. Now, there are two things worth highlighting from this insight: one on the theoretical aspect and the other
on the practical side.

The theoretical import of this insight is this: culture captures and manufactures subjectivities, practices, and norms.
The latter point is vital to understanding why culture does not only influence behavior but is also a generator of
human behaviors. In our reflection about culture, this is directly related to how we understand why colonized
cultures continue to exhibit and manufacture colonial residues that manifest in different ways in the social-psyche,
political economy, and religious life of the Filipino people. In other words, culture as apparatus allows us
to understand human activity as cultural production of values and behavior in its historical and substantial
specificity; that performance of culture is also a production or reproduction of social norms and values.

The Agambenian apparatus makes it historically (and genealogically) clear the mechanism of culture and how its
formation and subsequent emergence and operation is a product of human labor. The concept of apparatus also
supplements and strengthens the postcolonial insight of Said and the theoretical suggestions of Foucault and
Bourdieu.

The practical import of this insight is this: culture as apparatus allows us to see how cultural artifacts and
performances are not simply “products”; they are also performances that shape moral perception, sensibilities, and
worldview. For example, pop songs are not simply artistic expression nor cultural representation of a communal
aspiration about what love is; they are also “shapers” of a social and moral imaginary of what love could be. Pop
songs can transform ideas as they can posit what an idea could be. For instance, from the biblical idea that love is
about caring other people especially those who are most in need, pop songs have made and transformed the idea
of love into as a “many splendored thing.” This is what Agamben means when he describes the operation of the
apparatus as one that captures (“what love is”) and manufactures (“what love could be”) as it applies to social
practices and moral norms.

In that respect too, we see in a much better view the trace of the link between culture and life. Culture is not just an
intrinsic and inherent part of life. Culture also produces a particular form or forms life. In the above example of love
songs, cultural performance enacts and creates a “new horizon” of what “life” (love) could mean and be.

In sum, the concept of the apparatus of Agamben adds a layer to our reflection on culture. Particularly, it tightens the
knot that binds culture and life together. And it allows us to understand theoretically and practically the stake of this
connection.

Conclusion: Culture as Not-All but Essential

While culture is important and necessary to the way in which we understand and explain moral behavior, it must also
be argued that this is not a zero sum game. Culture provides us with a powerful and persuasive explanatory power
on why we do the things we do. It is not however the only sole factor or explanation. For instance, our fear or
respect for rebellion (whatever the case maybe) against the laws of the land is a case in point. We do the things we
do in relation to the laws of the land because of our own set of perceptions about life and what life should be. In this
particular case, either we do not want to be punished under the law or we desire order that we would rather respect
the law. Or, we believe that the law is inherently oppressive that the only thing meaningful is to rebel against it. In
other words, there are other explanatory accounts that explain behavior, norm, judgement, and practices. For
example, psychoanalysis, existentialism, Marxism, or psychology have their own way of explaining what and why
things are, different from culture. In short, human beings are complex beings that one box is not enough to place
them. Thus, culture may be important and necessary but it is insufficient to fully explain why people do the things
they do.

With this theoretical caveat, the following concluding points maybe offered—repetitions but necessary for purposes
of emphasis and importance to the topic at hand.

First, culture is a human-made. To use a postmodern category, culture is a social construct. As such, it is historical
as it is social and indeed political and religious. In this sense, it embodies and expresses human aspirations and
their ultimate concern.

Second, culture is site specific. There is no “universal culture.” As discussed through the theoretical lens of Bourdieu
and Foucault, culture is particular and specific to a society or social operation. And as suggested by Said, this
particularity or specificity of culture in post-colonial era is marked by its difference and relation to a
dominant/imperial culture.

Third, culture reflects and embodies the logic and the power relations of a particular social order. Put differently, it is
a product of a particular social order. As such, it mirrors the values as well as the power dynamics within a particular
order. In this sense, there are “cultures” within a particular culture.

Finally,
This culture
study source is performative.
was downloaded It is neither
by 100000831390362 static nor fixed.
from CourseHero.com Over time,
on 06-30-2022 it transforms
itself, as well as its form and
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values, orientations and qualities. This is to say that culture mutates as historical contingencies change or social
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 configuration modifies or political order revolutionizes itself. This is the case of Martial Law and post-Martial culture
in the Philippines, as it is in the Cultural Revolution and post-Cultural Revolution in China. Put differently and
succinctly, culture is what people do. It dies with people. It comes alive with them.

[1] Due to the inherent limitations of this chapter, we will not be able to reflect on the questions about “Filipino
culture.” For instance, is Moro culture part of the Filipino culture (since, for instance, Moro culture does not share
the lechon-loving culture of Filipino Christians)? How about the indigenous belief and practice, are they part of what
we know as Filipino culture (since they believe in diwatas)? This is to say that we must be careful and conscious
about our claim on what constitute as Filipino culture.

[2] It is equally important however to also highlight that this is not one-side affair. Pre-colonial culture had also
shaped Christianity. For instance, superstition and local belief became part of Christian faith and practice—Simbang
Gabi, nine days of mourning are examples of this incorporation of pre-colonial culture to Filipino Catholicism.

For more on culture and moral behaviour, see https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/sociology/culture-and-

societies/culture-and-society-defined . For a related discussion moral behavior,
see https://philonotes.com/index.php/moral-development/.

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