Culture is a key part of our human identity. It encompasses our traditions, our beliefs, our technological limitations or even prowess. It is always changing with the times and becomes harder and harder to study the more time that passes. It seems that history has given us set time periods during which things were set in stone while nowadays, everything is shifting. For example, one might say that during the Middle Ages, there was only one way of living, and that was feudalism. No one ever had a say in how things were done and they stayed that way for hundreds of years. Comparing that to now where every decade feels like its own era. So, is our modern culture truly advancing at an incredible rate while culture of the past took hundreds of years for things to get moving? The answer is yes and no. The first thing that is critical to moving forward is recognizing that, “The Past” is not one giant block. There was still the big wide world and as such, many different groups of people who were separated from each other. This meant that separate people would evolve separate cultures. However, key ideas and concepts would typically always be present in one form or another. The second thing to understand is that definitions change. Some people may describe the Post-1945 world as the start of a “global culture,” one in which all nations communicate and people travel all around the world. Others may however break this further with the dawn of the internet creating an entirely new global culture. Whatever the case, discussion and reasoning is the only way these differences can be solved.
Now that we are ready to move on to analyzing history and culture, let us begin with the first question. Was feudalism the only “common culture” that was present in the Middle Ages? Well, no, the middle ages were quite large and there were bound to be some other forms of society that sprang up. Aside from the barbarian tribes that existed after the Fall of the Roman Empire, the Aztecs in the Americas had a successful imperial dynasty for hundreds of years as did the Chinese. However, it should be noted that Feudalism also existed in China, though at varying times. Now let us return to modern times. Is our culture simply advancing at an incredible rate compared to the rest of history? Taking into account the various forms that the feudal culture took during the Middle Ages, yet still remained mostly the same, we must also see our modern culture as just that, an extension and updating of the Post-1945 Global Culture. However much we like to remark ourselves as different from the past or better than our elders, we are very much in the same cultural era and not changing to a new one every ten years. However, it cannot be understated the change that the internet and all of its advances have made to our culture. Enriching it and allowing even those without a voice to speak their ideas. In a sense, that is what culture has always done in history, changed and given forth to new ideas. Even when we call out certain cultures as being barbaric or anti-progress, we must recognize that culture is only a reflection of ourselves, and that it is up to us to change it.
Now that we are ready to move on to analyzing history and culture, let us begin with the first question. Was feudalism the only “common culture” that was present in the Middle Ages? Well, no, the middle ages were quite large and there were bound to be some other forms of society that sprang up. Aside from the barbarian tribes that existed after the Fall of the Roman Empire, the Aztecs in the Americas had a successful imperial dynasty for hundreds of years as did the Chinese. However, it should be noted that Feudalism also existed in China, though at varying times. Now let us return to modern times. Is our culture simply advancing at an incredible rate compared to the rest of history? Taking into account the various forms that the feudal culture took during the Middle Ages, yet still remained mostly the same, we must also see our modern culture as just that, an extension and updating of the Post-1945 Global Culture. However much we like to remark ourselves as different from the past or better than our elders, we are very much in the same cultural era and not changing to a new one every ten years. However, it cannot be understated the change that the internet and all of its advances have made to our culture. Enriching it and allowing even those without a voice to speak their ideas. In a sense, that is what culture has always done in history, changed and given forth to new ideas. Even when we call out certain cultures as being barbaric or anti-progress, we must recognize that culture is only a reflection of ourselves, and that it is up to us to change it.