The Forming of Culture - Free Translation of 1974 Koentjaraningrat's Anthology

CULTURE, MENTALITY, AND DEVELOPMENT

THE FORMING OF CULTURE

A free translation by Marsal Sintung

In my opinion, culture has at least three forms:

1. The form of culture as the whole thoughts, values, norms, rules, etc.

2. The form of culture as the whole activities and figured actions of humans in society.

3. The form of culture as the objects and creation of humans.

The first form above is the ideal one of culture which is abstract; cannot be felt or pictured. It exists only in minds of the humans in society where the culture lives. If they express it through writing, the existence of the ideal form of culture will be in the works by the people in the society as well. Moreover, ideal culture has been manifested through disks, tapes, archives, microfilm or microfiche, and so on.

Ideal culture may also called code of conduct, or in a familiar term, 'custom', whose function is to organize or to control the actions of humans in a society. Specifically, custom consists of several layers; from the most abstract to a limited, concrete one. The most abstract is culture value system, for example. The second one is the system of norms, then system of law which is based on norms. Meanwhile, specific rules of daily activities (like manners) are the concrete but limited in scopes.

The second form of culture is the social system, which consists of interacting human activities through times following certain schemes based on the code of conducts. As a sequence  of human activities through society, this is a concrete system which is observable, certifiable, and happens all the time.

The third one is called physical culture with lots of evidences. Since it was the whole results of activities and works of humans, physical culture is the most concrete form through identifiable objects; from big ones such as factories, temples, even to shirt buttons.

In a systematic analysis, the physical culture of a nation should be firstly categorized according to its level as I have mentioned in my first work of this series. We may resolve an element of culture to its sub-elements until simplest, smaller scopes. For example, physical aspect of religion as element of culture is ritual architecture or temple. Such big element may still be resolved into ritual appliances; to priest's vestment; until the smallest scope, clothes button.

These three forms of culture are inseparable in society. Ideal culture and customs organize also lead to actions and works of the human living in it which give physical culture as the result. In reverse, that (physical) culture forms certain livelihood which gradually separates humans and their natural environment, giving influences to their actions and mindsets.

For analytical purpose, it needs a precise, more detailed resolve. This is often forgotten not only in discussions or daily jobs, but also in scientific analysis of social scientists.

Throughout social and human sciences, there is already some kind of categorization on these three forms of culture above done by the scholars of literature and philology. The same goes on normative approaches of social sciences, such as customary law or even general law. The scholars dealing on behavioral sciences put their focus to the second form without leaving the ideal one (the first form). Likewise, the others in history and politics put theirs as well which at last, make the archaeologists seem to deal only on the third form although they (archaeologists) will finally refer to the first form as their background.

(August 2016)