Culture is often considered a luxury; hearing music seems not to fill your stomach, watching a painting will not keep you imune to the latest flu virus and seeing a drama will not solve your housing problem. It appears to be something, that only those, who have the luxury, can afford going to concerts, plays and museums. Anyhow, to them worthly matters seem distant, and they can indulge in idle culture activities. Yet this is an inverted logic.
Culture, in fact, is the very core of your personal identity; If asked what you are, you will usually state a national identity; psychologically speaking, you associate it with a travel document, which you are holding, but the little booklet is only ... a booklet - with or without fancy holograms, nowadays eventually with so-called biometrics, the national coat of arms on the front, the official name of the state, with a cover in perhaps red, blue or green. But this is not quite, what defines your identity:
You speak a language on a daily basis - hopefully your own mother-tongue, sometimes due to all sorts of circumstances perhaps another (second) one. And it is this language, which makes you belong to a group or society and, unlike the travel document, this is what determines your identity. And language is part of culture; not just a subject learned at school - where you had to learn reading and writing it, then master all the grammar around it. It's neither a mere tool to communicate in the street. But this language is also used to write poetry, literature, drama, songs. This group of people, sharing the same language, has usually also a common musical heritage, which you more or less share as well - all determined by the regional variety. Perhaps, not always very prominent in your up-bringing, but starting with a think of the lullaby sung to you (passed on through generations) when you were small, up to a number of songs throughout childhood and adolescense, songs at weddings, songs that go with holidays, even funerals. And you could go on like that. Culture is therefore not just a luxury, it is an integral part of your daily life, even though you hardly realise it.
It is therefore very tragic, that nowadays people have forgotten how to value culture - how to value themselves. Daily we meet people who contribute to culture's decline, mainly because they are overly pessimistic or incapable to be inventive of new methods to revive it. We can perhaps blame them, for stepping in an obvious trap, but let's also be fair; we became consultants because we noticed the deficiencies and wanted to help out. In other words: if all people would be healthy, there would be no need for a doctor (and all doctors would be unemployed). We are - so to speak - the doctors, dedicated to cure the sick.
Let's be glad we can contribute to try to restore values - cultural values, ethics. Even the most tiny little bit is worth fighting for. It sounds indeed a bit idealistic, but culture makes us 'tick' - more than most want to admit. Therefore, we need to try changing the culture of management in order to enable a proper management of culture...
best regards
MS
Culture, in fact, is the very core of your personal identity; If asked what you are, you will usually state a national identity; psychologically speaking, you associate it with a travel document, which you are holding, but the little booklet is only ... a booklet - with or without fancy holograms, nowadays eventually with so-called biometrics, the national coat of arms on the front, the official name of the state, with a cover in perhaps red, blue or green. But this is not quite, what defines your identity:
You speak a language on a daily basis - hopefully your own mother-tongue, sometimes due to all sorts of circumstances perhaps another (second) one. And it is this language, which makes you belong to a group or society and, unlike the travel document, this is what determines your identity. And language is part of culture; not just a subject learned at school - where you had to learn reading and writing it, then master all the grammar around it. It's neither a mere tool to communicate in the street. But this language is also used to write poetry, literature, drama, songs. This group of people, sharing the same language, has usually also a common musical heritage, which you more or less share as well - all determined by the regional variety. Perhaps, not always very prominent in your up-bringing, but starting with a think of the lullaby sung to you (passed on through generations) when you were small, up to a number of songs throughout childhood and adolescense, songs at weddings, songs that go with holidays, even funerals. And you could go on like that. Culture is therefore not just a luxury, it is an integral part of your daily life, even though you hardly realise it.
It is therefore very tragic, that nowadays people have forgotten how to value culture - how to value themselves. Daily we meet people who contribute to culture's decline, mainly because they are overly pessimistic or incapable to be inventive of new methods to revive it. We can perhaps blame them, for stepping in an obvious trap, but let's also be fair; we became consultants because we noticed the deficiencies and wanted to help out. In other words: if all people would be healthy, there would be no need for a doctor (and all doctors would be unemployed). We are - so to speak - the doctors, dedicated to cure the sick.
Let's be glad we can contribute to try to restore values - cultural values, ethics. Even the most tiny little bit is worth fighting for. It sounds indeed a bit idealistic, but culture makes us 'tick' - more than most want to admit. Therefore, we need to try changing the culture of management in order to enable a proper management of culture...
best regards
MS
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