Human Action: Ambition, Ability and Achievement

Human Action
Ambition, Ability and Achievement
Finding and Using the Passion Inside

These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
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8. Cultural Roots

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the present and the past. (Cyril Connolly, 1938)

Speaking of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, Francis Henry Taylor wrote, “We are suddenly confronted with a new subjectivity which had gone out of the world since late Roman times, in which the torture of the soul is fully expressed by the muscular distortion of the body.” Michelangelo “had single-handedly broken the bonds of artistic convention and ushered in the era of modern art.”

Culture and art are not the same thing. It helps to take apart the word, culture. It's original Latin root, colere, meant to cultivate, to actually till the land. Curiously, its close relative is the limiting word cult. Some further relatives are wheel and cycle. So culture has a strong element of fixedness in it. My dictionary defines the word (as it applies to this discussion) as “The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population.” When we use the term “culture” here, we use it in this sense, not in its other definition as “intellectual and artistic activity.” So culture is an immense totality of things and forces, essentially cyclical and permanent. It is powerful and it is static.

The primary definition of “art,” on the other hand, tells us a lot about the difference. Art is “human effort to imitate, supplement, alter or counteract the work of nature.” Another definition is “the human ability to make things; creativity of man as distinguished from the world of nature.” Here is my own definition: “The human ability to make something out of nothing; the kinetic human ability to add new meaning to or despite a pre-existing matrix.”

Culture in its sense as an appreciation of art and finer things is a neutral force, neither static nor kinetic. But culture, as a fixed system of taste and values, is truly an expression of static refined animalism. Patterns (as used in the definition) take the place of process. Let's compare the limiting word culture with the expansive word “civilization.” The primary definition of civilization is, “A condition of human society marked by an advanced stage of development in the arts and science and by corresponding social, political and cultural complexity.” Another definition is, “Social organization of a high order, marked by the development and use of a written language and by advances in the arts, science and government.” A third dictionary defines civilization as “an advanced state of material and social well-being.” The words “advanced” or “advances” show up in all three of my dictionaries.

Everything we've talked about so far in this chapter—from family to gender to religion to social class—is part of a culture. When human beings break out of the strong molds imposed upon them by culture, they advance into higher realms of civilization. Culture is standing in one place, though the place may be worthwhile to stand in. Civilization means moving forward, adding values and meaning. If civilization stops, it ceases being civilization at all. The civilization process, once begun, becomes basic to the human species. Humans must advance.

Advancing means more than just denying culture or destroying it. Remember, Trans-Biological Kinesis requires focused, vectored activity. We shy away from using the word “positive” because we believe positive thinking, without strong vectored kinetic motivation, can do more harm than good. But yes, the advances we're talking about are fundamentally positive. These civilized advances involve growth, tolerance of human differences, communication, listening, clear and inspired thinking, even love. First we mine the prevalent culture for what is deep and rich in it, as Michelangelo did with his traditions in painting and sculpture. We then use Positive Matrix Interrupt to push aside or weed out the static factors that limit us. Then we create something from nothing by using artistic and creative processes we call Shock and Trope. Because the process is vectored and crammed with human meaning, it is civilized.

Exercise: Living the Civilized Life

Train your consciousness in your everyday life to recognize the things that are truly civilized and uplifting. There are many, of course, often instituted only after great human struggle. Your civil rights are a perfect example, but so is something as simple as the practice of sterilizing the tools used for surgery. Here are your questions once you have sensitized yourself to the process of civilization that goes on around you:

How can I expand my participation in these civilizing and civilized things?

How do I protect myself from mechanistic and automatic behavior and attitudes while I am participating in the civilization process?

Since we are by nature creative, we can have flashes of brilliance at any given moment. That flash can amount to a Shock. But the Shock in itself is of no use to us in our constant desire to advance ourselves and promote civilization over a period of time. The Shock must result in a vectored, directed process which leads finally to a Trope. And this, by the nature of the process of advancing and creating that is sublimely human, requires an appreciation of the power of words, the subject of our next chapter.

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Human Action Table of Contents
Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Elliot Essman's Life In The USA
Elliot Essman's Food Writing
Susie Essman's Comedy and Sitcoms
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