Our Social Context, Cultural Interactions
The fun bit. My personal perversion is my ability to see the spacial, abstract in different constructs and contexts. I was in a job interview the other day and I told the interviewer I get paid to: think, provide energy, facilitate, and communicate. Effectively I get paid for the things that I do to manage the logistics of my disability, ironic really. I also get paid for developing, defining contexts and making them workable for others, I develop models or contextual constructs for organizational behaviour and thinking, and organizational change.. I do best in extremely complex organizations and corporate cultures, I thirst for the abstract and the impossible. Recently I’ve talked about “Culture” and “Identity”, now lets discuss the context of “Culture” the “Interaction” between “Culture” and “identity”. The governance and compliance model of self. I’m the type of person that loves to do things loves life but I also want a way to consider the “why” something happens. Sometimes its just because but sometimes there are other things going on. Life is a very complex system and people in their social contexts create very complex cultural constructs that impact all of us everyday during our own life.
Enabling advocacy is totally dependent on language, if you can’t talk about something you can’t change it. One of the most terrible things we can do to people is take away language or take away expression. Building on “Language” having a model to discuss disability enables “US, those of us who are disabled” to communicate and advocate for ourselves or for those that journey through life with “US” the ability to understand “US” and hopefully love “US”.
I provide you with a layered model like an onion, at the center is you, and your identity, your culture of one. The significance of the model is to show levels of influence of governance that shape your identity your culture of one. The compliance that the cultures you “choose” to interact with and allow to govern you. There are a lot of concepts going on here and a lot of things that impact who and what you are. I’m sharing this thinking to provide a model to discuss the impact of disability on you and your interactions in the social world. At the end of this I hope to show you that the impact of disability on you the disabled is in the context of the “Cultural” or Social if you want to go with a more common term for human interactions and the “Logistical” we are a ways off to get to that end point bare with me.
Where am I going with all of this stuff. I’m building a framework where we can discuss disability and its impact on us and those around us. Describe the effects of disability on our perception, processing, and participation in the experience in life. With a model we can identify and manage areas that might need some attention, we can understand describe and advocate for what we need when we need it. Be patient there is more coming.
The Social Context of Disability, Identity & Culture Interactions Model
layer One: Identity, Culture of One
Our Identity is shaped by our context, some would say environment, I will discuss knowledge transfer in some other posts but for now lets focus on how knowledge is conveyed to us by our social context. To fend off the comments I am a nature and nurture theologian for the passing of knowledge through our species. Our “Identity” is hugely impacted by our context of “Culture”, our social context. We do have the ability to choose our social context. Personally those that knowingly select their cultural context are the most courageous people I’ve ever encountered. There are those of us who are “disabled”, or we are deviant from the norms of our social context, visibly or invisibly that have no choice because we don’t fit into a “Culture”. If you don’t fit into a “Culture” either by choice or not, your “Identity” is profoundly important as it is the “Culture” you have where you do fit and can live and thrive. There are also those that are handicapped by their culture where they can’t even consider there are other ways to live or think or be and are limited by the cultural context. These people in my opinion are handicapped and more hindered from living than I will ever be. These are the small minded people I speak of occasionally.
Our own identity shapes everything we perceive, think and do. it defines the filters through which we perceive the world how we process the information we receive, how we think about our world and how we react to our world. Our identity determines the things we think about ourselves and the things we think we can do. Our personal power, our boundaries how we expect to be treated the deference we demand and the deference we offer to others. Our self worth directly impacts our identity, unfortunately along with knowledge I’m going to have to talk about self esteem and self respect separately.
Our identity and our social context defines relationship dynamics, things like what it means to be a parent a child a sibling a friend, a lover. Our “social context” defines what dynamics make up friendship, and love and measures like success or failure. These social constructs are dynamic. Ask a fighter pilot what they mean then compare that to what a ballerina would define them as and you’ll see a stark contrast, love to a chief is food, to a dancer a singer a performance, to a solder peace, to a person of faith love is hope. You think about it in your own context.
All of us have a tolerance or in-tolerance for things that we either understand or don’t. We all have with us the experience to understand and see the world as we see it. We are the most perfect person we can be at any given moment in time and space. Are we perfect hardly but in our experience of the world we are doing the best we can do. In our experience of the world we are comfortable, even if from the outside others see abuse or pain, suffering, or agony. We are comfortable in our experience of the world and we all have a tolerance for what we can be open to perceive outside our experience of the world. When our tolerance level is achieved or surpassed we all will resist and fight, NO, it can’t be, until we come to a new understanding a new balance with life. Our intolerance, our inability to see or think of something differently is paramount to us even when we are presented with overwhelming fact we can’t adapt. At that point nature takes over when we can no longer adapt we become disenfranchised, separate, isolated, obsolete, irrelevant, and die. Its being stuck and the goal is to get unstuck and get on with things or you’ll be left behind.
We all have a pace of life that we can live with that we can manage. There are only so many hours in the day and there are only so many things we can deal with at once or in a day. There are so many things we can think of or feel. When it rains it pours, being over whelmed disassociating distractions all are experienced when the pace of life is untenable. I’ve learned the hard way its everything to take care of yourself, take care of you. Its the only way you will have anything meaningful to give to others. When you try to give when you are overwhelmed, disassociated or distracted you’ll always come away feeling used dirty, and empty and will likely be upset or angry about it. Leaving you feeling powerless and misunderstood and alone.
Layer Two, The Big Determinators
We cannot choose our biological family, we cannot choose whence our genetic knowledge comes from, but we can choose those around of us that we call family. There is the family we are born into, the extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins, grand parents etc, and the family you choose to experience life with.
During our life we will attract people based on our current experience with life. We are attracted to people who share the same experience or have the same issues that we do. We all desperately need to feel normal and understand we all need friends to help us find a place where we feel valued, normal, and more importantly safe. You might not always be safe with your family but you’ll always be able to find friends that will make you feel safe, its always safety first after all. Then it’s a place where you feel normal.
Race can be a determinator in life but sometimes it doesn’t matter, either your context is so homogenized it doesn’t matter or you can hide who you are and where you’ve come from. Color on the other hand is an immediate differentiator. Our mind works in such a way to differentiate categorize and process based on color, it is a proven fact that we are wired to have more empathy to persons who share our color.
All of these social dynamics have their own culture and all cultures have their own governance, their own language their own way of making their way through life. Their own ability to tolerable and their own in-tolerances, and pace. It’s our problem to manage the interfaces the bridges with each of these cultures and balance our the requirements against the reality of who we are. The challenge being that social context isn’t the only determinator of who we are, we’ve already identified: knowledge and self esteem as other forces that impact who and what we are.
Layer Three, The Influencers
The “Social Context” model I offer you is layered to denote the influence of the cultural components, influence on each other that make up your social context. The influencers are all the cultural forces that control the resources available in the geographic content of your social context. Religion defines at a macro level for all what is acceptable and what isn’t, how relationships and connections are governed and sanctioned. Eduction determines what knowledge is transferred openly and what is controlled or kept secret in obscurity. Our profession determines what resources we will have access to. Our ability to gain knowledge and our profession will directly effect our ability to gain connections and relationships and opportunities to gather resources and share our genetic knowledge. All governed and sanctioned by our religion of course.
Layer Four, Geography
We are biological beings after all. Our ability to access the resources of food, shelter, energy, knowledge determines which ones of us will thrive and which of us won’t. Its sounds harsh but we are given these bodies and are placed on this planet for the experience of competing for resources. Change is a given and our experience here in this body is not something to be taken for granted or to be clung to, what we can do and what we have access to today will always be different from what we will have tomorrow, if we even have a tomorrow.
So as always, Live Well.
I provide you with a layered model like an onion, at the center is you, and your identity, your culture of one. The significance of the model is to show levels of influence of governance that shape your identity your culture of one. The compliance that the cultures you “choose” to interact with and allow to govern you. There are a lot of concepts going on here and a lot of things that impact who and what you are. I’m sharing this thinking to provide a model to discuss the impact of disability on you and your interactions in the social world. At the end of this I hope to show you that the impact of disability on you the disabled is in the context of the “Cultural” or Social if you want to go with a more common term for human interactions and the “Logistical” we are a ways off to get to that end point bare with me.
Where am I going with all of this stuff. I’m building a framework where we can discuss disability and its impact on us and those around us. Describe the effects of disability on our perception, processing, and participation in the experience in life. With a model we can identify and manage areas that might need some attention, we can understand describe and advocate for what we need when we need it. Be patient there is more coming.
The Social Context of Disability, Identity & Culture Interactions Model
layer One: Identity, Culture of One
Our Identity is shaped by our context, some would say environment, I will discuss knowledge transfer in some other posts but for now lets focus on how knowledge is conveyed to us by our social context. To fend off the comments I am a nature and nurture theologian for the passing of knowledge through our species. Our “Identity” is hugely impacted by our context of “Culture”, our social context. We do have the ability to choose our social context. Personally those that knowingly select their cultural context are the most courageous people I’ve ever encountered. There are those of us who are “disabled”, or we are deviant from the norms of our social context, visibly or invisibly that have no choice because we don’t fit into a “Culture”. If you don’t fit into a “Culture” either by choice or not, your “Identity” is profoundly important as it is the “Culture” you have where you do fit and can live and thrive. There are also those that are handicapped by their culture where they can’t even consider there are other ways to live or think or be and are limited by the cultural context. These people in my opinion are handicapped and more hindered from living than I will ever be. These are the small minded people I speak of occasionally.
Our own identity shapes everything we perceive, think and do. it defines the filters through which we perceive the world how we process the information we receive, how we think about our world and how we react to our world. Our identity determines the things we think about ourselves and the things we think we can do. Our personal power, our boundaries how we expect to be treated the deference we demand and the deference we offer to others. Our self worth directly impacts our identity, unfortunately along with knowledge I’m going to have to talk about self esteem and self respect separately.
Our identity and our social context defines relationship dynamics, things like what it means to be a parent a child a sibling a friend, a lover. Our “social context” defines what dynamics make up friendship, and love and measures like success or failure. These social constructs are dynamic. Ask a fighter pilot what they mean then compare that to what a ballerina would define them as and you’ll see a stark contrast, love to a chief is food, to a dancer a singer a performance, to a solder peace, to a person of faith love is hope. You think about it in your own context.
All of us have a tolerance or in-tolerance for things that we either understand or don’t. We all have with us the experience to understand and see the world as we see it. We are the most perfect person we can be at any given moment in time and space. Are we perfect hardly but in our experience of the world we are doing the best we can do. In our experience of the world we are comfortable, even if from the outside others see abuse or pain, suffering, or agony. We are comfortable in our experience of the world and we all have a tolerance for what we can be open to perceive outside our experience of the world. When our tolerance level is achieved or surpassed we all will resist and fight, NO, it can’t be, until we come to a new understanding a new balance with life. Our intolerance, our inability to see or think of something differently is paramount to us even when we are presented with overwhelming fact we can’t adapt. At that point nature takes over when we can no longer adapt we become disenfranchised, separate, isolated, obsolete, irrelevant, and die. Its being stuck and the goal is to get unstuck and get on with things or you’ll be left behind.
We all have a pace of life that we can live with that we can manage. There are only so many hours in the day and there are only so many things we can deal with at once or in a day. There are so many things we can think of or feel. When it rains it pours, being over whelmed disassociating distractions all are experienced when the pace of life is untenable. I’ve learned the hard way its everything to take care of yourself, take care of you. Its the only way you will have anything meaningful to give to others. When you try to give when you are overwhelmed, disassociated or distracted you’ll always come away feeling used dirty, and empty and will likely be upset or angry about it. Leaving you feeling powerless and misunderstood and alone.
Layer Two, The Big Determinators
We cannot choose our biological family, we cannot choose whence our genetic knowledge comes from, but we can choose those around of us that we call family. There is the family we are born into, the extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins, grand parents etc, and the family you choose to experience life with.
During our life we will attract people based on our current experience with life. We are attracted to people who share the same experience or have the same issues that we do. We all desperately need to feel normal and understand we all need friends to help us find a place where we feel valued, normal, and more importantly safe. You might not always be safe with your family but you’ll always be able to find friends that will make you feel safe, its always safety first after all. Then it’s a place where you feel normal.
Race can be a determinator in life but sometimes it doesn’t matter, either your context is so homogenized it doesn’t matter or you can hide who you are and where you’ve come from. Color on the other hand is an immediate differentiator. Our mind works in such a way to differentiate categorize and process based on color, it is a proven fact that we are wired to have more empathy to persons who share our color.
All of these social dynamics have their own culture and all cultures have their own governance, their own language their own way of making their way through life. Their own ability to tolerable and their own in-tolerances, and pace. It’s our problem to manage the interfaces the bridges with each of these cultures and balance our the requirements against the reality of who we are. The challenge being that social context isn’t the only determinator of who we are, we’ve already identified: knowledge and self esteem as other forces that impact who and what we are.
Layer Three, The Influencers
The “Social Context” model I offer you is layered to denote the influence of the cultural components, influence on each other that make up your social context. The influencers are all the cultural forces that control the resources available in the geographic content of your social context. Religion defines at a macro level for all what is acceptable and what isn’t, how relationships and connections are governed and sanctioned. Eduction determines what knowledge is transferred openly and what is controlled or kept secret in obscurity. Our profession determines what resources we will have access to. Our ability to gain knowledge and our profession will directly effect our ability to gain connections and relationships and opportunities to gather resources and share our genetic knowledge. All governed and sanctioned by our religion of course.
Layer Four, Geography
We are biological beings after all. Our ability to access the resources of food, shelter, energy, knowledge determines which ones of us will thrive and which of us won’t. Its sounds harsh but we are given these bodies and are placed on this planet for the experience of competing for resources. Change is a given and our experience here in this body is not something to be taken for granted or to be clung to, what we can do and what we have access to today will always be different from what we will have tomorrow, if we even have a tomorrow.
So as always, Live Well.
About the Author: kyle
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