From Sofia to Jaffa by Haskell Guy H.;Patai Raphael;

Author:Haskell, Guy H.;Patai, Raphael;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Published: 2017-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

Shlomo Deshen’s “Cultural Paradigm”

From his work with southern Tunisian immigrants, Deshen recognized what appeared to be a core of consciousness, perception, and attitude which weathered the trauma of transplantation and continued to manifest itself in many ways in the new country. This core he calls a “cultural paradigm.”10 The concept is not a new one, but Deshen presenting it in reference to his specific case is a valuable contribution to the ethnology of ethnicity in Israel.

One of the most persistent meta-problems in the study of culture is whether to approach the individual or the collective as the more fruitful subject of study. Generalizations must be made if science is to predict, but it is vital that they be made at the correct level of abstraction so that they neither include too few nor exclude too many. This problem was artfully addressed by anthropologist Ward H. Good-enough in his Culture, Language and Society:

People learn as individuals. Therefore, if culture is learned, its ultimate locus must be in individuals rather than groups. If we accept this, then cultural theory must explain in what sense we can speak of culture as being shared or as the property of groups at all, and it must explain what the processes are by which such “sharing” arises. It is not enough to deal with the problem by simply asserting that “shared culture” is an analytical constant as some anthropologists have done.11

Deshen’s cultural paradigm is appropriate in that it recognizes shared attitudes and beliefs without excluding individual variation. The concept of cultural paradigm, template, model (or whatever term is used), is important in that it is the basis for determining individual variation. It is complementary to the contextual approach to behavior, for it determines the baseline for individual creativity and its manifestation, alteration, or even rejection, for its existence is not created in performance- or behavior-specific context. In a sense the concept of cultural paradigm can be criticized as being superorganic, a theoretical abstract. This criticism is valid, for no single individual will manifest all that is contained in the cultural template; in fact, that is the point. If carefully developed from the observation of individual behavior and recording of individual attitude, it is a useful construct. Thus, rather than being superimposed on the members of a group it must be derived from its individuals.

The cultural paradigm that informs Tunisian ethnicity in Israel exists whether or not its bearers are defending their ethnic identity, engaging in political activity, managing the impressions they make on others, employing their ethnicity for strategic gain in interpersonal relations, or simply expressing themselves on the basis of this shared paradigm. The presentation of this model was a clear break from the “absorption” and “modernization” models previously in vogue among Israel’s social scientists. The precise mechanism for constructing such a paradigm, however, is not made entirely clear in Deshen’s study.

A cultural paradigm is certainly easier to construct in the case of a homogeneous, traditional society than in a heterogeneous one in transition. In

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