Culture Shared - Choice or No Choice?

Early on in life we are grouped together and identified as belonging to this family or that ethnicity, the athletes, the cheerleaders, the smart group, etc. Our text states that “because cultures are shared, we are not entirely free to act as we wish” (326).

I wish to dispel this notion and say that freedom in this instance is a choice, and as we mature and become more diverse in our experiences we can choose to grow beyond this notion and realize we have a choice to choose the freedom to act as we wish regardless of our shared culture…within legal limits, of course.

I think what inhibits this reality of choice is staying within a single culture and never stepping outside of that culture to experience or empathize with other cultures beyond those we are familiar with, and stymied to.

Then there is the matter of honoring the culture you are experiencing and to use an old cliché, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  This is important to conform, but to honor, which is also a cognitive free choice.