Thread:Towards a sample model. (1)

"Culture" is often taken for granted or overlooked. Notions of culture do not amount to culture proper. Hence let us begin with an attempt to clarify what we mean by culture. It is understandable that neither value without meaning nor meaning without value have any validity and authenticity. This understanding facilitates a practical definition of culture as a set of values and meanings within a given context in particular and in the global context of being human in general.

A community without a set of values is just gossip.The community facilitators, and not mere responding members, ought to have pristine clarity about the values which make facilitation of ideas and their practical implementation possible, effective and successful. Hence the need to contemplate on COLLaGE values.

Before going further, a word of caution and alert regarding the values. I feel that the values are best understood as the higher instincts(aspirations) of humankind. The fact that the values have given birth to different religions is eclipsed by the popular notion that religions have given birth to the values. This is evident in the cases of persons of value-integrity who do not have popular religious inclination. Not to mention about the so called religious persons who have anti-human propensities or inhuman impulses.

The mention of ahimsa need not bring in any ism like Jainism or Buddhism though humanity cannot afford to be ungrateful to Masters like Buddha.What is meant here is this. COLLaGE values are to be evolved in the light of human sensibility, maturity born of assimilated experience and practical pragmatic perspective of being human in the largest and deepest context of sharing knowledge globally the Wiki Way.

Now let us find what guidance our conscience and consciousness provide regarding:

i) Is culture a necessary element here? ii) Which culture? iii) In what way the regional avatars of cultures (should)go into the building blocks of COLLaGE? iv) Do they build blocks or roads to effective and successful governance?

Let COLLaGE be an abbreviation of Culture Oriented Learning Leverage at Governance Education.