The Cultural Revolution of the '60s

Hezel, Francis X. (2008-09-22). [www.micsem.org The Cultural Revolution of the '60s]. Micronesian Counselor (Report). Kolonia, Pohnpei: Micronesian Seminar. pp. 1–10.

• Has attachment: File:JKPZWLJ4.pdf

Abstract: What is culture? It may depend on who’s asking the question and what they expect the answer to be. When Micronesians are asked to display their culture in public–at a school presentation or at the conclusion of a conference–they may trot out a few island dances, intone an old chant, or describe the sailing canoes and navigation systems that have a four thousand year pedigree. But that’s not the guts of the culture, as they know very well. Most Micronesians today have never even traveled on a sailing canoe, and the dances and chants they perform belong to the past rather than to the present. Push people a little further and they may speak of grand chiefly systems and heroic battles–things that appeal to the imagination of islander and foreigner alike. We’re getting closer but are not quite there!.

Pull a couple of islanders aside for a private conversation and ask them the question again. More often than not they will talk about things like this: the respect shown between men and women in the family and between the young and elders, or about knowing who your “people” are so as to avoid offending them, or the importance of sharing within the family. At last we’re getting close to the heart of the culture, that complex network of relationships and obligations that defines the everyday life of people, the mysterious workings of what people call the “family”– something that has little entertainment value at conferences and classroom presentations, but which comes closer than anything else to defining what it is to be an islander...