Culture and Moral Behavior

The overarching aim of this paper is “to explain the influence of Filipino culture on the way
students look at moral experiences and solve moral dilemmas” (Commission on Higher
Education). In particular, at the end of this paper, students should be able to articulate the
importance of culture in moral behavior, making decisions, judgments, and understanding social
norms. This paper will also help them understand how Filipino culture influences the way they
think about themselves and the actions they take as moral agents. Moreover, through
discussions on the different aspects and features of a culture, students should also be able to
recognize and appreciate the differences in moral behavior among different cultures. In so doing,
they will be able to evaluate, at the same time, the issue of cultural relativism.

Introduction: The Question of Culture

Moral values, judgment, behavior as well as moral dilemmas and how we perceive them are
largely shaped and influenced by history (i.e., historical contingencies), power dynamics (i.e.,
competing ideas and interests), and the religion of a society. The way we appreciate and assess
things are not created out of nothing (ex nihilo) or simply out of our imagination. They are
conditioned by external and material elements around us that, in turn, provide the basis for
principles that orient our judgment and valuation of things. Combined as one structure or
phenomena, these external and material elements make up culture. In other words, culture is
what shapes and influences social and personal values, decisions, behavior, and practice. Thus,
to understand how culture works and its features is to also grasp the reason why things are done
in a particular way and why we do these things the way we do them.

In the field of anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies, scholars have demonstrated why
culture is the best site for consideration as the material condition that shapes the way we judge
and value things, and how through culture these things come into concrete expression. That is to
say, culture can tell us a great deal about one particular society. Let us think about this idea
concretely in and through our very own context, the Philippines.

To understand Filipino values is to understand Filipino culture.[1] However, in order to

understand Filipino culture one must recognize that it has been profoundly Christianized.[2] After
hundreds of years of colonization by Western Christian empires, the Filipinos’ moral and ethical
imagination cannot be understood outside Christian values and morality. Christianity is pervasive
in our culture so that the way we judge and value things and how things ought to be follows the
doctrinal grid of Christian theology. An example of this pervasiveness and influence of
Christianity to Filipino culture is how Filipinos value more neighborliness (i.e., “bayanihan” or
“pakikipagkapwa tao” or “pakikisama”) more than, say, the filial piety (of Confucianism). Filipino
moral universe is framed through the ethos of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In this particular
case, the way we relate to others is greatly affirmed and influenced by what the Hebrew-Christian
scripture teaches us to do, that is, to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.
Christianity reinforces the neighborliness of the Filipino bayanihan system. In other words, within
Filipino culture, biblical teachings found their way as foundational principles for a social norm. Put
differently, the intertwining of Christianity and culture in the Filipino context is the base upon
which we can understand why Filipinos do the things the way they do or why Filipino believe
things as they are.

Being aware of these “external and material elements around us” which we interact (implicitly
and explicitly) with and incorporate (consciously and unconsciously) into how we do things with
and for ourselves and in relation to and with others is, therefore, necessary in understanding why
we respond to issues and to situations of our lives in a certain way. In this chapter, these external
and material elements around us will be described, as indicated above, as culture. However, to
limit our discussion, these external and material elements here refer to people and their
practices. And in relation to this, culture is normally understood as what people do and how
they do things—people and do/action.
Outline of Discussion: A Study on Culture and Moral Behavior

To further our reflection on Filipino culture and in order to place ourselves in a better vantage
point, it is important for us to first lay the historical foundation of our modern-day culture as it is
currently (re)configured today. It is necessary to thus start our reflection on the history of
colonialism. The immediate antecedent of our (Filipino) history that shaped our collective
memory and experience is Western colonization. The discussion that follows below suggests this
idea: we cannot understand contemporary Filipino culture without our collective memory and
experience of Western colonial enterprise. Insights from postcolonial studies (Edward Said) will
be utilized in order to clarify and advance this reflection.

Today, to study about a culture, one must, at least, engage the insights of Michel Foucault and
Pierre Bourdieu. They are the two of the more important thinkers in this area of study as they did
not only transform the terrain of this field, but also demonstrated why power and social structures
are critical in understanding how culture works. They can, therefore, help us understand the
elements and nuances of a culture. In this second section, the aim is to deepen our reflection on
culture, particularly on the way in which culture becomes a conflicted and contested site of
various interests and power dynamics.

To conclude this discussion on culture, let us consider a work in contemporary cultural studies
particularly as it relates to the question of religion and culture. The aim of this concluding section
is to emphasize the fact that culture is not a homogenous space nor has a singular operative
logic. It is infused with “other” elements that may have shaped its logic. This discussion highlights
as well the point that a Filipino culture today is, by and large, shaped by a religious ethos of the
Christian faith. Thus, to talk about Filipino culture is to talk about Filipino religiosity/spirituality. In
this sense, Filipino culture is an expression and way of being of the Filipino people that manifests
their “ultimate concern” (Paul Tillich, 1959).

In the Analysis Section, I will further elaborate more on the stake of the question of culture by
way of looking at it through the concept of apparatus of Giorgio Agamben. It is here as well that I
suggest some theoretical points about culture that have bearings on the question of moral
behavior. The Conclusion Section outlines the important insights from the discussion.

In the Learning Exercises section are activities that could enhance reflection on the issue of
culture in general and Filipino culture in particular. The exercises are for group and individual
activity. This section may be used to aid discussion or to deepen further reflections about culture
and the way in which it influences moral behavior.

In the end, this chapter hopes to provide an introductory discussion on and about culture, and to
offer a cursory outline of a framework through which one may think and reflect about culture’s
role and place in moral behavior.

On Culture: History of Colonialism, Power, Domination, and Religion

In its broadest description, culture is a structure of collective experience and shared practices
which are commonly expressed in, but not limited to, arts, music, dance, literature, behavior and
social norms. Or, as defined above, culture is made up of the external and material elements
around us. In its simplest form, anthropologists describe culture as a way of life. In any of this
description, we see culture as life or an attribute ascribed to a particular form of life, be it a
society or a group of people that manifest their collective and particular way of doing, thinking,
and valuing things that are identifiably and distinctively theirs. For example, this is evident when
we compare Western culture as opposed to African culture. Western culture is often described as
individualistic (independence and autonomy as more important than anything else) as opposed
to African culture which is considered more as collectivistic (e.g., the Ubuntu: “I am because we
are”) wherein the “I” is only secondary to corporate entity or communal interest.

In the discussion above, the highlight is on the significant core of what culture is: that culture is a
particular feature of a particular form of human life. As will be shown at the end of this section, it
is precisely because of this link between culture and life that the question of ethics and morality is
necessarily interwoven with culture. Culture also has to do with what makes life flourish, what
makes life continue from one generation to another, and what counts for life’s possibilities. A
Ghanaian scholar, W. Emmanuel Abraham (1992) suggests this core fact about culture: that
culture contains and encompasses not only the material but also the emotional, intellectual, and
ethical aspects of a society or a social group. In short, culture is undeniably related to and is
about life and everything related to it.

In the Philippine context, as the core of culture is shaped by the history of colonialism and
Christianity, Filipino life is infused with Western values and ethos of the Christian faith. Filipino
culture is postcolonial as well as Christianized. It is precisely for this reason that culture becomes
a form and bearer of a form of life. To further elaborate on the stake of this thesis, let us first
reflect on the question of history, particularly the history of colonialism, as a way to situate the
formation and current form of Filipino culture.

What is Culture?: Reflecting on the Question through the Prism of the History of
Colonialism

Let us first describe this history and experience of colonialism as “thick history”; thick because

this history not only shapes the current configuration (politics, governance, religion) but also
because this history continues to influence the psycho-social consciousness, define self-identity
of the Filipino people, and determine their interest and place in the geopolitical and global
monetary order. The thickness of this history, therefore, defines a great deal of contemporary
culture of the Filipino people. Evidence of this thickness can be easily seen in how our taste for
fashion and music are Westernized, our love for Hollywood movies, our desire for Western and
American literatures, and our reliance on sovereign debt and Official Development Assistance
(ODA) from other countries. In short, colonial history is thick because it penetrates the social and
the psychic reality of the Filipino people not to mention how it continues to interrupt and intervene
in its political, economic, and cultural affairs.

In recent memory, postcolonial studies became an area of academic inquiry that investigates the
issue of colonialism and the colonial residues that remain operative in the cultural life, and as it
pertains to our discussion, to the Filipino people. Edward Said, a famous postcolonial literary
critic and professor at Columbia University, is one of the pioneering and towering scholars in this
area. He provides us with an elucidating account as to why the history of colonialism defines an
important contour for cultural studies, criticism, and analysis.

In Orientalism (1979), a groundbreaking book in this area of study, Said addresses how non-
Western cultures are (re)produced through representation in Western imaginaries and in
Western academia. In this particular work, he focuses on the way in which Western literatures
have represented non-Western cultures in unflattering terms—snake charmers, belly dancers,
the exotic, thieves, the sensual, the depraved, the ignorant, and the uncivilized. While he focuses
on 19 century literatures, we still see this representation to be evident in contemporary popular
th

culture—in movies, for example, the Arabs are portrayed as religious fanatics and terrorists and
Black Americans as thugs. This is what makes the insight of Said on representation of non-
Western cultures, which remains relevant and significant, then and now, profound.

But more importantly, for Said, representation is a matter of operation of power; in a Foucauldian
sense (discussed below), representation is a mechanism that shapes “knowledge” about other
people. Such knowledge is not neutral. Because in this representation of other people, such
knowledge creates differentiation of people and culture—particularly, biases, prejudices, and
stereotypes against other people.

Moreover, this is highly problematic because the way other people and cultures are represented
have been determined and shaped by their subject position in the colonizer/colonized power
relations. In the history of colonialism, this kind of representation is utilized and employed to
shore up the superiority of the colonizers and the inferiority of the colonized—i.e., they are
barbaric (non-Western culture), we are civilized (Western culture); they are irrational, we are
rational. In this othering of non-Western culture, representation is not only misleading but also
inaccurate misrepresentation of others. It is also, unfortunately, an operation for justification to
the violent subjugation and inferiorization of others.

In his pioneering work, therefore, Said offers a new way to look at the history of colonialism as
not just history determined through arms and armies but through literatures, not only about
conquest but also about anthropology, not just about oppression but about justification of
colonialism through a narrative. Although this is more developed in his later work, particularly
in Culture and Imperialism (1994), we already see in Orientalism the way colonialism changes
and influences non-Western cultures, one that is not immediately visible to the naked eyes.
These colonial codes embedded in non-Western cultures are hidden and veiled ideas—for
example, white race is superior and Western ideas are civilized and objective. Without the sharp
analysis of Said, these colonial codes will just appear as self-evident and natural, and as a result,
continue to reinforce the superior/inferior dichotomy of the colonizer/colonized relations.

This kind of trenchant analysis and critique of colonialism (through representation in literature as
in the case of Said) is described as postcolonial criticism. Such kind of criticism is critically
important in our reflection about culture because this only demonstrates the way in which culture
is not only molded within itself but also, more importantly, without itself. A culture is not isolated
from history, indeed, from world history. In modernity, it is affected and infected, for bad and for
good, with Western imperial enterprise. A culture is always intertwined with the affairs of the
world. To use a postcolonial concept, culture is hybrid, like a halo-halo. Culture is constituted by
different elements that became part of what it is―a mixture of assorted ingredients,
like chopsuey. In the schema of Said, contemporary culture is entangled in, one way or the other,
the Western/non-Western divide.

Moreover, along the insights of Said, colonialism operates insidiously; it is pervasive and it
pervades even in how we imagine what and how things are and should be (e.g., in literature or
fashion). An example of this is how we love to pattern our fashion after Western style—i.e., even
in a tropical weather, we love to wear coat and tie. This is the postcolonial Filipino culture, a
mixture of style and preferences acquired through the reality and experience of colonial relations,
and an incorporation and integration of various things into a particular way of life. In this respect,
the history of colonialism made Filipino culture what it is today. How we appropriated the
experience and reality of colonialism is a testament of our creativity and ingenuity. But how we
use it to enhance our collective life as a Filipino people and our cultural identity remains an
unfinished task.

Finally, although he focuses on the problem of representation in Western discourse and

literature, Said provides us, nonetheless, with a way to understand the dynamics between
Western and non-Western cultures, between the colonizer and the colonized, whose relationship
continues to shape contemporary perceptions and practices of non-Western cultural subjects.
Entanglement of Western and non-Western cultures have become problematic because of its
history and uneven power relations. Postcolonial criticism makes us aware of the problems and
issues, particularly as they relate to the question of Filipino culture. Indeed, postcolonial Filipino
culture is an amalgam of local and colonial ideas and practices, shaped by Western colonialism.

In sum, what I hope to simply illustrate here is this: it is necessary to understand culture, or as in
our case, Filipino culture (a non-Western culture but now a Western non-Western culture), in and
through the history of colonialism. In this way, we also see how culture is (re)configured, and how
subsequently, it can produce subjects and practices in a way that it does. As I will discuss below,
the Foucauldian (Michel Foucault) idea of discourse/knowledge is central to this
thesis—discourse/knowledge produce subjects and practices. Let us proceed to this train of
thought, first, by way of the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu on practice or habitus.

What is Culture?: Reflecting on the Question with Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is known for his works in a number of different areas of study,
such as sociology of culture, education, language, and literature to name a few. Many of his key
concepts like habitus, doxa, practical logic, and cultural capital have become integral and
influential in social sciences and humanities.

For our purposes of thinking about the processes or practices of social patterns, particularly in
relation to behavior, the concept of practice and habitus is especially relevant. By practice,
Bourdieu refers to the things that people do as opposed to what they say; and the way he
theoretically develops this idea of practice is through the notion of habitus. In his best-known
text, Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977), he defines habitus in this manner:

…durable, transposable, dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring

structures, that is, as principles of the generation and structuring of practices and representations
which can be objectively “regulated” and “regular” without in any way being the product of
obedience to rules.

Simply put, a habitus is a set of predispositions that generate and structure human actions and
behaviors. While it shapes all practices, it is not imposed on us by way of an edict or law. It is
incorporated in us unconsciously and informally. It is acquired non-forcefully. By doing the things
that we see and experience in our immediate surroundings, we acquire habitus specific to our
social location. We internalize them—again, unconsciously and informally.

Another important element of this notion of habitus that needs emphasis is this: it appears or
expresses itself into different manifestations, contingent on a particular social or cultural markers.
For example, the habitus of a corporate executive with an advance degree (say, Masters in
Business Administration or Juris Doctor) who eats his steak with red wine, watches cultural
shows and symphony concerts is different from the habitus of a factory worker who does not
have a college degree and eats “pagpag” meal (a dish made from leftovers from food
establishments) for dinner, and drinks Vino Kulafu. Put differently, a habitus is a specific set of
disposition particular to a specific social or cultural location. This is not fixed or static however. As
in the case above, the worker may overtime become a corporate executive. Or, he or she may
win a lottery—which may provide him or her with disposable income that allows her do whatever
a corporate executive can do.

To study the specific trait and element of habitus may be difficult to grasp, but it certainly allows
us to understand why we do the things we do and explains them in way that allows us to see how
social structures structure social practices and behaviors. The concept of habitus then is the
explanatory account of social practices. It provides explanation to our actions.

More importantly, for Bourdieu, “the notion of habitus reveals that while a person’s behavior may
be in part determined by formal social rules and mental ideas—uncovered and described by the
social scientist—a significant determinant of behavior is hidden, implicit knowledge learned
informally and embodied in specific social practices” (Deal and Beal, 2004).

The theoretical insight of Michel Foucault, a colleague of Bourdieu at College de

France, the most prestigious academic institution of that country, provides us with a better
account on how the “hidden, implicit knowledge” significantly determines why we do the things
we do through his notion of power. For Bourdieu, power relations already exist as embodied
in habitus between, as cited above, social classes (the executive and the worker). Foucault
however gives more weight on the issue of power and treated it more systematically and directly
to the issue—why we do the things we do.

While his work is expansive, ranging from such topics as madness, punishment, medicine, and
sexuality, Foucault is particularly relevant for us because of his work on (the history of)
power—particularly, how power operates to produce particular kinds of subjects and their
practices.
To go about it, let us first establish cursorily how Foucault arrived at such theoretical insight. In
his early works, Foucault writes about various institutions like psychiatric clinics, prisons, and
schools. He analyzes how these institutions operate and forms “body of knowledge” that come to
be seen as natural and self-evident through assumptions and operations. In these works, for our
purposes here, he particularly investigates the way in which these institutions produce
“discourses” or “knowledge” which then constitute practices relative to that body of knowledge.
This is the naturalizing operations of discourses/knowledges of the aforementioned institutions.

For Foucault, the effect is disciplinary. People become disciplined subjects within a particular
discourse. Disciplinary power here is not coercive power. It is by and large provides the “hidden,
implicit knowledge” (Bourdieu) as to why we do the things we do. And this disciplinary process,
for Foucault, demonstrates how the “hidden, implicit knowledge” and subjects are intertwined.

Analyzing how institutions produce this discourse or knowledge and how in turn knowledge
makes subjects is what Foucault is known for. This historical analysis of such process of
production of discourse/knowledge and subjects is known as archaeological or genealogical
critique.

So far we have a sketch account on discourse/knowledge and subjects. However, the question
that remains for us is this: how does power come into play in this equation? In his later
investigation of social processes of subjectivization, that is, the process by which a human
subject is constituted or made “subjects”, Foucault came to a conclusion that what made this
process possible is the operation of power. For Foucault, “power is not some monolithic force
that appears in the same guises throughout all times and places. Instead, power has a
genealogical history and is understood differently depending on place, location, and theoretical
perspective” (Deal and Beal, 2004). In other words, power is an effect; and its manifestations
vary depending on different situations in a particular society. Or in its theoretically nuanced
definition, Foucault defines it in his famous text, History of Sexuality, in this manner:

…not something that is acquired, seized, or shared, something that one holds on to or allows to
slip away; power is exercised from innumerable points, in the interplay of non-egalitarian and
mobile relations…. Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it
comes from everywhere…power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain
strength we are endowed with it; it is a name that one attributes to a complex strategically
situation in a particular society (Foucault, 1978).

Put simply, as an effect, power is a name that we attribute to social operations and mechanisms
that produce various kinds of subjects. It is also equally important to qualify—and repeat—that
this power is not ahistorical. Its “form” differs and varies across history. Corollary then, the kinds
of subjects produced by such power also differ and vary in every historical milieu. Thus, for
instance, the difference between the subjects of before and after the advent of Facebook is
qualitatively different, either also here (Philippines) or elsewhere in terms of location.

Through this Foucauldian lens that we see why we do the things we do is through
power—particularly, as this is inscribed and articulated discursively. “Power” produces
“disciplined” subjects and “hidden, implicit knowledge.” Also, here we are able to recognize the
way in which social institutions, body of knowledge, and discourses operate insidiously, behind
the scene, so to speak, that make things appear as natural and self-evident.

To summarize the theoretical insights of Bourdieu and Foucault as they pertain to the question of
culture, there are prominent features that we must consider. First, habitus as structuring structure
for social behavior manifests not only differently in terms of its social or cultural markers, but
also, second, in terms of its historicity. Social or cultural markers are historical, thus, their
manifestations and logic varies from one milieu to another. Third, any social practice or behavior
is produced by power, indeed, through power relations (as power is always relational and social).
What makes this persuasive and more relevant account is that, social practice or behavior is
produced through knowledge, or more precisely, through the ruling episteme/knowledge of a
particular time. This explains, for instance, why Filipino cultural and social norms and practices
are Christianized. With the arrival of colonizers on our shores, “Christian doctrines” have been
the ruling episteme/knowledge of our society; and this, in turn, shaped our moral consciousness
and imagination. A concrete example of this connection is how we think of marriage rights (a
right of a citizen but conflated with religious doctrines and religion of the person) or reproductive
rights (a human right but always understood through the lens of natural theology of Christian
theology). In short, Christian episteme/knowledge saturates the moral universe of the Filipino
people. If Christian episteme/knowledge is a reading glass, this provides us with the capacity to
read the text before us.

In the end, the theoretical accounts of Bourdieu and Foucault provide us with explanatory
insights to the way in which our action and practice, and the way we think about them, is shaped
by historical and social conditions. Importantly, they give us a way to think about our culture that
is shaped by Christianity—a theme that I will now reflect on.

What is Culture?: Reflecting on the Question with Cultural Studies—the Filipino Culture

Finally, while we have already outlined significant theoretical considerations in order to not only
define but also to describe and understand culture, we have yet to directly reflect what it means
to reflect on culture as it relates to the question of what is right and wrong. The hope is that the
foregoing discussions have sufficiently already laid out the basic premise of this
discussion: postcolonial Filipino culture is shaped by Western civilization, and, more
importantly, that the ruling regime of knowledge (Christianity and its institutions) introduced to
(enforced on) us by Western colonizers shapes our moral sensibilities and ethical orientations.
Indeed, it penetrates and sticks into the core of our being—our subjectivity and cultural identity.
Who we are, who we think we are, and what we are, are extensively determined by the Judeo-
Christian ethos. In this respect, Filipino culture is primarily a religious-culture or, specifically, a
Christian culture.

In his classic and influential text the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), Max
Weber suggests how a religion/religious teaching is consequential to public life and order.
Particularly, he argues that secular and materialistic culture of modernity is indebted to the
spiritual revolution of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. But more relevantly for
our reflection, he demonstrates in this work the relationship between religion and culture. As
contemporary theologians affirmed and as sociologists demonstrated how this is still operational
in contemporary society, the Weberian thesis remains a lingering and influential idea to reckon
with today.

What is worth highlighting in Weber’s thesis is that it also seems to suggest a direct correlation
between religion and culture. How they are to be understood as constitutive in contemporary
Filipino culture will be discussed below. To frame and further advance this discussion, it is
instructive to adopt here the argument of Dwight Hopkins. Hopkins (2001) writes:

Culture is always religious insofar as the way of life of all human beings entails some yearning
for, belief in, and ritualization around that which is ultimate—that which is both part of and greater
than the self. Culture is religious because the ultimate concern is both present in cultural material
and transcend it.

In this argument, Hopkins particularly builds on and broadens the definition of culture of
Raymond Williams (“whole way of life”) in order to understand the way of life and everyday
practices of enslaved African Americans (during the time of slavery in the United State of
America). He argues that the previous definition of culture does not capture the essence of the
culture of the slaves. In his study, religion is inseparable from their everyday life. Slave
experiences and cultural practices are interwoven in their religion as they encounter “sacred
word power” in the form of “the Bible (as written word), prayer (as words of hope), spirituals (as
singing words), and naming (as words of self-definition)” (Ibid.). Hopkins defines “sacred word
power” as an example of their everyday experience that is part and parcel of their culture—the
experience of co-constituting themselves in a harsh and cruel environment filled nonetheless with
the presence of divine power. Thus, whether they are inside the church or outside of it, enslaved
African Americans embody such encounter. For instance, Negro Spirituals (“singing words”) is
not just a solo effort of a gifted enslaved. But it is a process through which the enslaved shares
his or her pain while it is also a communal participation in such pain. For Hopkins, in this
experience and articulation of such experience, therefore, religion and culture are not separate. A
cultural expression through songs, for example, is a manifestation of their religious yearning for
that which is ultimate and sacred. They are interwoven, so much that Hopkins strongly suggests
that the most appropriate way to describe this “culture” in this situation is to name it as religious
culture.

Along this line, I suggest that contemporary Filipino culture is religious culture insofar as it is the
product and expression of the collective cultural memory of the colonized Filipino people.
Historically, Western colonialism is unintelligible without the support and sanction of Western
Christianity and vice-versa. The Christian Cross arrived in the Philippine islands through the
Spanish armada. The Bible landed on the Philippine shores with the American empire.
Substantially considered, therefore, colonialism and Christianity are inseparable experience of
the Filipino people, and hence not a detachable reality from the collective cultural memory of the
Filipino people. Thus, the postcolonial Filipino culture is unquestionably Westernized, and deeply
infused with Christian doctrines and values. In this particularly respect, the contemporary Filipino
culture is a religious culture. But what makes this different from the account of Hopkins is that
this emphasizes the operation of colonialism in its substance and process. Put differently, the link
between culture and Western colonialism and Christianity is at the heart of the religious
culture in the Philippines.

Moreover, I highlight this dimension of contemporary postcolonial Filipino culture because this
has direct consequence to connecting the dots between “behavior, judgment, value” and
“culture”. In the Philippine context, any assessment on Filipino behavior, judgment, and value is
insufficient without taking into account its religious orientation and substance. Whether we think
about issues ranging from marriage (same-sex), sexuality (LGBTQIA), reproductive rights
(condom, pills, abortion), environmental issues (use and utilization of natural resources), and
human rights (extra judicial killings), we cannot ignore Christian interest and agenda in these
issues. In Philippine context, cultural value is a religious value. Making this relation explicit is to
recognize the historical link, and at the same, the substantial (ontological) bind between religion
and culture in the lives of the Filipino people.

The tenacious tentacles of colonialism are also highlighted in this context because it seeps into
the consciousness and imagination of the Filipino people. As Filipino psychologists have pointed
out, colonial residues remain determinative in the life of the Filipino people. One example of this
residue they have identified is “colonial mentality”—we mimic and pattern our values and
preference after the values and preferences of the colonizer. Such problem is a colonial legacy
that pesters Filipino life and culture. In From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine
Experience (1992, 33), Virgilio G. Enriquez, thus, argues the need for sikolohiyang Pilipino to
work against a psychology of “colonialism and its attendant characteristics among the Filipino
people”. He highlights the fact that this is a virus that needs to be taken out from the Filipino
body. This highlights as well the historical and substantial fact that colonialism has penetrated in
the inner sanctum of the being of the Filipino people—an evidence of how invasive colonialism is
to Filipino culture.

In this brief discussion of religion, culture, and colonialism, the link between and among them is
highlighted. By following the insight of Hopkins, the necessary feature of culture is brought to the
fore, and in the process, identifying the essential categories that explain postcolonial Filipino
culture as fundamentally constituted as and by both religion and colonialism.

Summary: Culture as a Contested Site and as a Site of Contestation

As discussed above, culture is not homogenous nor a value-free site. Rather, as in the case of
the Philippines, it is coated with the “thick history” of Christianity and colonialism. Filipino culture
is constituted and inflected with Western culture and Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus, any
discussion that reflects on the relation between culture and moral behavior is inadequate without
any consideration for the layers provided by Christianity and Western colonialism. While the
discussion above does not comprehensively address such relation between culture and moral
behavior, it at least indicates important themes that must be considered in to order to address
such matter.

What is not highlighted above, but one that has great consequence to further understand culture
and its relation to moral behavior is this: that culture is a contested site and a site of
contestation. Let me discuss few points here as a way to conclude this section.

First, culture is not just an expression or embodiment of what people do and how they do their
things. Nor is it simply just a representation of their ideals or aspirations. Rather, to develop
further the insights from Foucault and Bourdieu, culture is a product of power relations (M.
Foucault) and hence it is also a generative field (P. Bourdieu) that reproduces and sustains itself
in such power arrangement. Thus, culture does not only reinforce but also reproduce social
values and social norms of a particular power arrangement of a society. It is in this respect that
cultural representation is necessarily contested and cultural performance is a struggle among
contending interested groups.

Second, culture is not eternal. Nor is it transcendental. As it is a product of human labor and
aspiration, it changes its forms and substance. Its particular form only lasts a particular historical,
social, and political milieu insofar as it is a product of a particular form of power relations and
social arrangement. Thus, its influence on moral behavior is contingent and transitory. The
substance and form of human culture is like a chameleon; they change according to exigency of
time and place. Its influence to moral behavior is, thus, limited. Nevertheless, and precisely
because of its malleability, culture is susceptible to power configurations and relations of a
particular society.

Third, since culture is deeply interwoven in “power configurations and relations” of a society, it is
thus implicated in political dynamics of a society. It becomes and is part of a power struggle. As
discussed above, in relation to the work of Bourdieu, culture reflects and embodies class struggle
in the society—thus, there is high vs. low culture; dominant culture vs. non-dominant one; elite
vs. popular. All this to say, the influence of culture on moral behavior depends on its status in
relation to the power and social configuration of a given society.

In sum, culture is an important site through which to study human behavior, social norms, and, as
such, human life. Because it is a product of human labor, culture is also a vital site through which
to investigate assumptions about human action, human interaction, and human relationships.

Analysis on Culture as Apparatus

As discussed, culture is a human artifact that embodies and encompasses human life and all
things related to it. As such, it is an inherent part of human life. Humans cannot extricate
themselves from culture. Neither can culture be separated from human life. Culture and human
life is deeply interwoven with each other.

In this section, an idea discussed above will be presented using an insight of Giorgio
Agamben—particularly on the idea that culture is an operation that manufactures a form or forms
of human life. Agamben is one of the most important thinkers today, especially in the field of
human sciences. His multi-volume work on homo sacer outlines some of the most significant
theoretical terrains mostly discussed in humanities today. Directly relevant to our discussion here
is his work that is immediately related to the work of Foucault, whom we have already discussed
above.

In his work What is Apparatus? (2009), Agamben develops the insight of Foucault on
“governmentality” or “government of men” into a full blown account of techniques of power
operative in modern forms of governance and economy. He calls these operative techniques of
power as apparatus. For our purposes here, the concept of apparatus of Agamben is useful as
we think about culture as operations and practices and insofar as it has the “capacity to capture,
orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or
discourses of living beings” (Agamben, 14)—or more relevantly, culture as apparatus that is
capable of orienting and modeling and manufacturing behaviors and opinions.

To employ the Agambenian concept of apparatus to further our reflection on culture, let us
consider culture as a privileged site to think about human behaviors and social norms and how it
manufactures them. Culture is a (re)productive machine. Moreover, let us consider that it is in
culture that a form of systems of belief and feelings, rules, processes or institutions become
concrete. Culture is the site where ideas and practices, supported by knowledge and systems of
beliefs and feelings, become visible and concrete in and through, among other things, behavior.
Now, there are two things worth highlighting from this insight: one on the theoretical aspect and
the other on the practical side.

The theoretical import of this insight is this: culture captures and manufactures subjectivities,
practices, and norms. The latter point is vital to understanding why culture does not only
influence behavior but is also a generator of human behaviors. In our reflection about culture, this
is directly related to how we understand why colonized cultures continue to exhibit and
manufacture colonial residues that manifest in different ways in the social-psyche, political
economy, and religious life of the Filipino people. In other words, culture as apparatus allows us
to understand human activity as cultural production of values and behavior in its historical and
substantial specificity; that performance of culture is also a production or reproduction of social
norms and values.

The Agambenian apparatus makes it historically (and genealogically) clear the mechanism of
culture and how its formation and subsequent emergence and operation is a product of human
labor. The concept of apparatus also supplements and strengthens the postcolonial insight of
Said and the theoretical suggestions of Foucault and Bourdieu.

The practical import of this insight is this: culture as apparatus allows us to see how cultural
artifacts and performances are not simply “products”; they are also performances that shape
moral perception, sensibilities, and worldview. For example, pop songs are not simply artistic
expression nor cultural representation of a communal aspiration about what love is; they are
also “shapers” of a social and moral imaginary of what love could be. Pop songs can transform
ideas as they can posit what an idea could be. For instance, from the biblical idea that love is
about caring other people especially those who are most in need, pop songs have made and
transformed the idea of love into as a “many splendored thing.” This is what Agamben means
when he describes the operation of the apparatus as one that captures (“what love is”) and
manufactures (“what love could be”) as it applies to social practices and moral norms.

In that respect too, we see in a much better view the trace of the link between culture and life.
Culture is not just an intrinsic and inherent part of life. Culture also produces a particular form or
forms life. In the above example of love songs, cultural performance enacts and creates a “new
horizon” of what “life” (love) could mean and be.

In sum, the concept of the apparatus of Agamben adds a layer to our reflection on culture.
Particularly, it tightens the knot that binds culture and life together. And it allows us to understand
theoretically and practically the stake of this connection.

Conclusion: Culture as Not-All but Essential

While culture is important and necessary to the way in which we understand and explain moral
behavior, it must also be argued that this is not a zero sum game. Culture provides us with a
powerful and persuasive explanatory power on why we do the things we do. It is not however the
only sole factor or explanation. For instance, our fear or respect for rebellion (whatever the case
maybe) against the laws of the land is a case in point. We do the things we do in relation to the
laws of the land because of our own set of perceptions about life and what life should be. In this
particular case, either we do not want to be punished under the law or we desire order that we
would rather respect the law. Or, we believe that the law is inherently oppressive that the only
thing meaningful is to rebel against it. In other words, there are other explanatory accounts that
explain behavior, norm, judgement, and practices. For example, psychoanalysis, existentialism,
Marxism, or psychology have their own way of explaining what and why things are, different from
culture. In short, human beings are complex beings that one box is not enough to place them.
Thus, culture may be important and necessary but it is insufficient to fully explain why people do
the things they do.

With this theoretical caveat, the following concluding points maybe offered—repetitions but
necessary for purposes of emphasis and importance to the topic at hand.

First, culture is a human-made. To use a postmodern category, culture is a social construct. As

such, it is historical as it is social and indeed political and religious. In this sense, it embodies and
expresses human aspirations and their ultimate concern.

Second, culture is site specific. There is no “universal culture.” As discussed through the
theoretical lens of Bourdieu and Foucault, culture is particular and specific to a society or social
operation. And as suggested by Said, this particularity or specificity of culture in post-colonial era
is marked by its difference and relation to a dominant/imperial culture.

Third, culture reflects and embodies the logic and the power relations of a particular social order.
Put differently, it is a product of a particular social order. As such, it mirrors the values as well as
the power dynamics within a particular order. In this sense, there are “cultures” within a particular
culture.

Finally, culture is performative. It is neither static nor fixed. Over time, it transforms itself, as well
as its form and values, orientations and qualities. This is to say that culture mutates as historical
contingencies change or social configuration modifies or political order revolutionizes itself. This
is the case of Martial Law and post-Martial culture in the Philippines, as it is in the Cultural
Revolution and post-Cultural Revolution in China. Put differently and succinctly, culture is what
people do. It dies with people. It comes alive with them.

[1] Due to the inherent limitations of this chapter, we will not be able to reflect on the questions
about “Filipino culture.” For instance, is Moro culture part of the Filipino culture (since, for
instance, Moro culture does not share the lechon-loving culture of Filipino Christians)? How
about the indigenous belief and practice, are they part of what we know as Filipino culture (since
they believe in diwatas)? This is to say that we must be careful and conscious about our claim on
what constitute as Filipino culture.

[2] It is equally important however to also highlight that this is not one-side affair. Pre-colonial
culture had also shaped Christianity. For instance, superstition and local belief became part of
Christian faith and practice—Simbang Gabi, nine days of mourning are examples of this
incorporation of pre-colonial culture to Filipino Catholicism.

For more on culture and moral behaviour, see https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-

guides/sociology/culture-and-societies/culture-and-society-defined . For a related discussion
moral behavior, see https://philonotes.com/index.php/moral-development/.