Everyone receives a cultural stamp as he grows up

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Everyone receives a cultural stamp as he grows up (in, say, the first twelve years of his life). A child growing up in a village in the high Andes of Peru receives a cultural stamp. A child growing up in some small town in southern India receives his own cultural stamp. A child growing up in some large city in China receives his cultural stamp. A white child growing up in a wealthy family in the USA receives a cultural stamp and a Black child growing up in a poor family in some Black ghetto in the USA receives a different cultural stamp. A child growing up with Protestant Christian parents receives a different cultural stamp from a child of Catholic, Muslim or Jewish parents. Aspects of the cultural stamp include cultural ideas and beliefs, language, religion, education, social level of his parents, etc. Thus all the peoples of the world separate out into people of a great number of different cultural stamps. People’s minds and ways of thinking differ according to their cultural stamps. A German child growing up in the German culture grows up with a German cultural stamp and an Italian child growing up in southern Italy grows up with a cultural stamp of southern Italy. There are things which may modify one’s basic cultural stamp. Some things are education, reading, and thinking. Education, reading, and thinking can change us at a basic level. Especially thinking. As we think, question, and examine ideas and things we may change our mind on things and change at a basic level. In this way we grow mentally and intellectually. We may evolve into someone who thinks differently, sees things differently, and acts differently from the way he did when he was young.

People think and act differently according to their cultural stamp. In the antebellum deep south the southern poor whites had a different cultural stamp from the New England whites. See

Redneck Poverty: Why Southern Whites Were Poorer Than Northerners in the US? | Thomas Sowell This different cultural stamp made them think and act differently than northern whites.

How well a person does in life has a lot to do with his cultural stamp. A part of his cultural stamp may relate to personal aspirations. If he is the child of some professional parents such as engineer, lawyer, doctor, etc. they may have expectations of him i.e. it may be expected of him that he will go on to college and become a professional. In this case he may be raised to expect of himself that he will achieve at least as much in life as his parents and that he will go on to college and special studies. On the other hand, if he is the child of laboring class parents he may come to assume that he himself will grow up to be only one of the masses in the laboring class i.e he has no special aspirations. An important element in determining how well a child does in life is what his personal expectations are, ambitions are, goals are. A person will work hard for goals. With no goals he may not work hard.

The idea of cultural stamp explains why American blacks tend to do poorly in school and fare worse than whites in the work world.

14 Sept 2023