VALUES OF CULTURE
Culture at the Center of Power
Over the past century, cultural values have been displaced from theoretical thinking and practical methodologies by materialistic ideologues and narrow-minded technocrats who sought to replace them with prejudiced dogma and plethora of mechanical computations. Valorist philosophy tasks itself with re-centering around cultural values, these essential components of civilization to be empowered further than the lesser quests of various disciplines.
Culture in Politics
Politics has become the most contested arena that empowers values. Historically autocratic regimes would simply map the nation's culture to the ruler's culture. Plurality in government brought fourth the incarnation of a city, region, territory, country, no longer by a person but by a virtual entity, the nation state. Politicians and their policies would need to reference these values, contribute to them, or seek to modify or reform them. Secret agendas have turned politics into a theater of lies and deception where the real values empowered by politicains are hidden.
Culture in the Economy
The 20th century saw the culture of populations engineered and modeled according to material objectives and technical considerations. Culture was no longer at the forefront of economic thinking. Instead, Economics was placed at the forefront of cultural thinking. Today we witness the sad culmination of that materialistic reversal of values in the crass commercialization of museums, formerly bastions of culture open to all people, not only to large wallets.
Culture in Society
Society is in crisis when culture tends to disintegrate. At the end of Pharaonic Egypt and the Roman decadence we can note similar devolutions in the decline of civilization. Culture has become something to passively consume, or to actively engage without cultural references or values at work. In today's western society culture is merely something that sella, that takes in a four-second attention span, whatever works to get someone what they want.
Culture in Organizations
Organizations have displaced nations and society as the prime carriers of culture. This is not only because they use products and media to convey values, It is because nations have failed to genuinely build themselves on a foundation of values and because society no longer carries or empowers cultural values, this leaves free reign to any enterprising person, foreign army, or platform provider to take over the task of forging people. Companies do this for their own benefit and to advance their own interests. Their influence can be, and is often, resold to others.
Culture in Management
Managerial practices and methodologies have seldom held culture at the center of their preoccupations with the exception of companies in the fields of the cultural arts or those engaged in creating luxury products or services. this is because for the past century most companies have chosen the lowest cultural denominator to substitute to a genuine form of culture in their business approaches or management processes. In the 21st century an era is emerging with an increasingly virtualized economy and society, therefore management methods will need to be at least revisited if not entirely revamped according to a new socioeconomic paradigm with cultural values at the top of priorities.
Culture in Artificial Intelligence
The missing link between AI and humans is even more absent than with apes. Confined to mechanistic processes, however complexified and intertangled, artificial intelligence as it is currently designed cannot harness the subtleties of value systems composing culture, much less genuinely possess culture. it would require a device that is also organismic, able to feel and to be, to know and to believe, to take a leap of faith, to value something as well as have something worthwhile it would suffer to sacrifice. In essence, AI would have to become human. Therefore it is clear that true AI modeled after humans would require humanity to become a reality. This pursuit seems futile, when so many humans already exist and require comparably little effort to gain access to culture.
Culture and the Art of Living
The Valorism Institute is Co-Founder of the UNESCO World Heritage French Art of Living Initiative, since 2018. Valorism places art at the top of culture, the all encompassing. the Art of Living could be called the highest of arts. This art was sought by many philosophers of ancient Greece such as Socrates. It was revived in 16th century by François Rabelais, again in the century of enlightenment and later by the Romantic movement. Thanks to French Bistrots, revolutionary values were carried forth into the 19th century. Hosting all members of society together, jointly partaking in the great French Art of Living well, it was kept within every person's means. This initiative has been presented to the French Culture Ministry and Presidency for adoption to the cultural protection of UNESCO.