Worldview Definition

The term worldview refers to the way in which a culture establishes reality, therefore, it covers every aspect of a person’s life: their relationship with nature and the environment, coexistence with other individuals, artistic expressions, thoughts politicians, the economic system, even feelings. In other words, it is the mental configuration established by the society to which we belong to interpret the world.

Generally, when thinking about worldview, the idea of ​​”religion” comes to mind, mainly because they fulfill similar functions, however, they are not the same, religion is also framed within the worldview of a people as a reflection of it, which corresponds to the spiritual and in many occasions moral identity of a human group, but religion does not define what the worldview of such a group will be like.

There may be people of the same nationality and with a different religion, but who share a worldview, that is, they manage to see the world in the same way or in a compatible way because they have grown up in a context that orders reality under the same principles or some very similar. A very clear opposite case would be that of the conquest of America, where Catholic Europeans are on a worldview plane different from that of the pre-Hispanic cultures of the Middle Ages and here there are no figures that are related between both worldviews.

worldview and language

One of the most important ways in which the worldview is manifested is in language, because through it symbols are expressed that represent what a human group is capable of meaning, what it assimilates from its reality. We have several simple examples in this area: the multiple names that the Inuit give to white or the Lacandones and the Amazonian societies to green have to do with their natural environment, the first group is surrounded by snow and according to the color of this different things can be differentiated, if a storm is coming, if there is a bear, if it is ice or snow, the second group, which lives in the jungle, has a similar mechanism but for the color green; On the other hand, we have the way in which the ancient Mexicas named the vital element of human beings, something that from other societies is known as soul, but that for this American group did not correspond to just one category, but to three1: teyolia ( in the heart), tonalli (in the head) and ihíyotl (in the liver).

meeting of worldviews

What happens when two different worldviews come into contact? There are many registered cases of the conflict that occurs when two visions of the world face each other, we could simplify it as the lack of a relevant translator, who not only dedicates himself to words but also addresses the system of beliefs and representations of this or that people. , but there is a faster way to avoid misunderstandings: empathy. By recognizing that the cultural configuration of the other is valid and provides them with the necessary elements to conduct themselves through life, effective coexistence agreements can be achieved. But this does not happen often, rather: almost never.

The consequences of these encounters are many and highly variable. For example, one of the results is the integration of elements from different worldviews, as in the case described below. The strong relationship that the Yaquis have with their territory can be seen in the following myth of origin, which tells of a great flood that shaped the mountains and the rivers once the water was drained, also when God created the world, He made two clay monkeys, one white and one brown, he blew on them and revived them, then Christ asked the Yoris (non-indigenous, “whites”) and the Yaquis, what did they want to support themselves. The first answered that they wanted money, the second answered that the land and the river, to plant beans and corn; then Christ granted them.

He gave the yoris the hoe, the shovel and the machete and told them that there was money under the earth. To the Yaquis he gave the land along with the river and all the water, including animal and plant species, with this he granted them the deer, the hare, the rabbit and the pitahaya, he gave them permission to hunt them to eat them and to sow; For this, he gave the Yaquis an old shovel, an old knife, and an old spade. He told them to help each other and each other, but never to sell any portion of their land to the Yoris.

Here the existence of the Yaquis and non-indigenous peoples is explained through categories of the Christian religion but with elements that refer to the Yaqui world, such as the natural environment, and thus justify the relationship they have with their ancestral territory, the which is sacred because it was given to it by Christ/God. This has political and legal implications for the administration of the territory (not everyone can freely use this space or its resources); but it also dictates the relationship between the Yaquis and the rest of the Mexicans, because through the idea of ​​the sacredness of the land, that is, that the Yaquis are tied to that territory by a divine and very ancient bond, separating from it is dangerous because it would be disobeying the gods so they must protect it, mainly from those who seek to exploit the resources that are concentrated in it.

Thus, it can be seen how a series of rules of behavior emerge from the particular worldview of a people. With this case, we can observe a cultural survival mechanism by including new elements that come to a certain worldview system, to reinterpret and adjust the novelty, which maintains a balance in the thought structure; In the case of the Yaquis, the elements of Catholicism were internalized in the myths of origin, in which Christ and the Virgin are the original Yaquis and the deeply rooted ritual of this people is now seen in Catholic manifestations, but it is a characteristic that already existed in them, there was then a replacement of form, not substance.

Following

References

1. To learn more about this subject, you can consult López Austin, A. (1980). Human body and ideology. The beliefs of the ancient nahuas.

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