Among the 162 definition of culture put forward by Kroeber and Kluckhohn in Culture, A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, there was one definition that really made a great deal of sense. It was that of psychoanalyst Géza Róheim who proposed: “Every culture, at least every primitive culture, can be reduced to a formula like neurosis.... Culture involves neurosis which we try to cure.”  And, "defensive systems against anxiety are the stuff that culture is made of." 

 

For ontological reasons, people do not become anxious, people are naturally anxious. Jesus understood the human conditions, declaring: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing"? (Matthew 6:25)

 

Unlike fear, anxiety is an ontological condition rooted in man’s very existence itself, an existence which is dual. People live both in the sphere of freedom as transcendent beings and as  material beings possessing bodies existing in the sphere of cause and effect. 

 

These two spheres are revealed in the words of every speaker of the Mikasuki language who would say: "I (as a transcendent self) speak" and "I (as a transcendent self) obey," and "Me (as a material body) is hungry" and "Me (as a material body) hurts."  Being hungry and hurting are physical events; speaking and obeying are spiritual events.  The later reveals ESSENCE, that is, what it means to be a PERSON created to exist as a cultural being in a material environment.

 

It was man's ESSENCE as a THOU, not SOCIAL EXISTENCE in a  body, which positioned mankind in the sphere of culture and freedom. Accordingly, as theologian Reinhold Niebuhr puts it, “If the individual did not have some freedom, no matter how minute, to fulfill some potentiality, he would not experience anxiety.”   

 

As beings juxtaposed between freedom and necessity, people are existentially anxious. In the words of Niebuhr, “It is the inevitable concomitant of the paradox of freedom and finiteness in which man is involved. Anxiety is the internal precondition of sin.”  This positioning between freedom and necessity means only man can contemplate his future existence and sense that his long term security may be threatened. And only man can sin by stepping outside the boundaries set for his life.

 

This people do by creating, in the words of Géza Róheim,  "defensive systems against anxiety." It is the "stuff that culture is made of."  The foundational stuff that every culture ought to be made of begins with the universal concept of the nuclear family and the "one-flesh" principle of husband-wife. It represents a spiritual construct that promotes freedom and trust in God, but which man and society can reduce ontologically to a material social construct designed to reduce existential anxieties. 

 

This people do by creating, in the words of Géza Róheim,  "defensive systems against anxiety." It is the "stuff that culture is made of."  The real stuff that culture begins with the universal concept of family, a spiritual concept which can be reduced to a material concept shaped by the material environment.

 

There are three steps to this ontological reductive process.  It begins with redefining the meaning of marriage, followed by rearranging the internal structure of the nuclear family, and ending with the rejection of the rules of logic by merging status positions like cousins and siblings. 

 

This merging of status positions as practiced by the peoples of the earth is the only way an anxious society has for increasing its the size when it rejects God as Provider.   This merging of status positions is an outward sign that a society has rejected God as Provider.  Such societies are convinced that a larger type of family will better meet their needs than their Creator.

 

Three of the following family types were specifically designed to satisfy a specific need. In contrast, the nuclear or biological family is the only family type which has not merged mutually exclusive status positions.  It signifies that they expect God to Provide in times of stress.  But rejection of God as Provider demands a new family type, one that contextually "fits" the material environment. This merging of mutually exclusive status positions is illustrated below.

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As I pondered why the Chácobo had restructured the nuclear family by classifying parallel cousins as "brothers" and "sisters,"  it became clear it was an effect of daughters residing in the same house as their mothers after marriage.  Offspring of these daughters were considered to be "brothers" and "sisters."  They lived under the same roof.  

 

However,  how they had structured the nuclear family was rejected by cultural insiders who condemned the new forms. This they did by creating satire advocating a return to the Creation Order set forth in Genesis 2:24.

 

But as to how these defensive systems against anxiety came into existence remained a mystery until I heard anthropologist Marvin Harris at the University of Florida propose that SOCIAL EXISTENCE in a particular environment shapes both one's perspective about existence and one's behavior. I finally concluded that he was partially right.  It was SOCIAL EXISTENCE in the Amazonian Rainforest that had highly shaped the type of family the Chácobo had.  

 

But instead of viewing their family type as a defensive system against anxiety, Harris viewed it as being a good "fit" with the environment, even though it  destroyed male and husband leadership. In contrast, before hearing Harris as to how cultural differences emerged from sameness, I had concluded they had diverged from a Divine Meta-script  "written on the heart" and the result was an egalitarian society devoid of leadership. 

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However, the good news for a potential anthropologist was: Harris had answered my question as to how their particular type of family came into existence.  It was a leaderless life-way  shaped by material elements of the Amazonian Rainforest. 

 

But unlike Harris the materialist, I concluded that the Chácobo, at some point in their history, had DIVERGED from an existing Meta-Script structured in the unconscious mind.  Proof that such a Meta-Script actually existed was provided by Chácobo sages of another era. 

 

Convictions: 

1. The satirist's ability to condemn cultural forms shaped by the environment was made possible because a priori Principles structured in the subconscious were triggered and brought to consciousness.  

2. Whenever a society rejects the Divine Meta-Script "written on the heart" and chooses to go its "own way" (Acts 14:16), necessity demands that they create a defensive system against anxiety.  The effect?  An increase in cultural diversity and a "multiplication of sin" (Romans 5:20). 

3. Psychoanalyst Géza Róheim is correct when he says: “Defensive systems against anxiety are the stuff that culture is made of."

4. The task of the missionary is to provide a cure for neurotic anxieties as manifested in the various kinds of family types that exist in the world.

 

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