Cultural Difference

The idea of values is very abstract and differs from culture to culture. Values guide people through life and provide us with a basis for what is right and wrong. Serbia is a little country located in Eastern Europe. My country, Serbia, has had a very turbulent past, and my family has survived through good times and bad. There were times where all we had left were our values. It is important to realize that everybody lives in his or her own paradigm, and our values derive from our view of the world from our paradigm. Therefore, people may not relate or even understand others values, because they live life from a different perspective.

There are many values that are important to me, and one that I feel particularly strong about is the issue of marriage. It is expected that we marry only people of the same race and religion. This value is held very strongly in my county. It keeps our families and community close together. This is what helped my country survive, and endure the test of time. By marrying people of the same race and religion, we prevent a lot of possible disputes, and animosity from forming within our family. It makes raising a child much easier, and it ensures that both sides of the child's family can come together as one. This value has stayed with us for many generations, and as a result we have become an undifferentiated culture with only one race and one main religion. This makes it easier for new generations to continue it.

It may seem from others that this value is prejudice and intolerable of other people. However, things seem different from a different perspective. I have never been taught to judge people based on the color of their skin, or their religion. I understand that everyone is entitled to have his or her own values, and I judge people based on the "content of their character", as Martin Luther King Jr. once said. However, family is the most important part of my life. And whereas I am completely accepting of people of a different race or faith, it is a different thing to include them in my family.

This value is very important to me, but I do realize it doesn't mean that this is the ideal way of living life. There are people who probably completely disagree with my values. One argument is that this value makes love blind. Instead of letting life take its course, I am turning certain people away before I know them. I am limited, and perhaps I am preventing a true connection

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