SECTION B
Essay
125 marks
Culture is what we are, civilization is what we have.
WRITE IN
90 min
1,000–1,200 words
Reading the topic
The topic separates culture, our values, beliefs, language and ways of being, from civilisation, the material and institutional achievements we possess such as cities, technology and states. The deeper reading asks how the two relate and what happens when civilisation advances while culture erodes, or vice versa.
ThesisA society's material civilisation can be borrowed or bought, but its culture forms its identity, so lasting progress requires that what we have stays rooted in who we are.
Dimensions to cover
- 1History: the Indus cities show advanced civilisation, while continuity of practices shows culture outliving the material structures
- 2Globalisation: shared technology and consumer goods make civilisations look alike, yet cultures still shape how they are used
- 3Identity: losing languages and folk traditions impoverishes a people even when incomes rise
- 4Ethics: technological power without cultural values of restraint can be destructive, as wars and pollution show
- 5Policy: protecting intangible heritage, mother-tongue education and crafts treats culture as public good, not nostalgia
Counter-view
- Some argue the split is artificial since culture shapes what civilisation builds and is itself shaped by it. The essay should accept the interplay but show the distinction is useful for judging progress
Open and close
- Open: Open with a family in a gleaming metro city using the latest phones yet gathering every year to light a lamp the way their grandparents did in a village
- Close: Close by arguing that civilisation is the vessel and culture the content, and a society that fills the vessel with borrowed content loses itself
Where marks usually go
- Using culture and civilisation as synonyms throughout
- Turning the essay into praise of ancient Indian glory without analysing the distinction
- Dismissing modern civilisation as Western and corrupting, which is one-sided
Examples that fit
- HistoryThe planned drainage and grid streets of Harappan cities are civilisational achievements, while the culture behind them is still debated because the script is undeciphered.Archaeological Survey of India; Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India
- CaseUNESCO inscribed the Kumbh Mela on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017, recognising a living cultural practice rather than a monument.UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, 2017
- HistoryThe Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 showed how an attack on cultural memory wounds a people more deeply than loss of property.UNESCO, Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley
- ThinkerRabindranath Tagore warned that the machinery of the modern nation, if cut off from moral culture, turns people into instruments of power.Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism (1917)