Transitional hybridization is the uneven mixing of traditional and foreign cultures, threatening conformity and identity and undermining social integration. In the midst of this crisis, we need to think about how to harmoniously integrate traditional and foreign cultures.
Transitional mixed cultures face at least three new crises. These are: first, the crisis of conformity, second, the crisis of identity, and third, the crisis of integration.
In transitional lifestyles, parts of the traditional society’s lifestyle and parts of the alien lifestyle are mixed without fusing with each other, showing class, generation, and regional differences. In this process, traditional values and foreign elements may clash, creating new forms of social conflict. These conflicts are not just about changing lifestyles, but can lead to erosion of trust and breakdown of social bonds throughout society. These mixed cultures can become deeply ingrained and lead to social instability. Alternatively, a somewhat degraded version of the old way of life becomes a moderate compromise with the alien one, a form of practice that allows for temporary adaptation. These transitional behaviors are also constantly challenged for their appropriateness as the behavioral change continues.
Furthermore, the alien practices that are mixed in with the transitional practices are constantly being tested for their fit into the fabric of society. Therefore, transitional hybrid cultures are not well-integrated cultures, and it is difficult for them to become sufficiently institutionalized to maintain their perpetual relevance. In addition, hybrid cultures can lead to confusion about cultural identity. People are confused about which culture they belong to, and often lose their sense of identity.
In transitional cultures, there are many borrowed and foreign cultures that don’t fit into our society. Such borrowed cultures are foreign cultures that are introduced to fill the cultural gap created by the disintegration of traditional cultures due to changes in social structure. As such, it is a culture that has been adopted in a rush to imitate and adopt rather than being adopted selectively, critically, and autonomously. This kind of cultural adoption can hinder the development of a society, as it tends to follow the outward appearance without fundamental changes in the society. Therefore, after a certain period of imitation and adoption, when the alien behavior becomes quite widespread, the alien culture threatens the identity of the cultural tradition.
In societies facing an identity crisis, interest in cultural traditions and heritage is heightened. However, it is clear that the restoration of cultural identity cannot be achieved through cultural retroactivism or cultural closure, such as a return to traditional social culture or the rejection of foreign cultures. Cultural retroactivism or cultural closure may be effective in restoring identity, but it will further exacerbate the crisis of conformity. Therefore, the restoration of identity and the establishment of cultural traditions can only be achieved without sacrificing cultural relevance: through the rediscovery of cultural traditions that remain relevant to modern society and the selective adoption of foreign cultures that integrate well with those traditions.
As mentioned earlier, transitional cultures contain a lot of confusion and conflict. The mixing of traditional and alien types of society creates cultural gaps between generations, classes, and regions. These gaps can exacerbate social inequalities and, if left unaddressed, risk undermining the integrity of the society as a whole. Transitional cultures face a crisis of integration, with anomie arising from the lack of clear norms. To get out of this crisis, cultural gaps between classes, generations, and regions need to be reduced, and clear values and norms need to be established that are compatible with modern social structures and our cultural traditions. This will ultimately lead to cultural integration.
