"Progress" and "backwardness" were widely circulated in the 20th century. On this basis, the division of the world into categories and groups varies according to their proximity or beyond to the meaning of these terms. What is the meaning of each of these two terms? Does the division of the world into different categories, based on progress and underdevelopment, reflect the actual situation of the communities of these groups?
Academics divide the world into categories that call it labels from the meaning of progress and underdevelopment: there is the "first world" group, which mainly includes Western industrial societies and Japan. The term "second world", which was called the Western Socialist societies, was led by the Soviet Union. The Third World is a term used by the French scientist Alfred Sufi for backward societies, sometimes called developing. Recently, specialists in development and underdevelopment issues have added groups called the fourth or fifth world, depending on the extent of the deterioration of the standard of living and the low level of national income, and the deterioration of the situation and the overall life facilities in them. The United Nations often calls this new category of the world's people to the poorer communities, most of which are in the continent. The term "underdevelopment" always means - when academics, even ordinary people - economic, social and health underdevelopment. Other manifestations of underdevelopment, such as the cultural and psychological underdevelopment of the peoples of the Third World, are not heard in academic research at least. This is what led academics to call it cultural backwardness as one aspect of underdevelopment in third world societies, because backwardness in their eyes is a phenomenon of many forms, both physical and intangible.
"Cultural backwardness" affects the characteristics of human personality, since the components of this category are largely psychological cultural elements. It is clear that any understanding of the development process in developing societies remains minor if it fails to take account of the features of "cultural backwardness" and its implications for development issues. A backward person is culturally and psychologically dominated by a lack of self-confidence. Hence, weakened motivation to overcome difficulties. Thus, out of underdevelopment, in its general sense, must also include the elimination of the defects of "cultural backwardness" and its holding.
In this sense, the concept of "cultural backwardness" is a concept that can be used in research in Arab societies, as in the contemporary Third World societies:
Cultural backwardness is due to the decline in the use of the language of the mother society, due to the spread of the use of a foreign language in many fields. The competition for French is the Arabic language, the exclusion from use in the Arab Maghreb, for example, In the Arab Gulf societies, are examples of the phenomenon of linguistic backwardness in those Arab societies.
Cultural backwardness lies in what can be called self-knowledge of the societies of the Arab world and the Third World societies. In modern times, these societies have largely depended on Western knowledge in all these sciences. For example, Ibn Khaldun al-Omrani's thought is marginalized in the sociology departments of Arab universities. Arab students are very ignorant of the cognitive leader of the preacher in the science of architecture.
The third category of cultural backwardness is that of the values of the societies of the developing world as a result of their interaction in modern times with the West, the colonizer and the dominant, which allowed the spread of its values, especially the values of modernization and modernity, among the colonized peoples. As a result, some traditional values have faded and, on the other hand, some values have entered into conflict with invasive Western values.
In short, these three categories of cultural backwardness ultimately represent a backwardness of these three elements (language, cultural and scientific knowledge, and cultural values), which represent a critical cultural asset in the systems of cultures of third world societies.
Cultural backwardness occurs, a phenomenon that can be called psychological underdevelopment, which is divided into two forms:
The feeling of a wave of inferiority among the peoples of the Third World towards Western societies. As shown in some linguistic behaviors, in some Arab societies, towards the use of Arabic. For example, the vast majority of Tunisians and Tunisians do not use Arabic letters to write because they mistakenly believe that writing in Arabic is a symbol of underdevelopment.
Cultural backwardness (underdevelopment at the level of values) in the societies of the Arab world and the third world can lead to what modern sociologists call a troubled personality that can show satisfactory psychological symptoms.