Broadening Our Perspectives
Originally posted by MemoryShock
Respect your thought, Majic, though I think that you were too quick to opine on this one.......I find a decided lack of your usual consideration via
objectivity that I have come to equate you with.......
I was hoping someone would bite, and I'm glad it was you.
I'm going to be candid, but please don't take that the wrong way. I'm passionate about this, but definitely not pointing a finger at you.
You have made good points, and now I should elaborate on mine.
I agree wholeheartedly that cultural diversity is a good thing. I'm all for it, and not knocking it.
I also have direct experience with what happens when “cultural preservation” sets in and government money starts pouring in to “keep people
cultural”.
I have several problems with this “solution” which is really just a way of making the problem worse.
First, it assumes, if tacitly, that one culture is inferior to another. The irony is trying to figure out which.
It also assumes that culture is some sort of commodity which can be stored and preserved, which is utter nonsense.
The Ephemeral State Of Being
All cultures change over time, any which does not is already dead.
“Cultural preservation”, which should refer to people preserving their own culture, is usually not what it seems.
The more common and erroneous definition of “cultural preservation” assumes that one culture can bribe another to “not change”, which again,
is preposterous.
But worst of all, it is a notion that seeks to
enslave people to their own culture. To
force them to stay “ethnic”, and not find
their own ways through life.
People are people, not museum pieces or animals to be displayed to tourists.
I find those ideas intolerable, and what I see happening on “Indian reservations” around me -- to people I know and love -- makes me cry.
These are the descendants of great people who now sit around getting drunk or stoned waiting for the next check from the BIA.
What does that preserve? Nothing more than humiliation.
I am proud of who I am, and have passed my culture on to my children.
Those who are proud of who they are will do likewise, not stick their hands out like beggars.
Culture can only be preserved by those who
live it. All else is fallacy and a sham.
And that's my point, to which I have already devoted a great deal of thought.
A culture is only as strong as those who live it.