Why do dying cultures matter?

Great Debates
1

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/front_page/ED08Aa01.html

In this article is discussed the lowering birthrates in Europe. Why do different cultures even matter at this point? The memes are distrbuted everywhere, and the genetic material spread so rapidly across the planet in the last 500 years that it’s quite diluted at this point, so what does it really matter? Both the culture and the genetics will survive in the form of hybridizaton, so why is everyone so worried about protecting their people as a seperate entity from all people?

Erek

2

I’m not worried at all. But from your postings in other threads, mswas, I got the impression you were.

3

Define culture.

There’s Milanese culture (to start at some arbitrary location). There’s Northern Italian cutlure. There’s Italian culure. There’s Western European culture. There’s European Culture. There’s civilized culture.

And I’m sure I missed many sub/super categories of culture in that quickie analysis. Where does one draw the line for preservation?

If an aspect of a particular culture has value to people, it won’t need special effort to be preserved. If it doesn’t have value, it’ll die no matter how hard someone tries to preserve it.

4

Nah, I’m actually pretty interested in the idea of dying nationalism. I can’t wait for it to die, I welcome the death of the nation state system and the breakdown of the current power structures in favor of a more distributed fluid global system.

I am interested in the survival of the human race as a whole, and the ability to address the issues honestly and pragmatically, rather than having people shut you down with PC nonsense when you say something they don’t like.

To me being an American means being part of a free ecumenical society, and I see such a society being fairly global these days as every culture is spreading like spores all over. So I identify the word more with an idealization than I idealize the nation based upon it’s borders. It’s borders are arbitrary in my opinion and I don’t believe in letting go of that utopian idealism for myself, so it’s a part of who I am, but I don’t think holding onto arbitrary borders really changes the nature of it, and I think it hinders the progress of the human race as a whole. I believe that the American meme is powerful enough to transcend the dissolution of the nation-state’s borders, and will because I don’t believe the nation-state will last much longer. The genes that have propogated thus far to create me will be intact if I breed so what do I care whether or not Europeans are breeding? Or even whether Americans are breeding or not, and as long as my progeny breed these genes will be passed along, and the memes that I propogate during my lifetime have already irrevocably infected my environment, and will only keep spreading, so it just doesn’t really matter, I will preserve my own life because I would like to continue the experience, and I will associate with anyone regardless of background that I feel a kinship to.

I think the conflict in the middle-east is so ridiculous, that’s why it bothers me. It’s so obvious to me that Europe is oppressing, Russia is oppressing, America is oppressing, China is oppressing, and Israel is oppressing in the Middle East, yet they spew rhetoric as though the Muslims don’t have something to complain about. Whereas Africa is lowest on the totem poll in the class system that makes up the global system, the Muslim world would be second down, and they are fighting those that have it better at their expense. Seems natural to me, and I would be willing to give up modern luxury in order to stop oppressing them in my name.

I also find it ironic that the seat of power that was attacked in 9/11 is also the most ecumenical city in the entire world. A crossroads where white people ARE NOT an overwhelming majority, if they are a majority at all.

Erek

5

This is hardly news; it’s the fifth stage of the population model. In any case, birthrates are stable in the UK, France, and Germany; only Italy, Japan, and I think Norway, of developed states, have seen a significant decline.

Concentrated populations lead to high demand for scarcer-than-normal resources. High demand leads to higher cost of living. Higher cost of living leads to lower deliberate reproduction in societies with freely available contraception.

The article assumes that this phenomenon is somehow unique to Europe. It isn’t. The United States has vastly more abundant natural resources, beginning with land, than the developed European states, so stretching them too thinly isn’t yet a problem. India, China, and preindustrial African states don’t have freely available contraception, so choosing not to reproduce isn’t so much an option.

Eventually, birth rates in every country will begin to spiral downward. Europe will be no more ‘forgotten’ by then than it is now.

6

Why stop at single cultures? - I can’t think of any good reason why the extinction of entire human race would be mourned; it isn’t as if the universe needs us.

7

Genuinely dying cultures, such as those of preliterate peoples in rainforests and deserts who are being subsumed by the encroachment of industrial development are unfortunate in that their loss precludes us from learning more about the human condition from the perspective of anthropology, sociology, and similar studies.

On the other hand, I am disinclined to take seriously the shrill cries of a pundit who makes unsupported assertions about Europe while writing under the pseudonym “Spengler.” I tend to doubt that there is either enough fact or enough logic in his screed to worry about.

8

(Did anyone else experience a spyware/home-screen-redirect attack after going to the Asian Times website. I would not want to unjustly accuse them of that sort of trash. . . . And that is not an accusation leveled at mswas.)

9

Mangetout: My quality of life is enhanced by the survival of mankind. I always work in my own self-interest, therefore I am interested in the continued survival of mankind. However, I would wholeheartedly support your decision to remove your genetic material from the life cycle if you wish. Hell I’d even support you going on a mass murderous rampage if you felt so inclined.

Tomndebb: I’ve seen similar figures in the economist. Sure Spengler’s an asshole, I read him mostly because he’s funny, but I don’t think his figures are wildly inaccurate. Asia Times however is a phenomenal news site, gives a much more in depth coverage of Asia than any other source I’ve found. I’ve never received any sort of maligned cookie from them that I am aware of and I’ve been reading that site for years.

And Germany’s population rate is falling similarly to Italy’s and Spain’s, if not QUITE as dramatically.

I think that most discussion of world affairs depends on a few assumptions that are no longer true. Politics are no longer the same because of Globalization, Nuclear Weapons, Information Technology, and Declining birth rates. So I think any discussion needs to take these things into account, and viewing cultures as monolithic entities is just not a very holistic view, if it ever even was, the success of colonialism might give us some clues as to whether or not political theories were in any way accurate to the reality of the situation anyway.

Erek

10

I’m not liking either of those options (the genes made me do it) - my somewhat bleak response is the conclusion (thus far) of my ponderings as to whether it really matters if the human race ever leaves planet Earth to colonise other places; ‘really matters’ is something the universe doesn’t care about.

11

All nations experience falling birth rates as they become industrialized and their standard of living goes up. (Even places like India have sharply falling birth rates, even without the draconian laws that China imposed.) This is the source of the various estimates that the world population will level off and begin to decline within the next 100 to 150 years, However, while a declining overall population my present news problems for the world to solve, one clear result will be that there will not be an unnatural loss of any established society or culture due to that reduction, since, within a few years all societies will be falling in roughly the same proportion leaving no society to “overrun” any other.

12

Erek,

You are sounding very Leninesque. Lenin envisioned a homogenous culture across the world. He was for the absorbtion of constintuent peoples into the whole and the dissolution of their individual cultures. By way of illustration: he saw the existence of Jews as a problem, but saw antisemitic actions as counter-productive to the solution as it increased a sense of nationhood and identity within its target, rather than speed up the day of total assimilation.

Personally I think that you are underappreciating where the strength of “the American meme” lies. It is in the mix of its component elements. Each ingredient (of what I liken to a “hodgepodge stew”) butts up against a wide variety of others, exchanging ideas and perspectives and reinterpreting them in like of their own history, transforming them in the process. This has resulted in wide variety of creative ideas and adaptive approaches for American society to draw upon, whether in the fields of science and technology or arts and entertainment.

A world culture, a “we-are-the-Borg” cultural homogenization of the world, reduces the resource of novel approaches available.

The advantage of globalization and the huge advances in rapid communication across the world is that this cross-fertilization can occur on an even grander scale in virtual reality as well as with physical travel, as we have often witnessed on these very boards. The risk is that destroys the very variety itself.

Perhaps a biological analogy would be useful. American potatoes are great for mass production and for French Fries. But they are really almost one sort of potato. Preserving the wide vareity of “hierloom” varieties that were once so common in Peru (where they originated) is more than just preservation of something quaint. Agricultural scientists are anxious to preserve because they know that those varietals have a wide variety of genes to call upon that may become useful in future times, as new challanges to agriculture approach. Just so with cultures, languages, and “memes”.

13

If a country, say… France, died out, I can imagine many reasons to mourn its passing.

It has a unique culture, food, music, language, etc. The world’s beauty would be diminshed by the loss of those things. And it has a high standard of living and a democratic government. There no way to tell if these things would survive if the French culture didn’t.

I think it matters greatly if the French (or Italian or Japanese) culture dies.

14

Well, I’m not talking about homogenization. As I see it, every person can’t talk to every other person. Every person can’t fuck every other person, so there will always be a level of variety, not in the overall cultural sense, but in the sense that new forms and structures will be built up in different ways, that won’t be ruled by arbitrary borders. I think the homogenization question is not really all that relevant. I think a perfect example to draw from would be mythological pantheons, where there are gods for every different archetype that one finds in every day society. I believe these things will continue to flourish, I see it in New York’s melting pot daily. I work with artists, musicians, businessmen, and while they very often want a central unifying societal theme that will keep us together in a pragmatic sense “providing for the tribe” as it were, other than that the creativity is disparate and every person comes up with something completely and wholly unique. There is backlash against homogeneity, while there is a desire to be more communal. We are working toward those communal ends by trying to come up with pragmatic solutions to allow resources to flow more freely, without necessarily involving some sort of currency, and it’s really working.

As for the jews being a problem, I don’t think the jews are a problem, I think the jews siege mentality is a problem. “We will hold to our culture no matter what!”, this keeps them blind to the fact that they’ve already pretty much won the culture war, that Jewish society along with Greek society has defined western society. I work with jews all the time, and I find Jewish culture fascinating, and really appreciate their reasonable pragmatic approach to tribalism (though I think Orthodox and Hasidic sects tend to have lost the pragmatism to a degree, overcoats in July ick.) What I see as the problem with the jews is not so much that everyone else wants to assimilate them, but that they haven’t come to the realization that they’ve already assimilated everyone else, and that their culture is our culture, that Abraham is as much our Patriarch as he is theirs, and there is still somewhat of a “Chosen” people mentality that makes me sick. I am tired of the superior acting Israelis coming here to New York and turning their nose up at me, when it’s my tax dollars subsidizing them and keeping a military that I don’t even want in the middle east at all, to protect their interests, even if we do have the selfish oil reason to be there.

So I’m not so much FOR any movement of cultures, only for an acceptance of this movement. Trying to fight it is silly, and I see the idea of borders at all as the cause of ALL the fighting that is going on right now. We try so hard to keep people from migrating, but migration is CLEARLY the solution to every problem the world is facing today. The jews migrated, but then they pushed out the people who were there, whether there were viable reasons for this or not, that’s what they did, and I think if Israel would stop giving up every time a bus was bombed and work on the community level, rather than trying to form a Palestinian state they would garner a lot more support in Palestine and it would quiet down.

In my opinion Jerusalem goes against the Torah (Old Testament) under the “Thou Shalt Not Worship Graven Images” (false idols) category, because the idea is that Israel is the land where God lives, which to me seems so childish and materialistic. I appreciate that they feel a love and connection to that land, I feel the same for my homeland, and in a way to me it IS the holy land, but I don’t think that means the same thing as it does over there.

I think if people followed their ideals the pragmatic would be achieved. If Atheist truly acted like there was no God they wouldn’t worry about whether or not someone else saw it differently, If Christians accepted everyone as brothers there would be less animosity, if Capitalists would stop making “rules” to “govern” a free-market it would work more efficiently just as the black market does. If America truly were the land of the free and didn’t have the most laws on the books ever, if we truly respected the freedom of religion and didn’t wipe out the natives, if we respected free speech then ideas would flow more freely. If Stalin had actually believed in Communism rather than Dictatorial control, it might have worked as I see it working in my life every day. If all the people who talk incessantly about what love is and is not would recognize that it can’t be defined that way, then maybe it would proliferate, if all the buddhists would transcend their egoes, they’d realize how egomaniacal it is to ask someone else to transcend theirs.

I’m not for homogenization, I am for ultimate selfishness and individual actualization, but I don’t believe that things will fall apart socially in that scenario, I think “Human Nature” is to congregate, and that greed is a by-product of something missing, as opposed to a natural desire to consume gluttonously.

Erek

15

As for France: French food and culture are dominant, just because people start breeding out the French doesn’t mean it will die off, it will just morph into something new.

If you’re worried about homogeneity, just imagine tribal drumming with bagpipes, a string section and sitars. That’s one of my fantasies, and I think it’s something I can eventually make happen, and it would be beautiful and something that you don’t see often.

Erek

16

Sounds more like a nightmare to me!

17

Sounds like techno with live instruments to me ;p

18

You may have a problem with it, but you see, God commanded us to live there, conquer it from the Canaanites, and eventually to establish the Temple in Jerusalem.

The whole “chosen” thing bothers you, too. I can understand that. However, God says all over Leviticus, “I am holy, so you must be.” Jews are commanded to “be chosen,” and be separate. That may sound elitist and/or outdated to you, but those of us who live it are just trying hard to follow God’s commands.

19

Well, it sounds like egomania to me, but if that’s what you believe, that’s fine. I know that Israelis have no problem with me visiting Israel, I just wish y’all would stop bulldozing Palestinian settlements, and try a peace process and stop giving up the first 1500 times a bus is bombed and keep going and going at the peace process until you actually have peace.

Erek

20

If someone you loved or cared about was killed in a bombed bus, you might not be so magnanimous about throwing away lives. The first 1500 times a bus is bombed? That would be more people killed than on 9/11!

These said bus bombings are a step towards peace? Must Israelis really allow themselves to be killed over and over again, just so you can be happy that “a peace process exists?” Peace is peace. It is not a process. There is a ceasefire. There is a lack of killing the folks you heretofore thought of as an enemy. A “peace process” assumes that you will not actually get peace until you give and give, and have nothing left to give.

Don’t be so sanctimonious when it is not your life you wish to put in jeapardy while waiting for someone else to decide not to blow you up anymore.