October 10th, 2009, 11:13 AM
Hi all,
i wonder that why do we have preserve a certain culture?
Why not just let it be replaced by more advanced ones?
Some one will come up and say to maintain the ART legacy.. But is it true? Is it we spend a lot of money subsidizing them meaning to let more artist to learn their culture? Not really, I think...
Culture is what people commonly do, but can't commonly resolve just why they do it. It differs from religion in that at least some people do master it. It differs from common knowledge in that it's partially ineffable.
We've learned not to throw away what we don't understand.
Ok..then we don't understand a lot of things
and sometimes, we call those what we don't understand "non-sense",
is it when a lot of people insist in doing what we think it's "non-sense", and then we have to called it "culture reservation", but if a small group of people are keeping it, however, we can chase them out and say "you are trying to make trouble", or call it "non-sense" right away, is it?
Another question is that why do we have to keep those group of people in their own culture if we don't want to throw away we don't understand?
Why keep the culture, how about we keep a certain amount of people and prescribe them to learn and teach those culture with decent bonus, and then stop giving so much priority to those minorities. Or why don't we just keep ONLY, .let's say 100 people of each minor culture, so what? all we need is to NOT forgot we don't understand.. Then why we need so much government spending on this which had little impact in our life?
Pong:
"Culture is what people commonly do..."
Actually, culture is a noun, not a verb. Participating in culture might be more precise, if this is what you mean.
nonetheless
Culture is the objectification of commonalities within social networks.
"but can't commonly resolve just why they do it"
Evolutionary psychologists(and others) are pretty good at resolving why different people interact in different ways. The evidence points to one reason: to survive. Hence why the most fundamental aspect of culture is economics.
"It differs from religion in that at least some people do master it"
I'm not sure I know what it means to "master culture" since again, culture is a noun, not a verb, and you generally master doing things, unless you mean to "rule culture" and not to "specialize in culture."
Anyhow, religion differs from culture mostly in that religion is one part of culture.
" it. It differs from common knowledge in that it's partially ineffable:"
Again, in what way is culture "partially ineffable" and what does "partially ineffable" mean. "Ineffable" is an absolute concept, meaning there are not degrees to measure it by, it either is, or it isn't. I'm assuming you mean there are parts of culture that are ineffable, in which case, please point them out.
Common knowledge is an effect of similar experiences. Where there is culture there are similar experiences, so where there is common knowledge, there is culture. For example, farmers all around the world are part of a culture, even though most of them will never meet eachother.
"We've learned not to throw away what we don't understand"
Is this why I'm not hitting the ignore button? I don't understand any of your points... I'm assuming you have a point, no?
Arez: Culture evolves, and will never stop
I don't know why we care about minorities. I assume because it's profitable.
Part of the problem is the intimate connection between culture and ethnic origin. You'll find that most of the cultures that are commonly protected, receive this protection because a large part of the reason they are dissipating is because of forceful extermination years past.
There are large government expenditures to protect Native American culture, and part of this is the guilt factor. The Native cultures wouldn't be endangered if it weren't for Europeans exterminating them and forcing Christianity on them. It isn't the existence of culture which is sacred, it is the right of these people not to have their beliefs and practices forcefully changed.
@marcusclayman.
Let me illustrate with floor culture vs. furniture culture. The former is embodied in traditional Japanese, who sit eat work and sleep on resilient floors; the latter, most everybody else.
A furniture culture can't commonly resolve why it's structured around furniture. This gives furniture inertia, even where objectively (mechanically) much furniture is superfluous (or could be). Some members of the culture - like evolutionary psychologists - may fully understand it, and I said "master it" because those enlightened members (think artists) are able to reshape and capitalize on culture from within. Objectification is mastery. Do you really understand what a bedroom is and why you need one?
"...partially ineffable" is poorly worded, sorry. I mean that though some members enjoy a lucid view of their culture, and each member might have an opinion, the group as a whole (collective mind) can't come to terms with culture. So culture, like bureaucracy, is kinda dumb and self-perpetuating.
Not if the culture itself aids in survival and reproductive advantage, as it most certainly has prior to modern times. In most tribal groupings, culture is about reinforcement of certain behaviors which have assisted that group (and their health) in some way.Originally Posted by Pong
Noone "needs" a bedroom, especially one of their own, and I'll argue that noone just-plain-"needs" anything. We need things to accomplish other things, everything is a means to an end, even the percieved end is a means for the unpercieved existential cause.
Having a bedroom of your own accomplished various psychological effects the nature of which depend on the relationship with one's bedroom with other rooms in the house, and one's possessions as compared to the possessions of other members of the houshold as well as the things considered communal.
Having stuff of your own is a good way of expressing who you are, based on the things you have; by expressing who we are, we are also deciding who we are, according to developmental psychology.
The culture might not understand itself, but this is not a reason to induce that culture cannot understand itself. Unless a culture is specific in it's rejection of self-consciousness, there is always room for reflection.
Most cultures make a special place for self-consciousness, usually by having experts in the field: monks, scientists, shamans; and/or rituals that everyone can participate in such as prayer, mourning, resume writing, myspace, holidays, funerals, therapy, and much much more
ultimately every individual, at one time or another reflects; as does every culture
October 22nd, 2009, 09:16 AM
How do you know if a culture is "preserved" or not. Would it be enough to abstain from blowing it up? You might save money on explosives if you left some cultural items alone.
My understanding of culture: "the sum of common interests amongst a considered group"
Does that sound right?
If so then it is not the culture we are preserving, but what the culture is: common interests. Common interests such as the survival of our genes.
I don't know there is any such things as a "more advanced culture." If there is, what is "more advanced" about it? How do you know that the concept of "cultural advancement" is not relative in meaning--from culture to culture?
Wasps don't go start their own nest, because they have less chance being successfull mates if they do. Even though the chances are that they will never mate. If they leave the nest to start a new colony, their chances are even lower, because their chances of being killed increases tremendously.
Humans might be similar, in the sense that we have to cooperate to survive. For example, instead of telling your boss what to do, demanding rent from your landlord, and trying to detain cops, we usually follow rules, because there is more to gain by doing so.
sorry, I have a lot to say as the initiator of this topic.
I'll catch up with this as soon as I finished my work at hand.
cheers.
No rush. I'll preserve this thread for you.
We don't have to preserve culture.
Especially if we are the Taliban and its time to blow up some big buddhas.
There is a world of discussion buried in the word advanced. Do you think every cultural replacement that has occurred involved a more advanced culture replacing a more primitive culture? Really?
So, what do you mean by advanced? Do you mean technologically more complex? Do you mean morally superior? Do you mean more attuned to the environment? Do you mean more tolerant? Do you mean more efficient? Do you mean more powerful? Just what is an advanced culture?
Judging by the context in which you have used advanced this is what you mean: when two cultures come into contact one will come to dominate and supplant the other; this is the more advanced culture. ‘Advanced’ is then akin to ‘fitness’ in an evolutionary sense and is thus tautological: the culture that survives and dominates is, by definition, the more advanced.
Do you recognise that that definition is implied by your question? If not, what do you mean by ‘advanced’?
Yes, it is true. If you insist, I shall find you examples where the preservation of the culture is explicitly intended, at least in part, to preserve the art. Do you think those who have set up such a policy to preserve the culture were all lying? Surely that is doubtful. So, one of the reasons that cultures are preserved is to maintain the art legacy.
You have missed one of the two fundamental reasons we preserve a culture. We value diversity. We recognise the dangers of uniformity. We understand the benefits that can flow from variety. We are smart enough to understand that the ultimate value of preserving cultures will exceed the tiny amount of money we spend on doing so.
What is this ‘ultimate value’? There are probably several, but the one that seems most important to me is that a preserved culture offers living evidence that there is another way of doing things. Recognising that there are alternative lifestyles, optional behaviours, different technologies and diverse ways of interacting with the environment is key part of maturing. Some people – and some cultures – never achieve that recognition and they are diminished as a consequence. Having accessible, preserved cultures makes that recognition much easier to achieve.
The second fundamental reason we preserve a culture has already been mentioned: guilt.
That definition is not just flawed it is wrong. It is so wrong there is no point in attempting to deconstruct its wrongness. (Although if you leave the first half only – culture is what people commonly do – then you are half way to a good definition.)
I am with Marcus on this: you are talking nonsense. Unless you are using a meaning of ‘master’ that is unique on the face of the planet then your statement is, once again, wrong.
Nearly everyone masters their own culture. It is almost another tautology that they do so. The mentally ill and disenfranchised minorities (attempting to live to the rules of a different culture) may fail to master the local culture. Everyone else does.
As to the concept of ‘not mastering religion’, you will have to give more explanation than has filtered through your quoted sentence.
As Marcus said (and I echo all his thoughts rather closely) you can’t qualify an absolute.
That is just silly on so many levels I scarcely know where to begin. Work it out. Who are these people teaching the culture to? Do you actually think you can truly teach a culture in any way other than living in it? If you do think so you are wrong. So now we not only have to pay people to teach the culture – which will cost as much or more as providing some subsidies directly to preserve the culture – but we also have to pay people to learn about it. And they will do so only partially and within a generation or two the culture has been lost. If we truly wish to preserve the culture, this approach simply will not work.
Because cultural preservation is about choice. You cannot say, if you value a culture, ‘No, you may not be part of this culture, because we have already got our quota of one hundred individuals in it’.
If you see something different that the majority of its followers feel comfortable in and are proud of then it has been preserved. [Notice that when we preserve fruit as a jam the end product is not the same as the fresh fruit.]
[Notice that when we preserve fruit as a jam the end product is not the same as the fresh fruit.]
...damn, no wonder I have a hard time keeping grapes on toast.
In continuing with your analogy, there are different ways of preserving food, and fruit in particular: making a jam might be the worst way to preserve a fruit, although it will last the longest that way, it will be least like the fruit as well. You can also freeze and dehydrate fruit.
If a person wants to know the strawberry as a food -- but doesn't have access to fresh fruit -- they shouldn't relly on jam to give an accurate account of what the strawberry was when fresh. They should find different samples of different preservation methods, to get an accurate account of the variances in qualities.
An understanding of the preservation methods will also tell the person that none of the preservation methods can preserve texture well. Each preservation method adds and subtracts from the fruits various qualities. An understanding of breeds and growing techniques will tell the person that there is great variety in fresh fruits as well. Some fruits might be grown specifically for certain preservation methods.
If there are different ways to preserve culture, in what ways do they differ in their ability to preserve the different qualities of that culture? I'm assuming that if there are different methods, they differ, because if they were all the same, we would not use many different things to do the same, when one better understood method would be better than many lesser understood methods. And if they are not all the same, but one was clearly better in preserving all atributes of a culture, we would use that method and not others.
I'd look to historians for answers on this subject, since history is the preservation of the past cultures of humanities, and there will always be more past than present -- although there may be less recorded than is happening -- what goes unrecorded can only be remembered, and memory is usually unreliable, more so as time goes by. But then again, records are only as reliable as the people who make and preserve them. Ultimately as time goes on, records become unreliable as well, hence history is called a "soft science," and isn't truly a science at all, since "soft" is used in a way to qualify the state of being science, which is an absolute, something using the scientific methods or it doesn't. history doesn't.
History nonetheless is more reliable than cultural studies, because unlike cultural studies, history doesn't attempt to draw arbitrary limits such as where one culture ends and another begins. Culture is such an ambiguously defined term you can look at all of humanity, of all times, as one big culture.
Hi all,
By "advanced culture". I mean it economically. More real Output. Because in my opinion, that is where our culture tends to evolve.
Look at this example:
China has 56 races in total. Except the Han race all the rest are called minority group, who receive different levels of priority. For instance, Uighur who caused the Xinjiang Riot several months ago(192 dead, 1000+ wounded), is a Turkic ethnic group. Their mother tough is not chinese, but the university entrance exam script is written in Chinese. So all the Uighur students will be given much bonus marks because of their ethic group, from 40-100 or more(full score is 750). Such inequality is part of the reason for the riot.
Two things I want to say:You have missed one of the two fundamental reasons we preserve a culture. We value diversity. We recognise the dangers of uniformity. We understand the benefits that can flow from variety. We are smart enough to understand that the ultimate value of preserving cultures will exceed the tiny amount of money we spend on doing so.
What is this ‘ultimate value’? There are probably several, but the one that seems most important to me is that a preserved culture offers living evidence that there is another way of doing things. Recognising that there are alternative lifestyles, optional behaviours, different technologies and diverse ways of interacting with the environment is key part of maturing. Some people – and some cultures – never achieve that recognition and they are diminished as a consequence. Having accessible, preserved cultures makes that recognition much easier to achieve.
The second fundamental reason we preserve a culture has already been mentioned: guilt.
It seems everyone is reckoning people who live in the culture we spend money on, likes their culture. Are they stick on that culture? Are they still maintain everything? I mean everyone?
The answer might not be "no", but shouldn't be a "Yes". Because, they also want to change their lives. As long as they have the opportunity, they will seek to change. I don't mean they want to change everything. Sure, they will still preserve some of the preference. But nobody want to wear a homemade feather short and go hunting with arrows like their previous generations, if they can get a decent job in big cities. My point is that the group of people we are subsidizing is changing, and I can say a number of them do like the way, the "modern way" of life. Irrespective of the "guilt" reason, are we preserving a culture, or an ethnic? If it's culture we support, shall we stop doing this when itself is changing?
For the sake of guilt? Can you explain it more in detail? If it's a guilt to conquer American Indians, or Tibet, how could we tell our people to love our country? If it's a guilt to bully another culture in the past, why we made African Americans equal to Anglo-Americans, the former one used to be slaves and shouldn't we give them priority?
I may have a number of nonsense, but I'm really happy to learn know what are they.
Your using the ambiguous concept of culture indiscriminately, without regard to it's varied meanings. Please reference a dictionary to see what I mean.
It is important to always keep in mind that "culture" is a theoretical objectification. That is, we create model cultures by picking and choosing characteristics and key moments in time. In reality culture is dynamic and cannot be objectified like this. So I think, for the sake of discussion, you should pick one thing you consider to be culture, which you have almost done by saying an "advanced culture," has "more output," or in sticking with economic terms "more capital."
Since we are now speaking in economic terms: it is also important to know that wealth is "anything with an exchange value," and capital is "wealth used to produce more wealth"
I think culture preserves itself, and that it can no longer be preserved once it stops preserving itself. When someone else seeks to preserve a culture, it becomes personalized by them, as every individual pays attention to different things. We can only know a culture by what we pay attention to, and the relationships we observe, we can only pay attention to and relate things that we are aware exist and can imagine being related.
For example if we didn't know clay could be used to make pottery, and we found pottery shards, we would not associate it with the clay containers they used to be, until discovering a whole container. We wouldn't relate the people's economy to a local clay source, until we discovered that clay could be used to make these things. We wouldn't pay attention to these relationships, because we wouldn't know they exist.
wel.....
My personal opinion, it's narrow minded to refer the definition on dictionary conducting a discussion like this, since it just provides a general idea to the public, and different dictionaries have different definitions.
First, before I post the question I don't expect there should be a "all time win" answer on words like "culture". But my question is based on the reality that the society do spend materials on its preservation. It is indeed an ambiguous concept. But I want to understand how people/society/government make decisions confronting such ambiguity. I suppose that the society is not biased, meaning it doesn't only look one certain aspect of culture imposing the sanction. That's why I didn't restricted it on one single of them.
You think university entrance exam differences are what caused that riot? It couldn't be possibly a history by the Han Chinese of preventing the free practice of the Muslim faith, importing Han Chinese into the region to make them the dominant ethnicity there, or the event a couple weeks before the riot where some Han Chinese assaulted some Uighur.
Like incessant Anglo-Saxon imperialism caused the United States' race riots of recent decades? Maybe it really was about shoving on the bus and peppy campus activists.
I'm sure i_feel_tiredsleepy you're familiar with the strained pseudo-history justifying Canadian Native roadblocks. In covering Canada, Xinhua won't mention the golf course and the lost billboard revenue and the alcoholic dads. No it's easier to contextualize in the grand scheme of cultural oppression. Our media deciphers foreign events in the same way.
Crap.
You know this as a fact?
How exactly?
A decent job in the big city!
Long working hours
Crowded offices
Smelly public transport
Small, expensive apartments
Crime on property and person
Pollution
Unhealthy food
etc.
Cultures have to be preserved so someone like you can understand there is more than one way to skin a possum.
Arez: it sounds like your trying to preserve your culture, but you might be more successful by understanding other cultures, rather than assuming your own is the prime example of culture.
The way you talk about culture(that production makes a culture more advanced, and that urbanization makes a culture more rational) is very narrow minded. I'm not going to say open your mind, because that doesn't mean anything.
Reading a dictionary is not an implication that you are incapable of making up your own mind about something, but is an embrace of what previous discussants on the subject had to say/think. It is very narrow minded to assume we are the first people to be discussing this idea, if we were would we have words to discuss it with?
For a fact Natives in Canada are paid to live outside cities. In fact we pay them to stay put on the reserve, where there's no opportunity.Crap.
You know this as a fact?
There was a case of Japanese Ainu (another disadvantaged minority) carving little totem poles and similar "Indian knickknacks" for sale in Canadian gift shops... which were bought of course by Japanese tourists. Laugh or cry?
"no oppertunity" is a valuation of a value term.
If you were speaking more accurately you would probably be saying "less capital."
But I'm sure land is cheaper, and bellies are fuller per capita
Thank you for reminding me. Perhaps, I really am narrow minded for the time being.Arez: it sounds like your trying to preserve your culture, but you might be more successful by understanding other cultures, rather than assuming your own is the prime example of culture.
I've thought someone would come to say this. I don't mean everyone in that culture try to change everything in his culture. But it should be true themselves, as the rest of the world do appreciate the advancement of modern technologies, and some thing of the culture do change because of this. Of course, they definitely could have preserve a lot of original lifestyle.Crap.
You know this as a fact?
How exactly?
A decent job in the big city!
Long working hours
Crowded offices
Smelly public transport
Small, expensive apartments
Crime on property and person
Pollution
Unhealthy food
etc.
Additionally, if a person never live in the city, they won't understand what you said, and it might be just the reason they come to live in the city.
Oh..I see. Maybe I should change the title into"Why do we have to spend money on preserving a culture?"The way you talk about culture(that production makes a culture more advanced, and that urbanization makes a culture more rational) is very narrow minded. I'm not going to say open your mind, because that doesn't mean anything.
In my opinion, more often than not the culture we can tend spend money on "preserving", is not the Chinese Han culture, not the culture with a large population. Should I restricted it like this?
I'm a bit strayed on how to continue with the discussion. Anyone?
"no oppertunity" is a valuation of a value term.
maybe your view is not one of opportunism
there is more available land, and land is as pure an opportunity as it comes
This is a bit of a misrepresentation, natives who live on reserves do not have to pay taxes, but they are not paid by the government. Moreover, reserves are hardly "outside cities", the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawakhe is 20 minutes from Montreal. There is a reserve literally within the city limits of Winnipeg as well.
Edit: The government also isn't fond of reservations, because police forces aren't allowed in and they are havens for drug and weapons smuggling. If they wanted to keep natives on reserves they wouldn't offer so many incentives, in scholarships and job offers, to get them off the reserves.
@marcusclayman. In practice people adapt to get by on very little. Yes they have chickens and recycle everything. Growing up in that environment, youth receive no prompt to get a degree or earn serious money. Basically you stick around as normal folk forever striving to make do with less, or armed with student loans and credit cards you dive into the city and never come up.
My judgment's surely coloured since I grew up in the country with very little, among Natives chickens and car parts, and escaped it... with sentimental regret.
@i_feel_tiredsleepy. You're technically right. But a tax incentive is an incentive anyway you look at it. And don't forget that bands like other governments receive federal funding... the fairness of their share is highly debatable!
I think you'd agree that between the acquired lifestyle of subsisting cheap on the reserve, and normal human inertia and uncertainty, there's little motivation to break out. Like all my peers dreamed of moving to the city. Few took the chance.
Maybe we could talk about transfer payments to Newfoundland and Labrador? I think that's more in line with what ArezList is talking about.
So....
It seems that we are preserving the existence of an ethnic group rather than a culture....right?
Not necessarily. Newfies (Newfoundlanders , the people of Newfoundland) defined themselves above all else as cod fishers. They included Irish, English, French, Natives. Like the Nantucket whalers, they built a distinct culture around a resource. When the cod fishery collapsed, economic refugees began pouring west out of Newfoundland into the big cities. Canada responded by paying Newfies to go home, stay home, and continue a "way of life"... though there was no cod. Now tourism's an important part of the economy. The landscape's actually quite barren, and cold, and ...well, no fun. So this is cultural tourism. Prairie families pay to go out on a real cod boat, and eat lobster to fiddle music.
?!?!
Again, culture is a very ambiguous term. In the sense I believe we are using it, it's "the common characteristics of a group of people." For example, preserving folk culture is not to preserve actual members of the folk culture, but the philosophy, the artwork, the history of the culture, and any other characteristics that preservationists value as worth preserving.
Is this accurate?
If so then there is no rule as to which arbitrary categories you can consider, for example ethnic groups, who share a common characteristic(their ethnicity) are a cultural group; as are religious groups, professional groups, social groups, political groups, groups of a particular time or place, etc etc
@marcusclayman:
I don;t quite understand, are you saying people's characteristics are defined by their ethnic groups?If so then there is no rule as to which arbitrary categories you can consider, for example ethnic groups, who share a common characteristic(their ethnicity) are a cultural group;
not at all
I'm saying ethnicity is a characteristic, nothing more nothing less
????
soooo, Anglo-Americans have different ethnicity with Hispanic Americans?
if they identify with eachother based on their shared heritage, yes
so all humans are an ethnic group, if you look back far enough
there are no rules as to how far back you can look, but I'd assume most people consider themselves to be of the ethnicity that their family considers themselves to be, unless they learn something contrary to this, or reject such objectification entirely. nonetheless, if your family comes from Russia(as citizens) to the US, they are of Russian ethnicity, even if they become US citizens. If they immigrated to Russia from Lithuania, then they would be Lithuanian. If mum was Russian, pops was Polish, the kid would have both ethnicity.
Ethnicity is rather ambiguous, and depending on how it is used, completely arbitrary; this is my entire point about culture, since ethnicity is a part of culture, culture is undoubtedly more ambiguous, and we must be especially careful to use it purposefully.
so again, please define culture... how long must we discuss something before determining what it is we are discussing?
I'm not talking about the "culture"; instead, I'm confusing about "Why" we put such Priority on preservation of a culture, albeit it has been dramatically changed...First, before I post the question I don't expect there should be a "all time win" answer on words like "culture". But my question is based on the reality that the society do spend materials on its preservation. It is indeed an ambiguous concept. But I want to understand how people/society/government make decisions confronting such ambiguity. I suppose that the society is not biased, meaning it doesn't only look one certain aspect of culture imposing the sanction. That's why I didn't restricted it on one single of them.
it hasn't changed, but to determine why we do something, we need to clarify what that something is.
in this sense we are discussion why we preserve culture, but what is culture?
Seems palpable enough to me, the way ArezList is talking.
Test: It could be embodied in the member tribes and nations of Survival International. It could be sold by street hot dog vendors in Manhattan. It could be sawing on the pull not push stroke.
Each thing on that list is not really important in itself. But each serves as receptacle and maybe catalyst for much more. For example the Manhattan hot dog vendor represents a raft of elusive qualities about New York that make it great (Americans feel free to elaborate). Dwindling of the hot dog would be sure sign of impending civic doom. Other example of the Japanese saw: whether one saws on the pull or push may seem inconsequential, but it means one stands upon the work instead of bracing it on a workbench. Then not expecting to stand at a workbench a carpenter's tools, approach to work, and even clothing, must change. So a little bit of culture may be highly charged.
consumption of hot dogs is somewhat of an initiation rite, kind of like a suicide cult, except the point is the act(not the result) of drinking the poison tea, the most revered in the cult are those who are able to drink the most without dying(fat politicians, celebrity addicts), and those who die of preventable health issues are treated as martyrs and saints for their faith in not practicing prevention.
Tangent:consumption of hot dogs is somewhat of an initiation rite, kind of like a suicide cult, except the point is the act(not the result) of drinking the poison tea, the most revered in the cult are those who are able to drink the most without dying(fat politicians, celebrity addicts), and those who die of preventable health issues are treated as martyrs and saints for their faith in not practicing prevention.
I've heard an hypothesis linking modern beef industry to Alzheimer’s, as low-level prion disease much like mad cow. It's based on correlation between country's disease rate and consumption of modern-source beef products.
My observations corroborate:
Since the mad cow crisis, we've held spongiform encephalopathy below threshold by a) slaughtering cows before the disease manifests (always done this) and, b) recycling proteins through third party livestock (cow heads -> chicken feed -> chicken heads -> cattle feed).
Alzheimer’s is remarkably uncommon in India, and in some Indian villages hits only 1% of people over the age of 65. For this reason there's great interest in finding out what's in the Hindu curry to make people immune - one could isolate the compound, patent it, and sell it. Facepalm: Hindus don't eat beef.
If true then yeah public munching on a hotdog could be a sort of ritual mutilation of the brain tissues.
What about the 20% of the population who are not Hindu?
muslims don't eat pork
not sure what that has to do with anything, could be the fatty plaques on the brain associated with alzheimers, and a low fat diet lessening the extent of them
but simply because you don't eat one type of meat doesn't mean you don't compensate by eating more of another type
we eat much more meat in general in developed countries though... I think the last ratio I read said 8 times as much meat consumption/per capita, but this may or may not have included the 40% of food that goes to waste in the US, much of which is a result of our food service industry, like restaurants, who have a hard time predicting what we will be eating, so they compensate by buying and preparing more than they need.
The national rate is lowest in the world, and better yet for the agricultural villages studied in depth. Don't quote me but I think Indian Muslims are mostly in the cities. So the village population would be overwhelmingly Hindu. The elderly of these villages never ate much of any meat - they know it as an expensive luxury. The culture smiles on vegetarians, which a lot of them are.What about the 20% of the population who are not Hindu?
As for the Indian Muslim beef, it's safe to bet their beef comes from less industrialized sources than a country like Taiwan or France. Halal invites a lot more scrutiny and ethical hedging, like "is this pure? does it seem unnatural?" As well being a minority the Indian Muslims won't have a very large and integrated beef industry... the Hindu farmers wouldn't sell pork waste as cattle feed, or they offend both religions.
Well maybe there's another reason to preserve a culture, huh? It might save our lives.
So you can't learn from a culture without preserving it?
Is preserving it the best way to learn from it?
Because cultural preservation is about choice. You cannot say, if you value a culture, ‘No, you may not be part of this culture, because we have already got our quota of one hundred individuals in it’.
no...."Because cultural preservation is about choice."
1) culture ≠ lifestyle
2)we preserve a certain culture because very few people choose to live in that way.
When I observe the gov still spend money on culture preservation albeit, the people no longer want to live with the culture, I came to fire the question here.
That could be true locally where you are. However the culture of Quebec (in Canada) hardly depends on dwindling minority. This is the second most populous province and for political clout effectively half of Canada (e.g. official bilingualism). Cultural preservation is very strong there. Then again all of Canada enforces some cultural preservation in the face of our large buddy to the south.
If by culture you mean some Luddite tribes, sure we could talk about that.
arez: you cannot take a politicians words for face value, something can be called "cultural preservation" but look at what the money is actually going towards
if you or I were to preserve a culture, would it be the same as what the governor is doing? the governer is probably directed by advisors and public support or various organizations that demand he preserve culture, each saying to preserve it according to their standards.
If, for example, a historic society wanted to keep a variety of buildings standing and demanded from the gov that they not be demolished for economic development as intended, and that this be done in the name of cultural preservation: and then the gov responds by saying I am in support of cultural preservation, after we destroy the buildings we will erect a monument in their remembrance.
whether or not the historic society is appeased doesn't change the fact that they disagreed on what it means to preserve culture, hence why we shouldn't use such abstract terms except when discussing scientific theoretical models. When it comes to real world things, the historic society might care about culture, but it would be more accurate to say they care about old objects.
True...it makes me aware of the process of how my thought got twisted....arez: you cannot take a politicians words for face value, something can be called "cultural preservation" but look at what the money is actually going towards
So, what would you say about Nazism? It could be argued that it was a culture. It had its own rituals, moral values (*chuckle*), world view, and even a dress code. Yet... for some reason.... most of us are happy to see it gone.
Is there no basis at all upon which we can say that a culture is bad? Can't we at least criticize components of a culture, or individual teachings as destructive or counter productive? Must every child who grows up in the ghetto be taught to resist the "white man's education"? (Including such topics as physics, and mathematics, which are obviously less true when a white man is teaching them.) Should a Mexican immigrant who decides to join the police force be allowed to accept bribes, because y'know..... bribing cops is kind of a cultural tradition in Mexico?
No..not everything is culture which reflected the ambiguous nature of language.Is there no basis at all upon which we can say that a culture is bad? Can't we at least criticize components of a culture, or individual teachings as destructive or counter productive? Must every child who grows up in the ghetto be taught to resist the "white man's education"? (Including such topics as physics, and mathematics, which are obviously less true when a white man is teaching them.) Should a Mexican immigrant who decides to join the police force be allowed to accept bribes, because y'know..... bribing cops is kind of a cultural tradition in Mexico?
When a group of people have the trend to kill their neighbors based on their race, then people never call it a "culture" but "genocide".
Yet, I'm not denying the some of the dark sides are still considered as part of the culture. For instance, the Chinese using black powders to make fireworks which looks amazing in the sky but extremely harmful to the air quality, yet the rest of the world still follows..
Culture is too, a double-side coin. Either side contains something morally wrong is no longer called culture.
| « Rolemodels as determinist | What is indeed patriotism? » |
| Bookmarks |
Bookmarks |
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
