How do you guide a culture into the modern world without destroying it?
I doubt there is any way.
The modern world is a monoculture -- just like in agriculture, the thousands of acres of one type of corn.
Maybe it would be better if we stopped messing with and destroying the diversity of our human culture. Maybe one of the pockets of diversity has a solution that the rest of the world needs.
In times of war and totalitarianism treatment, I think the monoculture is failing.
I would say the modern monoculture (Western-style capitalism) has some good features. Advanced medicine, equal rights for women, material wealth, ease of travel and communication, individual freedom (for now).
But our attempts to "embrace diversity" don't seem to work very well. Even if obscure minority cultures are officially cherished, they're dissolved in the mainstream or mutated beyond recognition. So you have ennui and rootlessness and anger at the disrespect for local traditions and sometimes bloody insurgencies.
But if I were a kid from Aicuna (not sure how to type the accent mark), after a few days watching satellite TV, I think I'd want to hop a bus for Buenos Aires. Modernity can be awfully tempting.
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I doubt there is any way.
The modern world is a monoculture -- just like in agriculture, the thousands of acres of one type of corn.
Maybe it would be better if we stopped messing with and destroying the diversity of our human culture. Maybe one of the pockets of diversity has a solution that the rest of the world needs.
In times of war and totalitarianism treatment, I think the monoculture is failing.
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I would say the modern monoculture (Western-style capitalism) has some good features. Advanced medicine, equal rights for women, material wealth, ease of travel and communication, individual freedom (for now).
But our attempts to "embrace diversity" don't seem to work very well. Even if obscure minority cultures are officially cherished, they're dissolved in the mainstream or mutated beyond recognition. So you have ennui and rootlessness and anger at the disrespect for local traditions and sometimes bloody insurgencies.
But if I were a kid from Aicuna (not sure how to type the accent mark), after a few days watching satellite TV, I think I'd want to hop a bus for Buenos Aires. Modernity can be awfully tempting.
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I'd also be willing to bet that, in all cases, they have some very valid points.
Part of the monoculture is that we all value things the same.
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