*** OFFICIAL BREXIT SUNLIT UPLANDS and #MEGA THREAD ***

[OngBonga]

I sometimes get the sense that ong wants to pause time and lock current cultures and peoples in place and empower them to have the right to keep it all that way.

It's not about "pausing time". I don't want us to go back to horses and carts. Culture changes, largely thanks to technology, but also due to other forces such as cultural integration. That's not something I consider a bad thing.

But there are tons of cultural traits around the world that should be cherished and preserved. Language is one such example. Even though using the same language around the world would have huge economic benefits, it would be a huge human loss.

Music is another example. Should we associate reggae with Jamaica? Or just humans? They're proud of what they've given to the world of music, why take that away from them and say "this isn't yours, it doesn't belong to a nation or a group of people, it belongs to the world, to humans". Art, archaeology, education, there are so many things that can be considered "culture", that we should seek to preserve through love of history and love of the journey that our species is taking.

Culture is dynamic - constantly moving, evolving, adapting, embracing and rejecting - it is not the same today as it was a year ago, a decade ago, a century ago.


I sometimes feel like ong doesn't agree with me on that last sentence, but I can't figure out how.
Help me out, buddy?

Some cultural traits and identities are dynamic, others not so much. Language being the most obvious one that is almost static. You can't just say "culture is dynamic" and think that means any more than saying "planets move". Yes, but they remain the same planets, even if some things about that planet might have changed.

I don't understand why ong wants to pause the time "now"

I don't. I just also don't want to see nations of people, that is people who have a historical identity, whether that be English, Icelandic, whatever, lose that identity. This is not about preserving culture forever exactly as it is now, or any specific time in history, but celebrating what makes us different without it being about what makes us better.

You can say that "Icelandic" means nothing more than "a human born in Iceland" if you want, but I don't agree. If that were true, they would be identical to the English in every way except their place of birth. They are not. So being Icelandic means something more. Should we seek to destroy that distinction, or celebrate it?

[MadMojoMonkey]

But there are tons of cultural traits around the world that should be cherished and preserved. Language is one such example. Even though using the same language around the world would have huge economic benefits, it would be a huge human loss.

The languages of today are the product of past languages diverging, combining, and just slowly being made up anew along the way.
The word literally has changed to mean its own antonym in our lifetimes.
The English language more than most incorporates words from other languages all over the world as its own.

To butt into the other conversation a bit... pidgin languages pop up all the time when people who don't speak a common language need to assemble some minimal overlap from each language to facilitate trade. There is much evidence of this happening throughout history all over the world. While language is needed, financial profit is a strong motivator to get some basics established.

Music is another example. Should we associate reggae with Jamaica? Or just humans?

I guess that depends on whether or not we're talking to another human..?
To a Martian, it's all human music.
lol

I think there's rich value in understanding the history of cultural elements, like knowing reggae music comes from Jamaica, but the first paragraph on the wiki page for reggae music describes the musical styles it was influenced by and combined to become its own thing. It was a style of music that integrated very American musical sensibilities (Jazz and R&B) with local beats and sounds (mento).

So by your argument, really, reggae is (US) American music? It's not traditional Jamaican music, after all. (I mean, it's definitely a post-Beatles thing.)
No, of course not. The power and influence of that combination became its own thing. It became Jamaican culture less than 100 years ago.

By your argument, should we have kept the American music out of Jamaica so that traditional Jamaican music would not be lost?
But ... isn't that the people in Jamaica's choice?
Isn't the culmination of each individual's sovereignty over what they choose what culture is?

And isn't that grand total of a people's subjective whims necessarily extremely dynamic?

Right?
Like, you see where I'm coming from, here?

Some cultural traits and identities are dynamic, others not so much. Language being the most obvious one that is almost static.

-.-
Old English -> Middle English -> Modern English -> 'Murican
*dab*

This is not about preserving culture forever exactly as it is now, or any specific time in history, but celebrating what makes us different without it being about what makes us better.

Is it? 'Cause it sounds like telling people they can't change and grow and learn what they like best from all they encounter.

So being Icelandic means something more. Should we seek to destroy that distinction, or celebrate it?

Celebrating it and preserving it are different things.
Celebrating what it is, how its history got it here, and celebrating where it goes is all good, IMO.

Arguing that something besides the collective choices of people who live there / was born there / [I'm not drawing a hard line about who gets to call themselves Icelandic or whatever] seems bogus, IMO. People born in Iceland today are growing up in a different world than people born in Iceland a decade ago. Those kids are going to grow and change and learn and do whatever it is they do. That's what's going to be Icelandic culture in the future. Not what it is today. Not what it was a decade ago. It will be what it becomes based on nothing that can be rigidly controlled.