Kwame Antony Appiah, in a piece for the NYT Mag designed to be the “it” article of January 2006, says that trade does change culture but it doesn’t erase it; exposure to technology and universal media content improves the good parts of life while discouraging the worst aspects of tradition.
While reading this essay, I kept thinking of Raico’s distinction between social tradition (that sustained by the voluntary actions of individuals)–and vital and necessary part of the functioning of society–and state tradition (that which is imposed on people through coercion or lives on because a state-sustained poverty limits individual choice). Appiah argues, in effect, that social tradition is surprisingly robust when faced with the “contamination” wrought by globalization, while state tradition is challenged and even crushed at every turn, which he regards as a good thing. He also notes that the most passionate opponents of “cultural contamination” are Western intellectuals.
He offers some interesting insights, among which:
It’s one thing to help people sustain arts they want to sustain. I am all for festivals of Welsh bards in Llandudno financed by the Welsh arts council. Long live the Ghana National Cultural Center in Kumasi, where you can go and learn traditional Akan dancing and drumming, especially since its classes are spirited and overflowing. Restore the deteriorating film stock of early Hollywood movies; continue the preservation of Old Norse and early Chinese and Ethiopian manuscripts; record, transcribe and analyze the oral narratives of Malay and Masai and Maori. All these are undeniably valuable.
But preserving culture – in the sense of such cultural artifacts – is different from preserving cultures. And the cultural preservationists often pursue the latter, trying to ensure that the Huli of Papua New Guinea (or even Sikhs in Toronto) maintain their “authentic” ways. What makes a cultural expression authentic, though? Are we to stop the importation of baseball caps into Vietnam so that the Zao will continue to wear their colorful red headdresses? Why not ask the Zao? Shouldn’t the choice be theirs? … Talk of authenticity now just amounts to telling other people what they ought to value in their own traditions.
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(Most)European People came to the USofA to become part of the “American Dream.” Now that their kids and grandkids are “real” Americans with an economic base they have time to investigate and perpetuate the old country social customs. For Example, The Swedish Club and Sons of Norway in Seattle. Harmless good fun for all.
Interesting thoughts, Jeffrey, especially in the ancillary context of the questionable ‘multicultural’ doctrines in places like the United Kingdom.
“Talk of authenticity now just amounts to telling other people what they ought to value in their own traditions.”
When did western intellectuals ever hesitate to do that, by any and all means at their disposal?
This is the reason that I loath “multiculturalism”. It enforces differences between people, instead of celebrating different ways of doing things.
http://www.lewrockwell.com provides a link to a cleaner (i.e. non-registration) version of Kwame Antony Appiah’s material at http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/case-contamination.html – I may comment on it after I’ve digested it.
Years ago, I had the pleasure of making two trips into the interior of Venezuela–into the Guayana Highlands between Angel Falls and Brazil. These were trips of 20 and 30 days, so we got a good chance to meet and interact with native (Pemon) Indians. On the longer trip, we had two with us as guides.
On any superficial basis, these people hadn’t much culture and what they had was primitive. Agriculture was slash and burn; whole villages had to move when it got too far to new, unexploited soil. The principal crop was yucca, the root of which was made into cassava bread (sun-baked on the roof–we called them “pizza huts”). Much of the root was chewed up as a regular daily occcupation of the women and spat into a crock to ferment into their everyday beer-like “cacheeri.”
We were on a river (the Caroni) from which we did not normally drink, though in most places it would have been reasonably safe. But when we came to an entering stream or rivulet, we’d frequently get fresh, cool water, dipping it with cupped hands as is familiar to almost anyone who’s spent time out-of-doors. Our Indian guides went absolutely bonkers at the sight–couldn’t contain their laughter. Repeatedly, they showed us how they did it–by rapid squeezing of a fist thrust into the water, they could produce a fair approximation of the stream from a drinking fountain. Later, when we brought the 5 and 8-year-old sons of one of the guides along on our glorified camping trip (which we called “prospecting”), we found that they could do the same. Where the adults had a certain decorum about laughing at us, the kids had none whatsoever.
When we landed along the river, any one of us would, most frequently, clamber up the bank. But if we were going to be there for any more than a quick stop for any reason, our companions were quick, with a few machete slices, to produce quarter-rounds of whatever was available, which they’d pound into the bank with machete butts–voila,–stairs! And, if trekking through jungle or over savanna or even putting the boat in to stop for lunch along the river, they eschewed eating standing up, as we’d do (or as the kids would do with a candy bar). Rather, they’d cut reeds and a few appropriate leaves and we could all sit down (on the ground) and eat from a table. It’s a huge place with very few people but, wherever you may travel, you’ll be likely to find the remains of old stair-steps along the river and of “lunch tables” in jungle clearings. clearings.
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