individuation and ethnicity

[Adam Blatner]

This paragraph of Jim's is most thought-provoking:

A trait which is of survival value in one habitat may not be so in another. This is 
something we can be aware of the next time we
press for the unity of humankind. Unity has no space for spontaneity. If we ever settle 
down to one language and one culture it will probably be like the mass culture in 
America;.in other words, the homogenization of cultures is finally the death of all 
culture.  From what I read about the Ladin language and culture, they are successful in 
saving it. They use the language exclusively in the elementary schools, etc. Vive la 
difference!  Jim

Adam: This touches on a very important, indeed, inevitable problem. It deals with the rise 
and fall of languages, for example. There have been some very provocative books published 
about efforts to hold on to dying languages, resurrect them, and the like. I can sense the 
poignancy here.
       Yet there may be more going on than we realize. The new internet and social 
networking may be allowing for more subgrouping according to current interests, and 
subcultural evolution---the furthest thing from homogenization. Certain features do get 
lost---perhaps language, many customs, etc.---but many young people---perhaps most---find 
these irrelevant to their existence. Indeed, they may be experienced as oppressive 
pressure to take on beliefs, attitudes, and loyalties that feel obsolete.
        (I'm thinking about another current conflict that I've followed a little---those 
for keeping handwriting teaching and those for letting it go. My point is that it may not 
be in the power of the elders, the teacher's generation, those creating the curriculum, to 
really make that much of a difference. If they don't follow the trend, they may be 
experienced as irrelevant and superfluous. And on a broader scale, will the mid-adults be 
able to control the teenagers as much as they were controlled by their parents?)

    I'm half-pushing away and half-entertaining forbiddent thoughts, thoughts that make me 
feel uncomfortable. My precious language, what if text-messaging and abbreviations speed 
up my irrelevance??
        My tastes in music have already rendered me severely behind the curve and over the 
hill. My lack of a television set similarly put me out of it. And yet in a few roles I'm 
ahead of the curve. Ironies abound and frolic!

    But the moral, ethical, social, inevitable (??), trends---can we fight them? Can we 
afford to? (There's going to be a lot more basic economic "we can't afford this or that" 
in the next decade, more priorities---some of which we won't agree with...
              So I'm not sure that fighting drifts to fewer languages is a something that 
I feel obligated to bemoan; or that criticizing multi-culturalism is bad. What if a lot of 
what we call cultural is the oppression of a past generation on a younger generation who 
may not want to buy in? And a lot of culture is severely sexist and racist and other 
stuff. So...

       Thanks for getting me a bit stirred up.

                   Mainly what I'm up to is writing about imagination development. Warmly, 
Adam