Paul.Bramscher@xxxxxxxxx <Paul.Bramscher@xxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> On Mar 9, 3:55 am, Mark Kent <mark.k...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Paul.Bramsc...@xxxxxxxxx <Paul.Bramsc...@xxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>
>> I would say that a snapshot of local cultural values was certainly
>> injected in certain places by certain people, but that's not really
>> what I was driving at, although it is an interesting point. If you take
>> people in the UK, the culture changes dramatically across the country,
>> as different parts have been made up of different migrant populations,
>> something which has built over the last 2000+ years, and still continues
>> today. If you take someone from Manchester and transplant them, to, say,
>> Dallas, do they take "British" culture? Not at all, they take their own,
>> local, Manchester culture, because they are utterly different to people
>> from Newcastle or Exeter or Canterbury or Lincoln or Boston or York or
>> Birmingham etc. etc. Same goes for all the other places you indicate -
>> there is no "Italian" culture, rather, a huge range of cultures. Italy as
>> a country is /extremely/ young anyway. Same for Germany, another young
>> country with a huge range of cultures, most of which, like Italy, are
>> micro-cultures. The north-east of the England, including Yorkshire and up
>> to the Tyneside region still has much cultural heritage from the Danelaw,
>> for example, since it was part of the Danish kingdom for some time.
>
> Yet if we go too far to the extreme this way, we've then rendered the
> term "culture" itself somewhat useless. Culture is necessarily a
> generalized/nebulous conceptual entity. So is your main point that
> "culture" is not transmitted by individuals (in whole or in part),
> that it emerges (always locally) from the aggregate, or that the term
> itself is just not useful?
I think it's a very useful term indeed, but I think it describes
something which is an amalgam, or aggregate, if you will, of all that a
group of people are. The consequence is that the larger a grouping you
consider, the more "democractic" the culture becomes, but equally, the
less inclusive it also becomes.
>
> When I was an exchange student in Germany (1986) I found
> cosmopolitanism in places where it lacked in American youths, and yet
> also some strong ridigity/homogeneaity in places where it lacked in
> Americans. For instance, there was a national obsession with soccer,
> Boris Becker, Adidas, Porsche, America-bashing (deserved or not),
> etc. Yet when I told them (this was during the Reagan years) that I
> somewhat regretted the fact that my ancestors emmigrated from England/
> Germany and I'd actually considered going back more than once -- they
> thought it strange. In the end, they admitted that they lived fairly
> regimented lives (their educational/career future hinged on key tests,
> they had required military service, owning a house would be an
> extraordinary proposition, they had little in the way of wildlife,
> etc.).
House ownership in Germany was relatively low last time I looked, in fact,
I recall that rental was the norm. I've no idea how things are now in
this respect. On the other hand, I've been travelling to Germany on
and off for well over 20 years, and I can safely say that the place has
changed almost beyond measure. Interestingly, the football world cup
last year I think gave Germans a reasonable excuse to be nationalistic
in a kind of acceptable, overt and open way, perhaps for the first time
since WWII. In all my travels to Germany, I've /never/ felt so welcomed
than I did when going to see a football match... it was about as
surprising as being welcomed in France & Luxembourg in my biking
leathers (with the bike!).
>
> "Dallas" was getting quite a bit of translated airplay at the time,
> and I suspect that many Germans assumed Americans to live like rich
> Texans (though that may be fairly accure to describe Bush/Cheney).
> I've been watching "Vicar of Dibley" -- just finished the final
> episode last night. Clearly, these sorts of venues create illusory
> stereotypes, over-the-top, only to mock them. I certainly don't
> assume everyone in the English countryside is a clone of Owen
> Newitt. :-)
Ah, but you're well travelled and well educated, whereas most people
from most places are not, so you're better able to see through the
stereotypes. Don't forget that much of that kind of entertainment was
for internal use, of course, particularly the propaganda films from WWII
through to at least the 1960s, before they were discredited.
>
>> The more your average US citizen becomes aware of the outside world,
>> then the less likely he will be willing to chuck bombs at it. This is
>> very much what has happened in the UK since WWII, the schools no longer
>> teach a "british superiority" mantra, rather, they're much more socially
>> aware, more liberal, so it's much harder than it used to be to start a
>> war with someone. European integration looks easier every day, as
>
> And yet you've built an extremely survielled society. Was that
> predicated on fear of (internal) social deviation, or a fear of
> outsiders? Or the overall trading in of privacy for security?
Well, the US and UK are considered to be the two most observed, watched
and monitored societies in the world, so I could ask the same thing...
however, if you look at various suppressions which have taken place over
the years, usually there's been a genuine fear of some kind of uprising.
On the other hand, there's a lot more appearance of surveillance than
actually takes place. Conversely, we still have no requirement for an ID
card, in spite of Tony Blair's attempts to introduce one, with every
excuse on the planet going, so we'll see how it goes. Personally, I can
see no reason to /ever/ need ID, but I know that it's been a part of
the US system as well as several European countries for many many years.
The government is also trying to introduce a "database of everything",
but as it's a government IT project, it'll probably fail miserably after
burning a few £bn.
>
>> for governments to maintain an effective internal propaganda drive. I
>> always recall the Russian ambassador to the US's remarks about this:
>> (paraphrasing) "The difference between your propaganda and ours is that
>> your people believe your propaganda". The internet is cracking open
>> that problem, though, for the betterment of us all, I think.
>
> Agreed. But huge barriers remain between East and West, rich and
> poor, in practice. I rarely see Asians posting on the usenet groups,
> China is heavily censored, etc.
We've had a few Hong Kong chinese and an occasional Singaporean here,
and I also recall a Taiwanese chap, too. Nowhere near so many, of
course, but then this is an English group.
> What the net has also done, maybe, is
> to potentially reunite the old Anglo-American empire. There's an
> awful lot of Americans (from the US), British, Aussies, and
> Scandanavians here... The internet seems to first bring together
> already-related cultures.
Progress of sorts :-)
>
> Linux adoption apparently has followed similar vectors.
>
Indeed.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
| Cola trolls: http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
