Cultural Preservation Nonsense

It isn't that cultural preservation is all nonsense - but much of it is. It depends on what is being preserved, after all, and why. Those who reflexively defend the idea that all cultures are equally valuable may not like the thought, but there is really nothing of value to be gained by preserving head hunting or genital mutilation of women. In fact, if we love people we should want to eliminate many cultural practices.

In addition, people too often lament the loss of traditions and cultures when those changes come about from voluntary choices of the individuals in those cultures. It is one thing to point out and address the crimes of oil companies that actively try to destroy indigenous tribes in the Amazon, but quite another matter when a culture changes by choice. Natives in the far north are losing their tradition of dog sledding, but then they probably prefer to have a snowmobile that can bring their children to a hospital more quickly. Rain forest peoples who use metal pans now do so because it is just a lot easier than boiling food by dropping hot rocks into a skin bag or bamboo section full of soup.

This nonsense idea that there is automatic value in cultural practices is felt from both sides. There are those who love to romanticize particular lifestyles, and then there are those who in the midst of change that comes too fast for them, turn back to their "old ways" for comfort or meaning. Ironically, they sometimes don't really know what the old ways are. Thus we get Native Americans setting up teepees even though their tribes never used that form of shelter in the past, and the tribes that did are as different from theirs as Greeks are from the Irish.

Interestingly, few think about the question of why a particular practice or tradition should be preserved, and why one time period in the development of the culture should be chosen over others. After all, riding horses is part of the culture of some western American tribes, but it wasn't until horses were introduced a few hundred years ago. So if it is valuable to preserve the culture, the question becomes "which culture?" What elements from what time?

There are real benefits to some traditions. Consider the spiritual practice and tradition of some peoples, in which they thank a plant or animal before using it, for example. That is not just beautiful, but it encourages a sense of gratitude and humility that is just plain healthy. So why not preserve a tradition like that?

On the other hand, if we are to preserve that which is useful or good - and do so on that basis - this doesn't suggest that preserving culture for its own sake is of any value. In fact, if the justification is the pleasure, meaning, usefulness or good that is gained, then we would expect that people would simultaneously discard all elements of their culture that didn't bring these values, and adopt any new practices that did. This, I suggest, is exactly the right approach.

Cultures have at all times and places been changing, and for good reasons. Conditions change. Knowledge grows. Understanding changes. People should change along with the changes in the world, both to survive and to grow as human beings. Why would we want to stagnate by preserving what happens to exists in a culture at a specific time in history?

There is a lot of cultural preservation nonsense out there.