The Invention of Culture

All right.  I'm going to tread lightly on this one.  Earlier today, on my post about racial characteristics in humans, I had the words, "cultural sensitivity" thrown in my face by Jojiro who ~ I think ~ actually shares the same belief structure as me.  However, he has an axe to grind with me about Chinese place names and mangonels, so I think making peace here is bound to be a rough go.  I'm not making that better by writing this post, but ... well, I'll have to be respectful.

The present state of personal politics that we have observed take hold and evolve since the late 1980s would have us believe that "race" and "culture" are the same thing.  This involves arguments where significantly positioned persons in social groups state matter-of-factly that because they were born into a specific culture, they deserve every bit as much respect for their choice in maintaining that culture as they expect to receive being of their given race.

Being in Western Canada, the most evident example of this would be the presence of Native communities who have been granted special status on account not only of the race, but also their culture.  There are numerous, complex reasons for this, which I don't wish to simplify.  One of the special reasons for the maintenance of the Native culture in Canadian law was that not very long ago many very deluded Europeans systematically tried to eradicate that culture in a very reprehensible manner.  If you're not familiar with the tale, I suggest the reader get educated on the matter.

Let me state clearly that I am opposed to forcibly obliterating anyone's culture.

However.

I consider this a voluntary option.  It is a good idea,
but it should in no way regulate human choice or behaviour.
We have other laws for that.

Culture, unlike race, is an invention.

It is a belief system; and as such, like any belief, regarding anything, including Jojiro's opinion about me and my opinion about Jojiro, it can be voluntarily changed.

I was raised a Lutheran.  I was taken to a church every Sunday from before my memory began, and beginning at the age of six I was given instruction in Sunday School.  At the age of 13, I began three years of intensive studies for two hours every Wednesday night for three years, until I had memorized my catechism and a great deal else besides, so that I could be confirmed as a Lutheran at the age of 14.  I spent hundreds of hours in church, hundreds of hours in reading the Bible, hundreds of hours in taking part in youth events, including church plays and Christmas carolling, until I reached about the age of 17.  I can point to this period and plainly say without fear of being contradicted, this was my culture.

I was glad to ditch it at the first opportunity.  For a time I bought into it, said my prayers, believed in god, embraced the faith, considered myself "born again" ... and then a series of events having to do with my puberty began to assert themselves after 15 and I had some, *ahem,* problems with the expectations of organized religion.  I continued to pray, however, until I reached the age of 30.  Whereupon I ceased to do that, also, for other reasons.

One's culture can also be taken away.  And not only in the sense of the cultural genocide attempted by Europeans in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Beginning at 15, my other culture consisted of two very intense and much beloved environments.  One of these consisted of dark, smoky coffeehouses that served tea, coffee, felafel and lox, where poets read sharp, activist poetry between sets of Dylanesque musicians with guitars and harmonicas, which remained open until 2 a.m.  These places were fundamentally nothing like Starbucks.  They were deeply cerebral, radically political, fueled by anarchy, communism and social justice, and solidly underscored with fist-on-table-beating a priori position-taking.  Non-book readers need not apply.  Long before there was an internet, I fought flame wars in my teens with university professors, and afterwards to enjoy having them pay for my cheque.

My other culture was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gc4yrcdAok&t=574s.  Except less shitty t-shirts and more men in leather and metal, with women in spandex and rubber.  Pretty much the same music.  I was a very, very, very angry young man.

Those cultures are gone.  Obliterated.  Not by Europeans, but by changing tastes, corporatism, chance, technology and a lot of forces I can't even guess at.  Cultures are an invention.  There is nothing about an invention that belies the possibility that someone will create a better invention and obliterate the culture that was.

Those who argue for "cultural sensitivity" choose to ignore this.  They want to believe that, like skin color, one's culture is a right.

The Canadian Charter of Rights states that everyone has freedom of conscience and religion, along with freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression (and other things that aren't expressly relevant to this point.)

There is nothing in the Charter of Rights that states I am entitled to have my culture sustained if other persons in that culture decide to go do something else.  I can't force people back into smoky coffee houses and compel them to listen to Bob Dylan.

Would be cool, though.

If people can change their minds about culture, and If culture can evaporate because people change their minds, it therefore follows that I am ~ so long as I do not use force ~ allowed to attempt to change the minds of other persons about their culture.  I can't deny you the right to believe what you believe.  But I am empowered to change your mind about what you believe.

Therefore, what you believe is not sacrosanct.  What you believe does not prevent me from disregarding, advocating against or otherwise verbally challenging that belief.

I am under obligation to keep my hands off you, and in this country, to not disparage your culture with hate speech or to rally other persons to harrass you regarding your culture.  But I'm allowed to produce arguments.

I'm allowed to change your mind.

If your belief system is so weak that it can only be sustained by insisting that other persons never challenge it, then it is not much of a belief system.

In fact, it is a belief system that ought to fall.

Are we good?  I didn't swear at all.