Preservation of Culture: Expose or Isolate?

[DarkSlayer]

The human race today is brought together through electronic devices such as cell phones and the internet. As a result, the cultures of the world are being exposed to the cultures and beliefs of other countries.

Take music for example. There are so many different kinds of music, and each culture produces different kinds of music. Now that music and songs can be downloaded off of the internet, someone in Japan can listen to music from Africa, or someone from Europe can enjoy music from the United States.

Where this may be something that's stimulating to some people, what about preserving the individual cultures? When these cultures are exposed to one another they tend to be affected by each other. A good example of this is American cartoons.

About 10 years ago, anime was pretty scarce (or at least more so than today) in the US. Shortly after, the US started showing animations or "anime" from Japan. The anime from Japan differ in character features, such as larger eyes and much deeper plots and storylines. According to Japanese beliefs, the eyes are a gateway to one's soul - which would give some explaination to the large eyes.

Before the US was exposed to Anime, the American cartoons dominated the childrens' favorite Saturday morning shows. Shows like Tom and Jerry and the Flintstones. Now many Anime shows like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece have taken over the US's younger generation.

In some cases, the cultures of some countries are forced upon other, less developed countries. One example being the United States and the Middle East. The United States appears to be forcing their beliefs on those living in the Middle East - creating tension and resentment between the two countries.

What I'm trying to get at is that when these cultures mix, they may create something completely different, altering each culture in some way or the other. But what about the original beliefs? The original languages? As we blend, there are some cultures that are completely forgotten.

What do you think? Is cultural exchange a good thing? Or is it something that will be detromental in the long run?

Please discuss :)

[Alex26]

I dont remember from were i got this , but i agree that things that doesn't change will get destroyed sooner or later. Personally, i dont think theres much wrong with the exposition and influences of other cultures into others. One of the things that brings conflict to the world is the intolerance towards foreign/unkown customs/cultures/traditions and fanatically defending and forcing a certain culture into others. By "mixing" or getting exposed to other cultures people start being more tolerant and respectful of other's cultures and believes, a great example of that are forums. Here we see lots of people from different parts of the world with very different types of culture reunited to talk about anime/manga, but it doesnt only stays at that, people on the forums discuss about world issues, life, personal issues, correct their wrong toughs and prejudice they had towards other people of certain races for x and y reasons, learn about other cultures, read the opinions of all the sides of the coin, in a few words, people become more open minded (at least a great deal of people that i know/see)


And even though I do miss those old times with the old customs of, dunno, christmas and the almost lost custom of suddenly going to a friend's house singing those christmas song, joking, drinking, raid their fridge and go to another house without having a cop chasing your tail, change is necessary. Plus, if you really adore your customs and culture, even if the rest of your race loses those traits of the culture, one can still keep them alive inside their household ike my family and lots of other people does.

sorry for my horrible grammar and repetition of words >_<

[DarkSlayer]

No need to apologize! :p

I'm glad you shared your thoughts, and I see where you are coming from and I agree with a lot of what you say. I personally don't think it's wrong for cultures to "mix and match" so to speak. I think the diversity and understanding that comes from it is a good thing, but there are people out there that disagree with this, so I wanted to see if I could get an outside opinion - one that doesn't agree so much with my own.

Hopefully someone else will respond soon and we'll be able to get a nice debate going :)

[socrlax24]

meh, culture "smulture"

I think that as long as no one's hurting anything, let them do what they want! (i disapprove of the war in Iraq). Being an american, besides religious shit, there really isnt anything "culture" like...i dont know about other countries because i'm ignorant like that, but i feel like american is a blank canvas still, and because people from other countries are coming here to basically escape their cultures, we're never going to find what we want.

yeah, so, try to make sense of that!! If something makes yiou happy, do it. I like to watch Anime, so i do it. it's not hurting me, i honestly dont care if i dont watch Tom and Jerry, i think that show SUCKED...anyways, go japan !!

[Guy]

I seriously think the "isolated" part is funny. We live in the age of Internet and globalization, is isolation of culture even a choice now? Even North Korea has been affected by Western culture (albeit very slightly).

Anyways, I think it's good to expose cultures; without it, I wouldn't have known the wonderful world of anime/manga. However, not every culture is perfect; there are good parts about other people's cultures as well as bad parts. We need to be able to know the good parts, learn from that, while preserving the good parts of our own culture.

Bottom line: We need to be exposed to International Culture, because that's just how the world works today. Tell me, which developed country isolates itself from the rest of the world? None of them do, because it's not even possible to isolate yourself and still be a developed country. However, we do need to be careful of what kind of culture we absorb.

[ulrich_wolff]

Regardless of technology cultures blend. The very language you speak- english is proof of that. German, gaelic, roman, french, latin, all served a part in creating your language.

[Aragil]

I believe that nothing bad could possibly arise from the blending of different peoples. I would like to think, no hope, that if the different cultures of the world come together and interact then something bigger and better might arise from that interaction. With interaction, people should hopefully absorb whatever characteristics from the culture that they are interacting with, and the same should apply vice versa. However this logic has one very serious flaw, which is presented these days, albeit one culture dominating all the other ones (in case you havent noticed, I'm talking about the American culture)
You see people from all over the world listening to American music, wearing American clothes, watching American films and tv shows, reading American magazines, eating American food ect..
However this trend could possibly be declining now. The "domination" of this culture over the others is somewhat degrading now, as the general opinion about the nation and the people has somewhat lessened now.
Hopefully, I managed to carry a point amongst this random rambling, and if you have not grasped it yet, what I was trying to say was that there is no black and white in this situation, but just dark shades of gray. I have witnessed in certain situations where the blending of cultures has produced marvelous situations, while there are others where this blending has utterly failed.

[Seff vi Britannia]

I believe that "entertainment" culture should be shared, but in terms of culture regarding law, i believe that each country should be entitled to it's own. For all in the UK, you may have read in the papers recently that muslims are holding Sharia Law court sessions over the entire country. I don't believe that sort of thing should be allowed to continue - this is England, not the middle east. I believe that; "If you're in our country, you obey our laws."

At the same time, i believe that some of the cultures/laws in other countries are morally wrong. (the removal of hands for petty theft, and the dress code law in parts of the middle east, for example.)