Towards Defining Culture Fully
Jul 8, 2018 16:43:22 #
Some Comments on Culture and Cultural Suicide
Point 1: America is a nation of many subcultures that exist simultaneously.
Point 2: There exists an overarching American Culture, to which the majority of citizens ascribe.
Point 3: The composite American Culture is under attack from many directions, and from many other cultures and subcultures, both internal and external to the nation.
Point 4: There exist a substantial number of organizations and individuals that believe our composite culture must be revised, or overhauled, in order to install a new cultural set. This is the other side of the coin of revising our federal government, which these organizations believe is also necessary.
Point 5: It is only by wrecking virtually our entire composite culture that America, its culture and its government, can be destroyed or substantially reduced to be able to install a new set of subcultures.
Point 6: While many of these attacks on our culture and its subcultures can be repulsed with ease, or simply ignored, there are several substantial attackers that must be recognized for what they are and for the threat they pose to our culture, and hence to the fabric of our nation.
6.1 Far-Leftist organizations, including socialists, communists, progressives, black liberationists and the like.
They offer us communal life, ruled by an elite.
6.2 Islamic Jihadist organizations and their supporters.
They offer us Terrorism, Islam, dhimmitude, or death.
6.3 Internationalist, Atheistic and Secular Humanist organizations, and their supporters.
They offer us a new and corrupt layer of bureaucratic and socialistic government over ours, and also world--communal life, ruled by a remote elite.
6.4 Both non-assimilating and Illegal Immigrants (that en masse form a serious threat) and their supporters.
They offer us dilution of our culture and our laws to the common denominator of a banana republic.
6.5 Foreign nations that ultimately desire to bring America down--- to their advantage.
They offer us—nothing.
Point 7: The idea of cultural equivalence is devastating to our composite culture and its norms, and, hence, ultimately to our national system.
Point 8: The idea of promoting and increasing multiculturalism and diversity in the nation for its own sake is likewise devastating to our composite culture and to our national fabric.
Point 9: Limitation of immigration and assimilation is the only workable generational answer, and it is one that has served us well for 200-300 years or so.
Point 10: One key to assimilation is the English language, which should be made the official language of the land. Real proficiency in written and spoken English should be insisted upon for all immigrants. English is the language of our culture.
Point 11: As difficult as it is to define and explicate, the composite American Culture should be thoroughly documented for our use. It is not easy to articulate the factors involved that create our complex yet common culture, among which are:
Family Cultures
Social Cultures
Aesthetic Cultures
Religious Cultures
Political Cultures
Governance Cultures
Financial Cultures
Educational Cultures
Intellectual Cultures
Judicial Cultures
Workplace Cultures
Scientific Cultures
American Cultures-- An Amalgamation
Military Cultures
Media Cultures
Entertainment Cultures
Sports Cultures
Mini-Cultures that make up daily life, such as: shopping, repairs, medical, real estate, climate, locality, and so forth.
Foreign Cultures (Imported and established)
Point 12: Our American Culture provides enormous leeway for individuals to live, adapt to, and become completely integrated into over time. It provides many levels of penetration of the concept of culture, cross-cultures and niches for everyone’s taste and status. It does this while also providing the maximum of freedom and liberty for each individual to pursue his own path.
May it ever be so.
Point 1: America is a nation of many subcultures that exist simultaneously.
Point 2: There exists an overarching American Culture, to which the majority of citizens ascribe.
Point 3: The composite American Culture is under attack from many directions, and from many other cultures and subcultures, both internal and external to the nation.
Point 4: There exist a substantial number of organizations and individuals that believe our composite culture must be revised, or overhauled, in order to install a new cultural set. This is the other side of the coin of revising our federal government, which these organizations believe is also necessary.
Point 5: It is only by wrecking virtually our entire composite culture that America, its culture and its government, can be destroyed or substantially reduced to be able to install a new set of subcultures.
Point 6: While many of these attacks on our culture and its subcultures can be repulsed with ease, or simply ignored, there are several substantial attackers that must be recognized for what they are and for the threat they pose to our culture, and hence to the fabric of our nation.
6.1 Far-Leftist organizations, including socialists, communists, progressives, black liberationists and the like.
They offer us communal life, ruled by an elite.
6.2 Islamic Jihadist organizations and their supporters.
They offer us Terrorism, Islam, dhimmitude, or death.
6.3 Internationalist, Atheistic and Secular Humanist organizations, and their supporters.
They offer us a new and corrupt layer of bureaucratic and socialistic government over ours, and also world--communal life, ruled by a remote elite.
6.4 Both non-assimilating and Illegal Immigrants (that en masse form a serious threat) and their supporters.
They offer us dilution of our culture and our laws to the common denominator of a banana republic.
6.5 Foreign nations that ultimately desire to bring America down--- to their advantage.
They offer us—nothing.
Point 7: The idea of cultural equivalence is devastating to our composite culture and its norms, and, hence, ultimately to our national system.
Point 8: The idea of promoting and increasing multiculturalism and diversity in the nation for its own sake is likewise devastating to our composite culture and to our national fabric.
Point 9: Limitation of immigration and assimilation is the only workable generational answer, and it is one that has served us well for 200-300 years or so.
Point 10: One key to assimilation is the English language, which should be made the official language of the land. Real proficiency in written and spoken English should be insisted upon for all immigrants. English is the language of our culture.
Point 11: As difficult as it is to define and explicate, the composite American Culture should be thoroughly documented for our use. It is not easy to articulate the factors involved that create our complex yet common culture, among which are:
Family Cultures
Social Cultures
Aesthetic Cultures
Religious Cultures
Political Cultures
Governance Cultures
Financial Cultures
Educational Cultures
Intellectual Cultures
Judicial Cultures
Workplace Cultures
Scientific Cultures
American Cultures-- An Amalgamation
Military Cultures
Media Cultures
Entertainment Cultures
Sports Cultures
Mini-Cultures that make up daily life, such as: shopping, repairs, medical, real estate, climate, locality, and so forth.
Foreign Cultures (Imported and established)
Point 12: Our American Culture provides enormous leeway for individuals to live, adapt to, and become completely integrated into over time. It provides many levels of penetration of the concept of culture, cross-cultures and niches for everyone’s taste and status. It does this while also providing the maximum of freedom and liberty for each individual to pursue his own path.
May it ever be so.
Jul 8, 2018 17:07:43 #
Culture and its Effects on Society
The narrow definition of culture many people hold is that of so-called elite high society ogling obscure and even pornographic works of art, going to the opera or concerts, holding social events for obscure charities, and generally promoting a lifestyle of pompous, snobbish and showoff kultur and overly-refined, exclusionary tastes.
The larger view of culture, the real role it plays on our lives and its many contributors, however, is far more important to a belief system. As defined by E. B. Taylor in 1871, culture is “civilization taken in its wide ethnographic sense, and is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
Later on, UNESCO in 2002 describes culture as follows: “Culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive, spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses in addition to art and literature, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs.”
“Culture, then, is a major contributor to political thought and political philosophy, so it is quite properly included as one of the five most significant orders of Conservatism”—Russell Kirk.
We have institutional memories of the cultural tenets of our society. These institutional memories are the customs and traditions our people have evolved since well before the founding of our nation, and indeed brought over to us from “the old country” in many instances. Some of these are:
1) Religion and religious practices, especially Christian religion.
2) A strong work ethic (Protestant in particular)
3) A sense of fair play and justice
4) A call for honesty in our dealings
5) A passion for truth
6) Your word is your bond, as is your handshake
7) Family traditions
8) Patriotic and American traditions
9) Military traditions
10) Club, association or fraternity traditions
11) Business traditions
12) Etiquette and customs
13) Christian Moral Imperatives
Some of the constraints on man’s behavior mentioned earlier were derived from cultural origins. Constraints are taught through the family, church, schools, and the private workplace, as well as from the government and the military. We are in a culture war, or even several culture wars: Christian versus Atheist; Christian versus Progressives and Christian versus Islam.
It is highly unfortunate that many universities have almost all liberal or progressive professors (particularly in the soft sciences, languages and literature sectors) who delight in brainwashing students with their special brand of liberal malarkey. What they have done is to overturn the carefully constructed mindsets and knowledge of constraints of very impressionable young people and to overturn the efforts done by many men and women to inculcate them into being effective citizens of the nation. This is quite reprehensible, particularly when they tout indiscrimination of just about everything, which is a central progressive mantra.
The narrow definition of culture many people hold is that of so-called elite high society ogling obscure and even pornographic works of art, going to the opera or concerts, holding social events for obscure charities, and generally promoting a lifestyle of pompous, snobbish and showoff kultur and overly-refined, exclusionary tastes.
The larger view of culture, the real role it plays on our lives and its many contributors, however, is far more important to a belief system. As defined by E. B. Taylor in 1871, culture is “civilization taken in its wide ethnographic sense, and is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
Later on, UNESCO in 2002 describes culture as follows: “Culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive, spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses in addition to art and literature, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs.”
“Culture, then, is a major contributor to political thought and political philosophy, so it is quite properly included as one of the five most significant orders of Conservatism”—Russell Kirk.
We have institutional memories of the cultural tenets of our society. These institutional memories are the customs and traditions our people have evolved since well before the founding of our nation, and indeed brought over to us from “the old country” in many instances. Some of these are:
1) Religion and religious practices, especially Christian religion.
2) A strong work ethic (Protestant in particular)
3) A sense of fair play and justice
4) A call for honesty in our dealings
5) A passion for truth
6) Your word is your bond, as is your handshake
7) Family traditions
8) Patriotic and American traditions
9) Military traditions
10) Club, association or fraternity traditions
11) Business traditions
12) Etiquette and customs
13) Christian Moral Imperatives
Some of the constraints on man’s behavior mentioned earlier were derived from cultural origins. Constraints are taught through the family, church, schools, and the private workplace, as well as from the government and the military. We are in a culture war, or even several culture wars: Christian versus Atheist; Christian versus Progressives and Christian versus Islam.
It is highly unfortunate that many universities have almost all liberal or progressive professors (particularly in the soft sciences, languages and literature sectors) who delight in brainwashing students with their special brand of liberal malarkey. What they have done is to overturn the carefully constructed mindsets and knowledge of constraints of very impressionable young people and to overturn the efforts done by many men and women to inculcate them into being effective citizens of the nation. This is quite reprehensible, particularly when they tout indiscrimination of just about everything, which is a central progressive mantra.
Jul 8, 2018 17:12:16 #
That's an awful lot to think about, quite complicated and difficult to understand, and even more difficult to change. Every great nation has gone through this and eventually fell. We have been quite resilient, and my prayer is we can find a way to keep this country culturally favorable to being "...one nation, under God, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Jul 8, 2018 17:20:03 #
Multiculturalism
What is Wrong with Assimilation?
The idea of multiculturalism in the US has been bubbling to the surface for years, to the point where the real meaning of such an anti-American stance has become much clearer. We are being told to believe that all cultures are equal, and that none should have preference over another. I would ask these dictators of our society in what way is the culture of a far off land that is still primitive anywhere near the equal to American culture? The sorry fact is that such cultures are not equal by any rational measure. So you say, well that is not what was meant exactly. So you meant that there were some cultures that are equal and others that are not?
In America, we have had for centuries whole sections of cities that were taken over by immigrants. These foreign communities served as a home for those who didn't speak acceptable English, and a haven where they could speak their native tongue and be understood for all of the necessities and social contacts of their lives. Gradually, however, successive generations of their families broke out from the communities and began to be assimilated into the common way of life in America. The older members who became rooted in the community, and perhaps never were able to learn English acceptably, stayed behind within their comfort zone. The time came when more of their people lived outside of the community than inside. They were ever more assimilated culturally into the mainstream. This is a typical American story.
But now we face a strong push to forego assimilation in favor of promoting the culture of the immigrants as not only equal, but deserving of local, state, and national government support.
This support comes in many guises: Affording multiple language tracks in schools; printing all government documents in multiple languages; allowing street signs to be given in several languages; and even reworking road signs for the foreign-born to understand ( this fact is useful, of course, to support tourism). Courts have been forced to employ translators to ensure that foreigners (even those who have been resident in the US for 20 years!) have access to the proceedings in their own language. Soon we might have Bastille Day, Cinco de Mayo, and something from many other lands to celebrate their unique cultural contributions to the world, but here in the US because of the concentration of their ex-homelanders in America.
Then will come the renaming pushes within their areas of concentration, and the erasure of the former US territory signs and symbols. Mexicalifornia comes to mind, remembering the book by Victor Davis Hanson. Our uniquely American identity will be scrambled together with asian, latino, and muslim identities in a most displeasing manner, first, because their cultures are simply not American, their attitudes have not been assimilated, and their value systems have not been modified to fit into American values.
Their moral compasses are not pointing to our North. So they act as they would if in their own land, or as they would if in a foreign land they do not respect enough to learn how to assimilate. Finally, their respect for the law in America may well be lacking to say the least. This is the road to disaster. One can see this clearly from the fact that 40% of the prison inmates in California are illegal immigrants. I do not believe in Open Borders.
Assimilation is coupled with the illegal immigration problem very strongly, where we have now some 11 million Mexicans roaming the country without the legal right to be here, and with no intent to conform to our way of life any more than necessary. The solutions being proposed for this part of the problem must include damming up the borders, severely punishing the businessmen who hire illegals, empowering local and state police to deal with illegals, and deporting wholesale undesirable illegals.
Amnesty is not a solution. Perhaps an effective sponsorship program can be worked out where businesses put up large bonds on each foreign worker hired to ensure return to the worker's own country when the work is finished. The size of the bond should be 20 times the actual wage paid or higher, thus potentially bankrupting the business if too many foreign employees skip out and disappear into the underground.
The official language for the US should be English, full stop. For legal immigrants, they should learn English within one to two years, and learn the basics of American history and culture, or be inelligible for citizenship. It should be the law that foreigners immigrate legally, and make every effort to assimilate, or be denied US citizenship. In some cases, they should be deported as well, especially those who break our laws.
What is Wrong with Assimilation?
The idea of multiculturalism in the US has been bubbling to the surface for years, to the point where the real meaning of such an anti-American stance has become much clearer. We are being told to believe that all cultures are equal, and that none should have preference over another. I would ask these dictators of our society in what way is the culture of a far off land that is still primitive anywhere near the equal to American culture? The sorry fact is that such cultures are not equal by any rational measure. So you say, well that is not what was meant exactly. So you meant that there were some cultures that are equal and others that are not?
In America, we have had for centuries whole sections of cities that were taken over by immigrants. These foreign communities served as a home for those who didn't speak acceptable English, and a haven where they could speak their native tongue and be understood for all of the necessities and social contacts of their lives. Gradually, however, successive generations of their families broke out from the communities and began to be assimilated into the common way of life in America. The older members who became rooted in the community, and perhaps never were able to learn English acceptably, stayed behind within their comfort zone. The time came when more of their people lived outside of the community than inside. They were ever more assimilated culturally into the mainstream. This is a typical American story.
But now we face a strong push to forego assimilation in favor of promoting the culture of the immigrants as not only equal, but deserving of local, state, and national government support.
This support comes in many guises: Affording multiple language tracks in schools; printing all government documents in multiple languages; allowing street signs to be given in several languages; and even reworking road signs for the foreign-born to understand ( this fact is useful, of course, to support tourism). Courts have been forced to employ translators to ensure that foreigners (even those who have been resident in the US for 20 years!) have access to the proceedings in their own language. Soon we might have Bastille Day, Cinco de Mayo, and something from many other lands to celebrate their unique cultural contributions to the world, but here in the US because of the concentration of their ex-homelanders in America.
Then will come the renaming pushes within their areas of concentration, and the erasure of the former US territory signs and symbols. Mexicalifornia comes to mind, remembering the book by Victor Davis Hanson. Our uniquely American identity will be scrambled together with asian, latino, and muslim identities in a most displeasing manner, first, because their cultures are simply not American, their attitudes have not been assimilated, and their value systems have not been modified to fit into American values.
Their moral compasses are not pointing to our North. So they act as they would if in their own land, or as they would if in a foreign land they do not respect enough to learn how to assimilate. Finally, their respect for the law in America may well be lacking to say the least. This is the road to disaster. One can see this clearly from the fact that 40% of the prison inmates in California are illegal immigrants. I do not believe in Open Borders.
Assimilation is coupled with the illegal immigration problem very strongly, where we have now some 11 million Mexicans roaming the country without the legal right to be here, and with no intent to conform to our way of life any more than necessary. The solutions being proposed for this part of the problem must include damming up the borders, severely punishing the businessmen who hire illegals, empowering local and state police to deal with illegals, and deporting wholesale undesirable illegals.
Amnesty is not a solution. Perhaps an effective sponsorship program can be worked out where businesses put up large bonds on each foreign worker hired to ensure return to the worker's own country when the work is finished. The size of the bond should be 20 times the actual wage paid or higher, thus potentially bankrupting the business if too many foreign employees skip out and disappear into the underground.
The official language for the US should be English, full stop. For legal immigrants, they should learn English within one to two years, and learn the basics of American history and culture, or be inelligible for citizenship. It should be the law that foreigners immigrate legally, and make every effort to assimilate, or be denied US citizenship. In some cases, they should be deported as well, especially those who break our laws.
Jul 8, 2018 18:02:41 #
Manning345 wrote:
Multiculturalism br br What is Wrong with Assimil... (show quote)
If I understand Native American history, even those who were here before us were divided by different cultures and tribes, and there were a lot of "civil wars" among the American/Canadian/Mexican "INDIANS." People with differences just can't seem to get along.
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