Richard,
Thanks for your kind words about my posting on Faulkner.
You wrote:
"Who cares, really, about the 'survivability of a culture.' All 'cultures'
will 'endure,' at least to some degree, regardless of 'the virtues of
community and citizenship' but rather due to the stubborn,
indominable--might I even say 'Snopes-like?'--nature of mankind. Mankind
will only 'prevail" if its various cultures can learn, both individually
and collectively, to continuously learn from the best (and the worst) of
its various and variable people."
I think the key to this question is not trying to sustain a particular,
historic version of a culture, but considering how it should be
transformed over time while remaining in continuity with the best of its
past. Long time ago I read somewhere a critique of modern thought as
nothing more than "chronological snobbery." In essence, whatever was
believed or held as true or right for a culture in the past is no longer
the case. That we moderns have achieved a level of knowledge and
intelligence which enable us to overcome all social problems imaginable.
I think this is rather a romantic fantasy of people unwilling to accept
that the past lives on through us, whether we like it or not. This century
I think actually shows that we forget the continuity with the past at our
peril. Many of my southern natives would like to return to the antebellum
19th. century culture of the South, because in it they see the germ of
civic virture lived out with in small communities. What they fail to
notice is that that culture for all its strengths was inherently racist
and exclusionary. And why do they want to return to that time of agarian
virtues, because they see in our time nothing but the pursuit of the
individual to the exclusion of the corporate or communal. What encourages
me is that for the first time in my adult life, I see communal virtues
being emphasized. The individual thrives in community, and the community
only thrives when it is a collection of individuals committed to virtures
of collaboration and cooperation. So the culture which survives or
thrives, will be the one which learns from the past, can incorporate
diversity into its collective relationships, and learn to manage the
constant pull between the one and the many.
Thanks again,
Ed Brenegar
Leadership Resources
edb3@msn.com
--"Ed Brenegar" <edb3@email.msn.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>