Culture(s)

Not surprisingly, my last post has generated some disagreement. Re-reading it, and the comments, I realize that I have indeed put myself on a slippery slope towards being misunderstood, and since the original post made quite a bit of progress down that slope towards the bottom of the pit. So I'd like to clarify a couple of points.

What I am not suggesting is that being exposed to multiple cultures, for a child or an adult, is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, it is an excellent and useful thing and should be encouraged and cultivated at every opportunity. There is no question that anyone who has had the good fortune to be so exposed comes out the richer for it. What I am suggesting, however, is that one cannot be a member of two cultures in equal measure. Sooner or later, one has to choose. Further, I am suggesting that one ought to choose the culture of the place in which one lives, expressed, first and foremost, by the language spoken in that place. By “choose” I do not mean excluding all artifacts of the other culture. It is not an all or nothing proposition. But neither is it fifty-fifty. Why? Because a fifty-fifty approach leaves you with two half-cultures rather than one that is complete and enriched by contributions of the other. What I am proposing, essentially, is that an individual has, or if not, ought to have, a primary culture that is then enhanced by contributions from as many others as possible. Finally, I am suggesting that one's name is a manifestation of that primary culture.

"Are we not engaging in that most American of practices – welcoming the best the world has to offer – every time we sip French wine or Ethiopian coffee?" S.G. asks. Of course we are. But to me, that is precisely an example of a primary culture being informed by others, rather than trying to be in two worlds at the same time. American culture is a particularly interesting one to attempt to make one's primary one. It is no news to anyone that American culture is an amalgam of many others, and the implications of that have been discussed to death. What I find significant, however, is that the term that has caught on over the decades for referring to it is “melting pot.” Whoever coined it knew what they were talking about – a melting pot implies an irreversible alteration of the ingredients into an original whole. That is exactly what American culture is, or ought to be when it is not. More recently, some have suggested that American culture has become more of a salad, where individual ingredients are mixed but retrain their distinct identity. That, to me, is an unfortunate development. By not fusing the contributions into a new whole we deprive our culture of enrichment. If we let it continue long enough, we risk ending up as a collection of disparate, unrelated cultural elements all attempting to exist in the same place without a unifying identity of its own. That strikes me as a profoundly sad prospect.