I was thinking more about this last night, and two thoughts came to mind, which may or may not be related to your thoughts (but I think it should be put into consideration).
1. I think it's important to try and define what culture sometimes, but I think that's almost impossible, I don't know if culture can be defined, it's not as absolute as nationality or ethnicity, although ethnicity can be tricky as well. And it's difficult to say that there is an overall Western culture, because Western culture is a bastardisation of so many different cultures.
2. There is a line of reasoning, that I've seen around in the anthropological forums, and through reading books, that a stagnant culture is a dead or dying culture. If a culture doesn't change, or adapt, or is flexible to changes in the world, it will stagnant, and it will die (although, does a culture ever truly die, if some of it's traditions continue...). I guess in some ways, that would mean that the strongest cultures in the world are the ones that allow for diversity, allow for change. Bit like biology in a way. Inbreeding is death.
And then you look at 'our culture' or let's say British culture, look how much that has changed over the last thousand years. If you look at the big picture, that little island that is now England, has changed so radically, due to imperialist occupation by the Romans, the Normans, the French, goodness knows who else - do we have anything left over from before Roman times? If so, is it because we adapted and changed some of those traditions to suit?
It's just a thought, I'm not sure how it relates, but I think it good to keep in mind that culture is damn hard to pin down, possibly because it's so changeable.
And of course, this is probably something that everyone has seen a thousand times before - so I'm not looking to be groundbreaking here ;)
have I bored you yet??
1. I think it's important to try and define what culture sometimes, but I think that's almost impossible, I don't know if culture can be defined, it's not as absolute as nationality or ethnicity, although ethnicity can be tricky as well. And it's difficult to say that there is an overall Western culture, because Western culture is a bastardisation of so many different cultures.
2. There is a line of reasoning, that I've seen around in the anthropological forums, and through reading books, that a stagnant culture is a dead or dying culture. If a culture doesn't change, or adapt, or is flexible to changes in the world, it will stagnant, and it will die (although, does a culture ever truly die, if some of it's traditions continue...). I guess in some ways, that would mean that the strongest cultures in the world are the ones that allow for diversity, allow for change. Bit like biology in a way. Inbreeding is death.
And then you look at 'our culture' or let's say British culture, look how much that has changed over the last thousand years. If you look at the big picture, that little island that is now England, has changed so radically, due to imperialist occupation by the Romans, the Normans, the French, goodness knows who else - do we have anything left over from before Roman times? If so, is it because we adapted and changed some of those traditions to suit?
It's just a thought, I'm not sure how it relates, but I think it good to keep in mind that culture is damn hard to pin down, possibly because it's so changeable.
And of course, this is probably something that everyone has seen a thousand times before - so I'm not looking to be groundbreaking here ;)