4 ms·
If you look at history at large enough scale, concepts of patriotism or keeping one's culture are completely meaningless. Or to phrase it better - there is as m
by jajko 2y ago
If you look at history at large enough scale, concepts of patriotism or keeping one's culture are completely meaningless. Or to phrase it better - there is as much meaning as you give it to, can be from 0 to extreme and only you decide what it is, or your emotions if you can't control them. There is nothing strictly rational about this. You can tie your identity to it or not, in 21st century western world one can truly forge one's own destiny, mind, identity and so on. What a true freedom!
For me personally, I couldn't care less about cultural or religious origins of people living around me, or color of their skin. I've met people of very diverse cultures at their home countries and can't say my own culture is better, sometimes glaringly worse.
And I come from extremely homogeneous eastern European bloc country with rich cultural background, ie I saw first black person in my late teens for example and started traveling only in my 20s.
What I care utmost about is that they are good moral people who follow rules and respect others, just like I respect them. We can disagree on certain topics, but not on basic moral ones. And at least basic language level.
For me, Switzerland wins above all in this, hence I moved here. Not perfect place by any means, but darn good not only in aspects above.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y agoThe future you would like, or at least wouldn’t mind, would be one where there was no Japan, no Australia, no Switzerland, to go to? Just a place with slightly different geography, but everywhere you went the culture would be largely indistinguishable from a place half a world away, where there were no Japanese, no Swiss, no Aussies, just, what? Earthers?
- jajko 2y agoI don't care about that, I truly don't. What for? Traditions worth their salt survive and thrive to these days and will continue to do so. The rest can disappear, just like endless stream of such disappeared over millennia. Its not that I want to push for this ASAP, but its eventually inevitable with the way we live our lives and move around. Life for me is about more important matters - family, friends, my own happiness going back to everything. And yes eventually world will over-mingle, the only way this won't happen is some proper catastrophe that will return whole humanity, or tiny remainder of it back to caves. You want benefits of travel trivially globally but forbid people falling in love elsewhere and making kids, moving for better life or simply location/climate/culture they feel is much better for them? In 1000 years most if not all countries we know now will not exist, maybe even memories and records of it will be vague and incorrect. Thats the lens I use to judge what is worthy of an effort and what is not.
- Gud 2y agoWhat exactly do you think culture is? It’s a lot more than food and traditions. If it all became the same, chances are we would all live in a giant Dubai. No thanks(though I loved it there for 2 years). I’ve picked my place, where people work hard and party hard, but with quiet streets at 10pm.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y agoI don't think the idea that even human cultures change over geological time is a coherent argument for immediately allowing free travel across borders.
- grunder_advice 2y agoDude, I am not talking about patriotism, nationalism, ethnowhatthefuckism or any such notions. I am simply talking about cultures. Are you going to tell that you have no preference with regards to living in Germany, France, Poland, Argentina, or Canada? That is obviously not true. > What I care utmost about is that they are good moral people who follow rules and respect others What counts as rules and morals is dependent on culture. I would never live in Switzerland for example. I would utterly detest living there. And I was not even talking about rules or morals or any of these big differences that might arise between wildly different cultures. I'm talking about normal everyday stuff. Maybe some of you should take a course in cross-cultural communication, to really understand what I am talking about. People have different expectations and conventions in their everyday lives. It is not like one is better than the other, but they are different and those form a way of thinking that is at the core of what the culture of the place is.
- polotics 2y agoHi grunder it would be great if you could enlighten us as to what you think is wrong with Australians and with Switzerland. Is it too high-up, too down-under? ;-D
- jajko 2y agoHmm not sure why the offensive tone, you make a lot of assumptions about ie me while knowing 0 about me, and obviously you are wrong here. > Are you going to tell that you have no preference with regards to living in Germany, France, Poland, Argentina, or Canada? That is obviously not true. That is certainly true for me. Please add some more diverse cultures, your list is pretty narrow-minded. And it already had happened so not talking theory here, and it was and still is properly enriching for me and my family. But you highlight an interesting point - I wouldn't mind living in same country as people like you as long as they can handle those basic requirements, but I would certainly prefer not having to spend any time around such people.
- Gud 2y agoEven within Switzerland there are multiple different cultures. I am from Sweden(another country with different cultures, like most countries) and live in Zürich. It is unlikely I would fit in in Graubünden or even Basel… But I loved Antwerpen, Belgium. I’ve traveled extensively for work and love to witness the different places and how cool it is how diverse the world is.