Kevin's Watch

Technically this may not belong in MY demesne, but I'm saying it does.

A nice little blurb, with points I know matter in particular and in general even if they don't care.

www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-thomas/how-f ... 27158.html

Since you put it here, nobody can move it.

Well, except me...

*shrug*

It's sad and inevitable. Whatever else, we should be glad it has been recorded.

Plenty of languages, cultures, ways of life are being lost to the modern world.

I think it's bad to lose it usually. But on some days I ask myself whether it is right to preserve it as an anachronistic mode of living...do we force people to live like their ancestors?

Do we deny them the advantages of modern society and technology? Just so that we can have some atavistic pleasure in knowing some small fragment of an outdated, (if Romantic) way of life is being "preserved?"

--A

Have to read that when I have more time.

And yet society today does pretty much the opposite of encouraging their preservation.

It's a simple fact of human nature...we evolved socially and technologically because we hated living like that. With an alternative available, it's little wonder new generations don't see the point.

It's only later that we begin to regret it, and even that is probably idealised beyond all recognition.

It still makes me sad to know it's happening though. Right now, the culture and language of the oldest contiguous people on earth is slowly fading away in my own country. Efforts are being made of course, but that raises it's own questions...like that atavistic pleasure I mentioned...and I sometimes wonder how much of those efforts are on behalf of a tourist industry...?

--A

I don't read anywhere in that the suggestion that we should go back to the way things were. The message is that we should preserve the knowledge, and folk songs are part of that knowledge. People do this all the time. Frosty does it as a re-enactor, I do it as an avid devourer of old records. Percy Grainger did it when he visited Lincolnshire and other counties in the early 20th century collecting and re-arranging folk songs. Fred Dobson continues his work today, collecting folk songs from Lincolnshire and singing them. We had a talk on Saturday morning from a lady, now in her late 70s, who has for most of her life collected memories about everyday life, sometimes from people who were born in the 19th century. She has published these. What I collect is published - and most of what I work on is original documents from the 1600s onwards, depositions etc. most of which give hints about what people did, and how they behaved in certain situations. And the workhouse material is of course fascinating also. The local agricultural shows here have a history area - at Heckington you can find anything from a medieval apothecary to soldiers from all periods. They are all experts in what they do. Their research is meticulous. All this will be preserved for future generations. Surely no-one is suggesting that we go back to living like people did in the past? What must happen is that living history is preserved before it dies.

Oh, I don't dispute that. But it's not what I'm talking about. When I say the preservation of culture I mean its preservation in a living form, as an active way of life. Not a record of how people lived, but people actually still living that way.

If you consider a record sufficient preservation, then no culture has died since written records were kept. But we know that isn't so.

The question is, are the ways of life of other cultures in need of, or deserving of, being maintained?

--A

Avatar wrote: The question is, are the ways of life of other cultures in need of, or deserving of, being maintained?

--A

If an indiginous population wishes to live in the way it always has, and its way of living is sustainable without interference from the "outside" world, then why not. It is purely a matter of choice. I fear though, that most traditional ways of living will not be possible - the world has changed, and all life has to adapt to global warming (whatever the cause), deforestation, polution etc.

Iolanthe wrote: most traditional ways of living will not be possible - the world has changed, and all life has to adapt to global warming (whatever the cause), deforestation, polution etc.

Yea...BUT all those things are people shit. The old ways are perfectly capable of dealing with all those things you mention...dealing with them more effectively than the "new ways."
NONE of those things killed cultures...cultures killed cultures.

Iolanthe wrote: If an indigenous population wishes to live in the way it always has, and its way of living is sustainable without interference from the "outside" world, then why not.

Problem is, the indigenous populations don't want to live in the way they always have. Not the youth anyway. They want iPhones and fast food.

And that's what's killing those cultures. (Or at least, it's a factor in their loss.)

--A

Vraith wrote:

Iolanthe wrote: most traditional ways of living will not be possible - the world has changed, and all life has to adapt to global warming (whatever the cause), deforestation, polution etc.

Yea...BUT all those things are people shit. The old ways are perfectly capable of dealing with all those things you mention...dealing with them more effectively than the "new ways."
NONE of those things killed cultures...cultures killed cultures.

Well, that's "progress" for you. The point is that all people living today, however they live or want to live, have to deal with the word as it is.

Avatar wrote:

Iolanthe wrote: If an indigenous population wishes to live in the way it always has, and its way of living is sustainable without interference from the "outside" world, then why not.

Problem is, the indigenous populations don't want to live in the way they always have. Not the youth anyway. They want iPhones and fast food.

And that's what's killing those cultures. (Or at least, it's a factor in their loss.)

--A

Of course they do. If a culture is dying out the most we can do is capture it on film, in writing, while it is still alive. No-one can force anyone else to live in a certain way just because they don't want a particular culture to die out. Which is, I think , where I came in.

Even the members of that culture, for their own sakes?

--A

First off, the author isn't very careful/accurate: his name's Jussi Huovinen; it's quite embarrassing to get the whole singer's name wrong in the first place. Still, not an altogether bad article.

Second, histrenacting and comparable hobbies or practices are massively popular in Finland compared to the amount of inhabitants (which the writer appears not to know), not to mention that at least at one point Mynämäen käsi- ja taideteollisuusopisto was the only place in the whole world where one could study for an Artesan of Prehistoric Techniques degree. Some of my friends have this and either garner their living from selling self-made articles or help recover such means.

I'm quite sure there'll be a deal of interest regarding these recordings when they are done and if some idiot copyright mogul doesn't put a stopper to the whole public performances business. After all, the Kalevala meter about which we talked in peter's thread is alive and thriving in the folk/pagan/Viking metal communities, and bands like Korpiklaani or Auringon Hauta utilize it all the time for their songs, which often retell old myths and folk stories. See f.ex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyslSrPCj-s These bands have fans even in exotic locations like Argentina. So I'm not overly concerned about the disappearance of "oldenday lore".

Moreover, even if marginal compared to the mainstream lutheran, an increasing amount of people practice the old suomenusko, or as much as is reconstructable based on 100-year-old books from Julius Khron, etc. It has for instance helped revive the pre-christian Kekri feast celebrated in the late Sep-Oct.

Regarding cultural struggle and preserving traditions in Scandinavia, I'd be concerned over the Saami. As I'm not all that well versed in their affairs, cannot tell in detail about the problems. But several of the dialects stand endangered, they don't get enough education in their own tongue, etc.