Monday, April 04, 2022

The culture war is a sham.

 You can fight for freedom. You can fight for truth, justice, and your way of life. You can fight for your home. But culture in and of itself isn't something you can preserve. A nation's cultures are constantly being shaped by internal and external influences. Every generation tends to enjoy a form of music that past generations find appalling. Millennials like whiney breakup songs, which Gen X likes to mock. Gen X likes grunge and rap which boomers hate. Boomers like rock and roll, which made the Greatest Generation's hair go grey. The Greatest Generation loved jazz, which the Lost Generation loathed. And so on. I imagine the first prehistoric human to grunt with a rhythm probably shocked the elders of his tribe.

Culture is a foolish thing to fight a war over, because culture is impacted by war. Soldiers never come back home to the America that they left. World War I took German language out of everyday American life, and a lot of Americans even changed their last names. World War II made us give equality for women and black people a closer look. Vietnam gave us hippies and Middle-Eastern wars gave us nationalist country music ballads.

Technology impacts culture as well. You are likely reading this on a device that is less than 5 years old. You're already thinking about getting something newer. We communicate with images, videos, and memes. We stay in touch with friends that we haven't seen in years, if we ever met them in the first place.

In light of all that, if your sole goal is to preserve your language and culture, then perhaps you should form a pacifistic, luddite society like the Amish.. But if you prefer to stay connected with a world that continues to evolve and grow, then expect changes that you just aren't going to like.