ozarque ([info]ozarque) wrote,
@ 2007-01-06 11:08:00
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Discussing globalization; constructing a Terran culture...
[info]ebonypearl -- in response to my hope that we won't settle for "The way we know we're Terrans is that we aren't ETs" -- commented:

"It is much stronger to create a set of positive identifiers for a group, as in 'we're volunteers because we offer our time, resources, and expertise for free to help,' and then it varies widely from there. People who are volunteers, when they meet other volunteers, regardless of the type of volunteer work they do, have that common bond, and it crosses social and economic dividers.What positive definers can we find for a global culture that will provide the same type of barrier-crossing bonding that, say, volunteerism does?"

Absolutely right. And it seems to me that a list of Terran Culture "building blocks" would be a first step toward finding those "positive definers," if we could put one together.

I'd like to start that list by nominating the wonderful photographs we have now of the Earth seen from space. I think every Terran who sees one of those photos for the first time immediately understands this world in a way they have never understood it before.

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[info]lyonesse
2007-01-06 05:10 pm UTC (link)
our house bought one of those world-from-space images on a flag and hung it outside the house at the beginning of the war. it's fading now, but we're leaving it up until either (a) it tears (and we'll replace it with a similar one) or (b) the war ends (and we'll replace it with a peace dove).

mind, we live in baja canada here, one of the sanest states, so we're probably just preaching to the choir. but it's how we decided to show what we feel, anyway.

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[info]lillibet
2007-01-06 06:13 pm UTC (link)
I think that the US has been a relatively positive continuing experiment in this type of thing. Yes, absolutely, there have always been those who would slam the doors of immigration immediately behind their own group, but we have done a remarkable job of creating a mythology that "anyone can be an American" and, on the whole, I think we continue to progress toward actually embodying that myth, with various starts and stops. Living in other parts of the world as I have, the contrast is striking. The easiest linguistic difference I can point to is the contrast between "Asian-Americans" and "British Born Asians," which I think is a telling difference and much the more common model in most parts of the world.

One of the most positive aspects of this, I think, is that much of the rest of the world also identifies with us. I recently watched a Vietnamese concert video that ended with an arena full of Vietnamese fans all chanting along with the chorus "We all want to go to America!" And on September 11, 2001, when we happened to be out of the country, the out-pouring of grief and sympathy was amazing--everyone stopped us to tell us that they have a cousin/brother/friend in New York, that this was an outrage against everyone.

I think these are positive aspects of globalization of identity and while there is still a huge amount of progress to be made there, it shows there is the possibility of a different model.

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[info]undauntra
2007-01-06 06:34 pm UTC (link)
I think every Terran who sees one of those photos for the first time immediately understands this world in a way they have never understood it before.

I suspect that impact is much stronger on those who reached adulthood before seeing any such pictures. I was born in the 70s, and I cannot remember a time when that image wasn't a part of my mental library, so there's no "before" to compare my understanding of the world to.

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Response to undauntra...
[info]ozarque
2007-01-06 07:03 pm UTC (link)
That is truly interesting -- and not something that I would have thought of. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I wonder what it means; that is, I wonder what difference in mindset/worldview there is between those who have always had the image in their mental library, as you say, and those for whom its first appearance was a source of astonishment.

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Re: Response to undauntra...
[info]starcat_jewel
2007-01-09 06:46 pm UTC (link)
I'm not sure it applies even to people who reached adulthood before seeing such a picture. I'm reminded of someone I used to know who looked at Kelly Freas' picture of a rocket with Columbus' ships in the background, and the caption, "What if Isabella had said NO?", and said, "I don't get it." And when I stopped goggling and ran thru the explanation, he said he couldn't imagine wanting to see another world. It just wan't part of his mindset... and I'm sure he can't be the only one for which that holds true.

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[info]dpolicar
2007-01-06 07:53 pm UTC (link)
Agreed with everything said thus far.

Will add to this, worldwide media... especially interactive media, like blogs and IM and email.

Personal anecdote: I was (a minor) part of MediaMOO in the early 1990s, back when this Internet thing was just starting to become popular in the mainstream, and I still carry around the memory of suddenly realizing that the "conversation" I'd wandered into was being carried on between a black South African, an Israeli soldier, and a couple of American academics.

It was disorienting. It's not that I'd lived an insulated life before that, especially, but there's a difference between talking to someone who was an X but is now a student at a university in the northeast US, and talking to someone who is, right this moment, an X actively involved in Xing, somewhere I've never seen and know almost nothing about.

Of course, it feels pretty silly now... the idea that people from all over the world are participating in online forums together is hardly noteworthy.

Which is precisely my point. "ozarque's f-list" isn't the same kind of bonding experience as, say, volunteerism, but neither does it require the same kind of intense investment. It may have only 1% of the bonding effect, but I can easily be in hundreds of communities like it simultaneously. The net effect, in terms of feeling part of a global whole, may well be the same or even greater.

(Granted, this kind of "being a Terran" applies only to humans who share a language and a minimum level of technological infrastructure, which still excludes quite a lot of people. But it's a building block just the same.)

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[info]laughterdance
2007-01-07 01:00 am UTC (link)
It baffles me a little bit that being human is not enough of a common thread for people to realize we have something (many somethings) in common.

It works well enough for me.

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[info]aerope
2007-01-08 08:53 pm UTC (link)
seconded.

I mean, you can have things like religion and philosophy and art to remind you of that, but it's still the basic reality.

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[info]shakatany
2007-01-07 03:38 pm UTC (link)
I just read that Google will join effort to digitally film the entire universe. Perhaps eventually we'll realize that we're in this together and compared to what's out there our small differences are irrelevant.
James T. Kirk once said that we are "a bit of flesh and blood afloat in a universe without end. The only thing that's truly yours is the rest of humanity". Hopefully one day we'll accept that.

Shakatany

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