Is "Culture" the Worst Enemy to Human Evolution?

[rayvio]

cultures tend to have both positive and negative aspects. obviously the best thing to do is to keep the good and ditch the bad... if only we could all agree on which are which

sometimes culture identity and traditions get in the way of progress. it takes time but eventually those traditions tend to break down and society moves on. most of what we're left with in the end is, if not useful, at least not detrimental. would it be better if these things happened faster? probably. but forcing it by imposing our culture on outsiders more often creates problems rather than fixing them

[Miracle Mira]

You do realize that, by answering in such a way in that context, you do imply an inherent link between race/nationality and cultural values that can be problematic, yes? People of other races and nationalities can have the same cultural values you have, yet you call it healthy to treat them that way anyhow?

Nationalism is mainly caused by problems that is cultural in origin though. We don't particularly like the Russian minority in my home country as a result of this. They're the same race and nationality as us but their culture differs.

[Ghostpanther]

The US has a lot of different cultures and we are doing just fine. Perfect and without problems? Of course not. But overall, never been a better time to be alive. I do not want to live in any other country in the world. One issue we do have is a ton of people wanting to come here so bad, they are willing to risk life and limb to get here, illegally. That should say something.

[The Scourge of Azuremyst]

The US has a lot of different cultures and we are doing just fine. Perfect and without problems? Of course not. But overall, never been a better time to be alive. I do not want to live in any other country in the world. One issue we do have is a ton of people wanting to come here so bad, they are willing to risk life and limb to get here, illegally. That should say something.

Not really, the nigga ghetto culture is a huge threat to your society.

[Infraction]

[igualitarist]

Tradition is the enemy of progress, not culture.

Doing or celebrating things simply because we've always done it that way is flagrantly stupid.

There are traditions that still make sense, and traditions that don't make sense anymore. Protecting traditions for the sake of traditions is bad and hinders progress, but protecting traditions that are still useful for society is good and necessary to keep a society cohesive and stable.

[PC2]

Tradition is the enemy of progress, not culture.

Doing or celebrating things simply because we've always done it that way is flagrantly stupid.

Yes except for traditions like democracy and free speech. Which are necessary traditions for progress.

Its impossible for entire countries to give up their nationality...so how would we go about it?
Keep our names? Keep our borders?

Nations and borders will be around for a long time, at least until every place is a full liberal democracy and each place has relatively similar welfare policies.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Over the entirety of human evolution, we have gone from miniature tribal lifestyle, to tribes in a region sharing many cultural standards uniting and forming small countries. Then from there, those countries were either conquered by other countries and absorbed, or they willingly joined with other countries to make larger countries.

Anyone who knows the history of the countries you see on the global map today (especially Europe and Asia) will know that there were many many many many smaller countries hundreds, even thousands of years ago, and smaller countries have slowly been swallowed into larger countries, whether by conquering or for living under a banner of unified protection.

There are some exceptions to this, where certain countries split because of ideological differences (See: Korea) but the general trend throughout the world has been the dissolution of borders. And even today, the "globalization" that many people fear is that with mass transit available on a global scale, and a global economy having risen in the last 100 years, we are now seeing a world where borders are starting to mean less and less.

A global culture is forming, each country retains its own unique identity, but the way countries conduct daily business and go about their culture is becoming more and more the same across the globe. While some are trying to reject this global culture, it is seeping into their countries drop by drop. People see the lifestyle improvements being made by developed nations and pushing their governments for things ever more closer to the global "norm".

Of course the more conservative viewpoints will always be the absolute preservation of their culture with no compromise, but they're fighting a losing fight. After all, throughout history there have been dissenting voices to unification with other countries, and they've almost always lost. That or massive monocultural monoliths will fall due to internal pressures, and be absorbed by other countries. Do I think this is what should happen? /shrugs I don't really have a vested interest either way. It's just history and human nature.

[Kiri]

Nationalism is mainly caused by problems that is cultural in origin though. We don't particularly like the Russian minority in my home country as a result of this. They're the same race and nationality as us but their culture differs.

Some nationalism is not a big issue tbh. You just replied to someone that was specifically talking about nationalism that turns into racism and willingness to hurt others, so naturally I assumed you mean that when you call it healthy.

[Thelxi]

I think of culture and tradition as the counterweight to progressive activism and progressive change overall. If anything culture has always been a vital part of progress, and it makes sense that progress occurs not from the ideas of one person or a single group of people, but through debate and compromise, which probably is how we got out of caves and into skyscrapers to begin with.

[Theodarzna]

Hello everyone
I would like to ask you if you (also) think our need to extremely protect our "culture" and pride of our country IS the worst enemy preventing the next step for human evolution.

I completely agree our past is VERY important...but to me is just so we can LEARN from both our successes and failures.
Otherwise...culture is not your friend.
This is made pretty clear if you were born in a "wrong" country.
But even if you were born in the "right" country, with decent human rights and decent freedom...culture is not your friend when used as a means to dictate:
-Who you are
-Who you should or shouldnt be
-With who should you interact with
-What should you like and dislike

When is used as a means to differenciate ourselves from other human beings...culture is absolutely not your friend.
It even uses and abuses you sometimes by corporations and companies.

-------

I have a couple questions:

If the World would eventually "unite"...what do you think would happen with the cultures?
Its impossible for entire countries to give up their nationality...so how would we go about it?
Keep our names? Keep our borders?

Erasing the borders would be a sign of evolution BUT it will never happen So is culture our worst enemy?

I guess the true question is:
"How should we keep all the good in our culture, while at the same time get rid of the culture-chains preventing us from moving forward"

No,...

First, evolution is a biological adaptive process to the environment.

Second, there is no objective cosmic reason for unification on the planet Earth. There are people who treat scifi like Star Trek being akin to the book of revelations and coloring how they think the future MUST look.

Third, Erasing borders isn't evolution, that is a mundane ideological and political decision, not some biological change.

[Miracle Mira]

Some nationalism is not a big issue tbh. You just replied to someone that was specifically talking about nationalism that turns into racism and willingness to hurt others, so naturally I assumed you mean that when you call it healthy.

I even bolded the part I was taking specific issue with. Considering people inferior due to their cultural values is completely fine.

[Bodakane]

Yes except for traditions like democracy and free speech. Which are necessary traditions for progress..

You don't get to reinvent words.

Democracy is not a tradition.
Free speech is not a tradition.

[Shadowferal]

I would like to ask you if you (also) think our need to extremely protect our "culture" and pride of our country IS the worst enemy preventing the next step for human evolution.

Evolution and Progress are two very different things.

[Teleros]

You don't get to reinvent words.

Democracy is not a tradition.
Free speech is not a tradition.

Well... you can have a tradition of free speech, or democracy, or whatever in a country.

[Demolitia]

Hello everyone
I would like to ask you if you (also) think our need to extremely protect our "culture" and pride of our country IS the worst enemy preventing the next step for human evolution.

I completely agree our past is VERY important...but to me is just so we can LEARN from both our successes and failures.
Otherwise...culture is not your friend.
This is made pretty clear if you were born in a "wrong" country.
But even if you were born in the "right" country, with decent human rights and decent freedom...culture is not your friend when used as a means to dictate:
-Who you are
-Who you should or shouldnt be
-With who should you interact with
-What should you like and dislike

When is used as a means to differenciate ourselves from other human beings...culture is absolutely not your friend.
It even uses and abuses you sometimes by corporations and companies.

-------

I have a couple questions:

If the World would eventually "unite"...what do you think would happen with the cultures?
Its impossible for entire countries to give up their nationality...so how would we go about it?
Keep our names? Keep our borders?

Erasing the borders would be a sign of evolution BUT it will never happen So is culture our worst enemy?

I guess the true question is:
"How should we keep all the good in our culture, while at the same time get rid of the culture-chains preventing us from moving forward"

You are mixing up 2 things. Evolution as a slow and long biological process, and "culture" as you put it, which can mean different things.
I don't think you'll see "culture", whichever definition of it you want to use, affect the biological evolutionary process of humanity that much in our lifetimes, if at all (humans haven't changed that much since the beginnings of civilization) unless we blow up the planet. Life expectancy has increased, some people got taller, some fatter, but that's mostly down to nutrition.
One aspect of your question is interesting, namely what happens to culture in a more open world, but you need to specify what "culture" is. If it is the ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society, then yes, big chunks of it would disappear, but probably for the best. Sharing of knowledge and science usually helps getting rid of shitty beliefs and barbaric tribal practices. Most antique religions and beliefs disappeared, their biggest myths and celebrations were absorbed into the big monotheist religions we have today. It's not a great solution, but it's better than having a 5 different sets of beliefs in every western countries. Midwinter/Yule conveniently became Christmas, the spring reveling conveniently became Easter.
So on that ground we've made progress.
If your definition is the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively, then an open world definitely helps break the barrier of bias and cutting through the crap.

At the end of the day, you are making the mistake of looking at both evolution and culture through a very narrow time frame. Evolution is something that happened over billions of years. Culture has survived and evolved tremendously from the early days of humanity. It's just my opinion, but the wealth of information and wisdom we have gained by people from different backgrounds sharing their way of looking at things vastly offsets the languages, food, and unfounded beliefs we lost in the process.
Until 1539, France had 50 different dialects and the language we speak now was foreign to most of the population. Most of it was lost because it was not put down in writing. Is it a tremendous lost if you are a linguist specialized in archaic french dialects? Maybe. Has humanity as whole suffered at this loss of "culture"? Probably quite the opposite.
I think a more open civilization just helps cutting through the crap. The good stuff will be absorbed, the bad stuff will be dismissed. Some diversity will be lost, which is sad, but mostly in the process and interest of "cultural evolution".
It's also worth noting that it's much easier today to document everything than it was even 100 years ago. God/Odin knows what we lost in the last 3000 years. I still think our greatest scientific/philosophical achievements are much more recent and significant than the ancient stuff we lost.

[Stormspellz]

"culture" is such an open ended ambiguous concept but, religion on the other hand is the answer to the topic question.

[Demolitia]

"culture" is such an open ended ambiguous concept but, religion on the other hand is the answer to the topic question.

That, or Blame Canada.

[Big Thanks]

You are mixing up 2 things. Evolution as a slow and long biological process, and "culture" as you put it, which can mean different things.
I don't think you'll see "culture", whichever definition of it you want to use, affect the biological evolutionary process of humanity that much in our lifetimes, if at all (humans haven't changed that much since the beginnings of civilization) unless we blow up the planet. Life expectancy has increased, some people got taller, some fatter, but that's mostly down to nutrition.
One aspect of your question is interesting, namely what happens to culture in a more open world, but you need to specify what "culture" is. If it is the ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society, then yes, big chunks of it would disappear, but probably for the best. Sharing of knowledge and science usually helps getting rid of shitty beliefs and barbaric tribal practices. Most antique religions and beliefs disappeared, their biggest myths and celebrations were absorbed into the big monotheist religions we have today. It's not a great solution, but it's better than having a 5 different sets of beliefs in every western countries. Midwinter/Yule conveniently became Christmas, the spring reveling conveniently became Easter.
So on that ground we've made progress.
If your definition is the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively, then an open world definitely helps break the barrier of bias and cutting through the crap.

At the end of the day, you are making the mistake of looking at both evolution and culture through a very narrow time frame. Evolution is something that happened over billions of years. Culture has survived and evolved tremendously from the early days of humanity. It's just my opinion, but the wealth of information and wisdom we have gained by people from different backgrounds sharing their way of looking at things vastly offsets the languages, food, and unfounded beliefs we lost in the process.
Until 1539, France had 50 different dialects and the language we speak now was foreign to most of the population. Most of it was lost because it was not put down in writing. Is it a tremendous lost if you are a linguist specialized in archaic french dialects? Maybe. Has humanity as whole suffered at this loss of "culture"? Probably quite the opposite.
I think a more open civilization just helps cutting through the crap. The good stuff will be absorbed, the bad stuff will be dismissed. Some diversity will be lost, which is sad, but mostly in the process and interest of "cultural evolution".
It's also worth noting that it's much easier today to document everything than it was even 100 years ago. God/Odin knows what we lost in the last 3000 years. I still think our greatest scientific/philosophical achievements are much more recent and significant than the ancient stuff we lost.

I guess, for my argument to make any sense, one must see "evolution of mankind" as the "unification" of the countries.
Which im not educated enough to figure out if its true or not.
Sounds good on paper, but, right now, its impossible. Obviously.

But considering "unification" is the answer...its impossible to completely unite with another country...because we all want to preserve our culture.
So even if we unite...there must ALWAYS be a separation from the 2 countries uniting.
Quite the conundrum...

[Doctor Amadeus]

Depends on the culture if it's one of greed, racism, sexism and homophobia then yes. Otherwise if a culture can find an equilibrium with it's environment then no.

[Demolitia]

I guess, for my argument to make any sense, one must see "evolution of mankind" as the "unification" of the countries.
Which im not educted enough to figure out if its true or not.
Sounds good on paper, but, right now, its impossible. Obviously.

But considering "unification" is the answer...its impossible to completely unite with another country...because we all want to preserve our culture.
So even if we unite...there must ALWAYS be a separation from the 2 countries uniting.
Quite the conundrum...

I don't think it is impossible. You're just looking at two vastly different things, with vastly different time spans, from a very narrow point of view.
Life on earth appeared 4.4 billion years ago and we've come a long way from simple amino-acids to what we have today. Human civilization started 200.000 years ago if you're generous.
it might seem complicated and unlikely now, but we've come a long way from disconnected tribes and even species to what we are today.
Just look at this to get an idea of how things have changed in Europe in the last 1000 years, and how cultures have crossed, partly obliterating and partly enriching each other. Notice what a clusterfuck Italy and Germany were in the middle of the video. Is there anything to lament culturally today? Or have they evolved differently than the rest? If anything we have all influenced each other in the science, music, philosophy, poetry, literature etc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjWVFZ5e_vo