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Post by Smithee on May 25, 2012 10:52:23 GMT 10
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Post by Smithee on May 25, 2012 10:53:09 GMT 10
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Post by Smithee on May 25, 2012 10:54:00 GMT 10
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Post by Smithee on May 25, 2012 13:23:40 GMT 10
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Post by Smithee on May 25, 2012 14:37:18 GMT 10
It is often said that with increased international travel the world is getting smaller and people point to the phenomenon of globalisation as a factor in reducing cultural and linguistic diversity. Airports, shopping centres and media outlets are increasingly seen to be alike across the globe. While there is some truth to this view, we need to consider how all civilizations have always reached out beyond their boarders and we can even trace intercontinental, prehistoric trade routes. For example, Australian aborigines, long thought to be the most isolate peoples on earth, had links (Songlines) criss-crossing their entire island-continent and had trading links with the Makassans and other islanders from what is now Indonesia and with the Torres Straight islanders, who in turn had cultural links with the peoples of Polynesia and with the most culturally peoples of all, in what became Papua New Guinea (over a thousand different cultural groups and nearly as many languages). Just as no “race” is entirely homogenous, no culture has ever been totally isolated and I simply cannot see how one can confidently assume that any cultural trait is necessarily “home-grown.” That said, no one has yet shown an innate cultural universal. Given the influence of other cultures, the lack of universals is, in and of itself, remarkable. "The great attraction of cultural anthropology in the past was precisely that it seemed to offer such a richness of independent natural experiments; but unfortunately it is now clear that there has been a great deal of historical continuity and exchange among those "independent" experiments, most of which have felt the strong effect of contact with societies organized as modern states." - Richard Lewontin
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Post by Smithee on May 25, 2012 19:50:53 GMT 10
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Post by Smithee on May 25, 2012 20:08:06 GMT 10
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Post by Smithee on May 25, 2012 20:29:17 GMT 10
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Post by maximus on May 26, 2012 4:20:38 GMT 10
How much longer are you going to beat this very dead horse? I think the point was made four pages ago.
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Post by Smithee on May 26, 2012 10:58:28 GMT 10
How much longer are you going to beat this very dead horse? I think the point was made four pages ago. I guess that depends on the point you think was made and whether or not you and others accept it.
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