The questioning of Flowers

[Rachel]

No not roses.. but that of the author : Stephan Edred Flowers

I have a couple of points and question i would like to pose on this particular author but because i am slightly lazy i will only post one question tonight and do other later :)


First Question : The author ( Flowers) talks about tradition :

" Tradition is that which has been handed down from time immemorial along various pathway's: genetic, mythic,linguistic and material. The subject, i.e the doer; of this kind of action must discover the tradition, myth and school to which he or she belongs, this is not a "choice" in the sense of being something that is entirely arbitrary, it is a realization of a truth. Once this authentic choice has been made, which can just as easily be seen as "election"by some aspect of that tradition, one can never go back or waver from the implications of that realization." - TYR 2002 pg 19

Now for the question : If tradition as according to the author is passed down, in our blood line ( genetic) , in the words we speak and is also in the material items we keep from generation to generation then can people from america even rightly know what our connection to tradition and thus what culture we belong to?

I only bring this up due to the serious attempt by americans to disconnect from their original land and language of one's ancestors, when people migrate here from other countries it is often a wide practice to "become american." thus losing all connections to ones original land, culture and way of life, and america does a splendid job of making sure we get rid of just that! we make it look un cool and un-American if one does not adopt the language of the country that was founded by Englishers so thus we support the "throwing away of other cultures when people come here... but yet we call our selves the melting pot? "

on the other hand of that token is the small group of people in the USA who proclaim that everyone who enters into our country should learn english ( i fully support this by the way so i am one of them.. feel free to criticize ) so then i should like to bring up the notion that any american that does not fully know of ones own heritage and yet lives here in america has no
ancestry nor any right to claim northern european as our culture.


So really it would seem that the only people who have any way of truly knowing about their culture and their ancestors are current northern europeans who live,speak, and have items from their country of residency.

so Americans... are fucked ? thats my conclusion we butchered every Northern tie we had to Northern europe because it was Un-American...


this actually may get me blocked...


Edit : id like to take a moment and suggest that what flowers says are pathways are really all inter connected... if you do not know your language... then the book that you have that holds myths and stories of your ancestors is useless.. pretty much making it a paper weight and nothing more.. thus making you not care and have no pride in your culture which then connects to traditions being handed down from generation to generation all because you did not or care not to learn the language of your ancestors.

[Lady L]

So, whats the question again ..? :)

[Rachel]

If tradition as according to the author is passed down, in our blood line ( genetic) , in the words we speak and is also in the material items we keep from generation to generation then can people from america even rightly know what our connection to tradition and thus what culture we belong to?


this is the first question

[Lady L]

If tradition as according to the author is passed down, in our blood line ( genetic) , in the words we speak and is also in the material items we keep from generation to generation then can people from america even rightly know what our connection to tradition and thus what culture we belong to?


this is the first question

Well I may not answer this the way you want but I'm going to say if tradition was passed down genetically and through blood lines how would it be lost ..? It doesn't seem like it could be.

I'm not sure I understand how tradition has anything to do with genetics. Tradition is something we learn from our family, because it was passed to them. It is something important to the family, it is a learned act that is carried out.


can people from america even rightly know what our connection to tradition and thus what culture we belong to?

Well, Americans coming from mixed parents may not get a true grip on what their culture/tradition is ...they always seem confused as to what they should be. Some white Americans might also be missing this just because it wasn't taught to them, or their parents, and may be unimportant to them.

Again, the question is one with depth and its just confusing to me. How could something that is " genetic " be lost ..? I don't buy that.

And, why do you ask " can people from America " ..? Because we are from other countries you mean ..? If that is why you ask then how can someone from Norway but now lives in America know their traditions ..? Because it is in their hearts and it means something to them. Its their will. :)

[Rainraven]

If tradition as according to the author is passed down, in our blood line ( genetic) , in the words we speak and is also in the material items we keep from generation to generation then can people from america even rightly know what our connection to tradition and thus what culture we belong to?

Well firstly there seems to be a need here to distinguish between culture and ethnicity.

America does have a culture in its own respect. That is the one which you are meant to pick up when you arrive. Having not been there I cannot say that I would understand it but it would include things, as you have suggested, like speaking English.

American is not per say an 'ethnicity'. This is where colonialism confuses everything. Whereby it has created a culture from multiple ethnicities that satisfies no one.

It seems Americans options would be to jump into the Melting Pot and take hold of 'Americanism', or to try and hold onto the culture of their ancestors, as is known from their ethnicity. Be this the passing on of stories, learning the language of your forefathers or simply the heathen gift of hospitality and love for ones brothers (and sisters). I believe an attitude like "Americans are fucked" is a poor one to take, I'd imagine that you exclude yourself from that broad geranlisation so why apply it to the other Americans on the board?

[Rachel]

I feel that while it is in our blood, some of our parents have stoped caring about the traditions that we need to pass down from generation to generation in order for them to continue, you can't have a real undertanding of your culture and the traditions that happen in that culutre from looking at your blood. It needs to be taught and appericated to and by the younger generations. It simply is not enough to have a blood connection.

My grandparents were ashamed of their background when they came here and so my mother and thus myself never learned the language of my ancestors and never had a true apperication for my culture and so i learned of my culture through the eyes of others and at times it was not very postive outlook. Now today it is possible to learn to speak german and to do research on one's ancestors but while this will help it does not for my personally cover it, there is a real sigfinance to hearing the stories of my elders and ancestors from thoese older then me and in the native tounge it has a such a strong connection if it is passed down from generation to generation, not from computer to generation.

it's a bit diffcult to fully understand how the above quote from the article can by understood without the full article. so i can't expect everyone to understand without having fully read the article.

[Rachel]

and as for exclusion of americans i am posing the question.. i have no made up my mind yet as to whether i even have any right to claim a culutre and a tradition that i only have a connection to by blood... is that enough ?

[Lady L]

and as for exclusion of americans i am posing the question.. i have no made up my mind yet as to whether i even have any right to claim a culutre and a tradition that i only have a connection to by blood... is that enough ?

Is that enough..? :p

If your German by blood and Irish by blood and you want to know more about these things, but you want to shrug off the American by blood...:confused:

[Rainraven]

and as for exclusion of americans i am posing the question.. i have no made up my mind yet as to whether i even have any right to claim a culutre and a tradition that i only have a connection to by blood... is that enough ?

As opposed to what? Claiming a culture you have no connection to? Having no culture? :confused:

[Rachel]

... if i am german by blood but am two generations behind since coming to this country what then of my children and their children ...? they will be farther still from having a truer understanding of being northern european becasue they will undoubtly be born here in America, so they will be more american then german ...

i have another quote that may help support the orginal question: " The deep and subtle malarise of the mordern world has it's roots in disintergration and promotes it at every turn, such rootlessness is marketed under noble terms like 'Freedom' and 'indivual rights' but once the tree has been up rooted and killed by the on slaught of progressive modernism, and by the time thoese living in the tree have reailzed what has happened in the name of 'individual freedom' it is already to late....." Pgs 20-21 TYR vol 1 2002

with how much uprootedness America has within it ,it almost seems that the author claims that their is no way to reconnect to the original at least in it's enterity. We can only partily reconnect to our roots and thus to our heritage.

[Aemma]

I have this article myself and will re-read it now just to familiarise myself with Flowers' premise a bit more before I jump in. I get what you are saying and going with this though Rachel BUT all is not lost though imo. You can still pass on your roots, traditions etc. But I'll come back to this. Let me get a fresh cup of coffee, skim the Flowers article and I'll come back. :)

[SuuT]

There are a few things to consider with respct to the posed question(s). Not the least of which is the consideration of how culture forms, and is spread (i.e. the anagenesis, genesis, and subsequent etho-genesis of culture, insofar as culture and ethnicity overlap).

A good analogy is that culture is grown vegetatively (i.e. there need not necessarily be a 'seed', if you will), and then spreads by way of stolon. With that said, people can be up-lifted out of their indigenous placement, set in a different and alien location, have there culture next to obliterated; and, given enough time, their blood will out. The reason being, that it was the individual all along that was the matter - the carrier of what his or her forebears did for millenia (the anagenetic factor of culture).


If you divide a clump of daylillies and stick them on the other side of the yard, you get daylillies on the other side of the yard.




(I just realised that all of my metaphors are about vegetable matter....damn Flowers...)

[Aemma]

Ok back...and I just read SuuTie's post there as well. Well as usual, SuuTie has brilliantly captured the essence of Flowers' thesis with an emphasis on Flowers' first point of departure, that of "ethnic culture" being "the literal incarnation (embodiment of culture)"--SuuTie's clump of daylilies as it were. :)

Flowers makes the argument that yes, the modern world has led to a disintegration of culture and subsequently to a disintegration of Self. BUT as he is quick to state, not all is lost since he offers us a model for regaining an integral culture and therefore the reacquisition of an authentic Self.

According to Flowers it is in the cyclical and reiterative exercise of the identification of culture into its constituent parts, which he has labelled a) ethnic, 2) ethical, 3) linguistic, and 4) material, that leads to the reformulation of Self into a "culturally authentic man." (p.11) Ethnic culture relates to the physical and corporeal aspect of culture, people begetting children and continuing this cycle of life, which becomes quite literally the "bodily vehicle for culture to manifest itself" (p. 13). In this category also falls the notion of ancestry, as not something symbolic, but tangible "constitut a sort of cultural hyper-body." (p. 13) From this ethnic culture emanates [I]ethical culture, what Flowers calls the "archaic link between biology and ideas" (p. 13) as found in that culture's symbolism with respect to ideologies, structures, patterns, myths and meta-narratives. This link between ethnic and ethical culture finds most of its manifestations in linguistic culture and material culture, the last two constituent parts of culture, the former having to do with language, the coded forms of communication and meta-communication, and the latter having to do with produced objects, the tangible expression of culture. For Flowers, these four basic categories of culture are dynamic in their interplay; one cannot exist without the other three since all four feed off of one another in a true symbiotic process.

Set against this backdrop, Flowers makes the following assertion:

In our current state of cultural fragmentation, this sense of the integrated nature of culture has been lost. The root cause of this fragmentation should also be apparent. One of the most effective ways in which to revolt against the modern world is to undertake the (re)integration of culture, to realise a personal and cultural synthesis [his italics]--or "bringing together"--of the various categories of culture. In order to undertak this revolt, one must begin with one's self. (p. 14)

Flowers also indicates that although the process towards cultural re-integration begins from within the Self, it is set within the parameters of inter-human contact. (p. 16) In effect this means that "no man is an island" but has connections to (a) past, present and future--in essence a history--all determined by his relation to other people of his culture, in so much as the term "history" here means "a synthetic view of myths, structures, and ideas as well as various events viewed over time" or, more simply, history seen as narratives, "mythology recast in a secular mode." (p. 17)

In this context, Flowers offers the following technique of imprinting cultural codes on the conscious mind as a method for regaining one's cultural integral Self:

On a personal, individual, level it is the task of the practitioner of integral culture to discover and then to harmonize the contents of his body, brain (mind), tongue (language) and his deeds or daily actions. Each part of life takes its cue from another integral part of that multidimensional life. The body contains a code which bars the essntial story of all of one's ancestors. One's cultural myths articulate these, and these nyths are re-encoded in actual tales expressed in often archaic languages. These codes bear the blueprint for inner action which can lead the individual back to an integrated state of being. (p. 16)

Flowers also argues that it is in this process of self-reflection that one can find one's own true cultural authenticity. One cannot wish to be part of a culture--one has to come to the deep realisation of one's self-truth by examining one's traditions. There is no room for arbitrary choices. You either are something or you're not. And it is only from this point of personal authenticity that one can then work towards cultural authenticity through interactions "with others within the same school or tradition [who] have similarly discovred their authentic path." (p. 20)

Flowers uses a very pointed concept, that of the individual being "part of a [I]stream of culture" (p. 20). Once we accept the notion that we, as individuals, are the corporeal element, the bodily vessel of culture if you will, then we can easily see that culture can be transplanted to other soil (that is to other lands). It behooves us though to continue to know ourselves and, to follow in SuuT's horticultural footsteps, to preserve not only our genus but our various cultures' species as well, even if saome of us are hybrid mixes.

Ok I'll end it here for now...will want to come back and add on later, more than likely.

Very thought-provoking thread Rachel. Thanks. :thumb001:

[Rachel]

Ill respond to the above post when work is over... so in about two hours.. but for right now id like to say that the TYR books are so full of important and life changing information that i will make it a point to milk every article for everything it's got.

[SwordoftheVistula]

the American by blood

You can't really be 'American by blood', aside from citizenship legalities. If an American married someone from Australia and moved there, their children would just be Australian and not '1/2 American', and then their children '1/4 American' and so on.




they will undoubtly be born here in America, so they will be more american then german ...

You can be both, without effect on either. One is an ethnic (bloodline) identity regardless of geographic location, the other is a geographic location (local culture) identity not strictly dependent on ethnicity.

[Rachel]

You can't really be 'American by blood', aside from citizenship legalities. If an American married someone from Australia and moved there, their children would just be Australian and not '1/2 American', and then their children '1/4 American' and so on.





You can be both, without effect on either. One is an ethnic (bloodline) identity regardless of geographic location, the other is a geographic location (local culture) identity not strictly dependent on ethnicity.
that seems to make more sense never thought of it that way thank you for clearing that up.

[Osweo]

You can't really be 'American by blood', aside from citizenship legalities. If an American married someone from Australia and moved there, their children would just be Australian and not '1/2 American', and then their children '1/4 American' and so on.
Maybe I should hold my tongue as an outsider, but what you say does have an impact on outside communities (of similar racial stock, of course).
My sister has a friend who we don't hesitate to call 'half American'. He looks a bit funny, and has a German name. He spends some time over there, and has a broader than English bank of behaviour and culture to draw on. Just because he's white and Germanic doesn't mean that being born here makes him one of us, even with half his blood being of us. His kids would be English, if he married into us, with an American grandad. That's my gut feeling on the lad's personal case. Is that ethnic? We-ell... Not far off it, at least.

It's interesting who you are, and who Mrs. L is that you're refuting. As I understand it (again, forgive the outsider!) more people down in Alabama call themselves 'American' ethnically, and their blend is older and more 'stabilised' than up in the north where things have been a little more disturbed. Is that fair? Thus, she thinks that American IS a blood thing now for her family, while you're more reticent. Her kin are mostly or completely British Isles, yes? While you have later German infusions, no? All things being well (too much to hope, I fear) you might be in the same boat in a generation or two.

You can be both, without effect on either. One is an ethnic (bloodline) identity regardless of geographic location, the other is a geographic location (local culture) identity not strictly dependent on ethnicity.
You're missing out a major thing there (I know you were hardly trying to be encyclopaedic, but even so!); the shared 'story'. You've lived through a lot of historical experiences that are now part of you. Individually, and as a family. That is what makes your behaviour and attitudes, as I see it.

You seem to be concentrating on genealogical data rather than more subjective feelings. Being around 13/32 Irish, would you call that an important part of my ethnicity? I'd call it more 'ancestry' really. Ethnically, I often just say I'm English, and not too many quiz it, unless my surname comes up and even then most people don't care much.

AND RACHEL!
Don't worry about it too much! You Americans are not TOO different in your situation to many Europeans who've lived through the disruption of the last two centuries. I'm almost as cut off from my old peasant culture as you are, being a resident of a major post industrial Cotton town. As for Heathenism, I'm easily as separated from that time as you are. We have almost as much research to do as you.

I can see that being mostly German makes matters different, not being from a country that spoke English. There is a real cutting off there. But at least there's the Germanic commonality to help you identify with a wider (meta-)ethnic identity. Go back 200 years and you're faced with identity problems, but go back 2000 and you're fine! :P

What would I do in your position? :mmmm: Perhaps throw myself into trying to be simply 'American', or create a 'German American' thing, adding what I could learn from books and so on to fill where I felt there were gaps in the generic 'American' idea. There's a lot more I meant to write, but I've been putting this jumble together for about an hour already, you can probably tell! Time to click 'submit', for better or worse! :thumb001:

[RoyBatty]

Well firstly there seems to be a need here to distinguish between culture and ethnicity.

America does have a culture in its own respect.


It's a big place... it has many different cultures :)



That is the one which you are meant to pick up when you arrive. Having not been there I cannot say that I would understand it but it would include things, as you have suggested, like speaking English.


Or Spanish :-P



American is not per say an 'ethnicity'. This is where colonialism confuses everything. Whereby it has created a culture from multiple ethnicities that satisfies no one.


Yeah, it's the great big melting pot. To some extent the media propaganda about the "American Nation" succeeds but there are many significant groups who don't quite buy into it all....

[RoyBatty]

and as for exclusion of americans i am posing the question.. i have no made up my mind yet as to whether i even have any right to claim a culutre and a tradition that i only have a connection to by blood... is that enough ?

Just be yourself

[SwordoftheVistula]

My sister has a friend who we don't hesitate to call 'half American'. He looks a bit funny, and has a German name. He spends some time over there, and has a broader than English bank of behaviour and culture to draw on. Just because he's white and Germanic doesn't mean that being born here makes him one of us, even with half his blood being of us. His kids would be English, if he married into us, with an American grandad. That's my gut feeling on the lad's personal case. Is that ethnic? We-ell... Not far off it, at least.

That's more like you calling yourself 'Mancurian' even though you live elsewhere. In a similar vein, I would be a 'Californian' by birth, though actually I am more a mix of cultures from the northeast of the US since that is where I've lived most of my life, the people I'm around, etc.


It's interesting who you are, and who Mrs. L is that you're refuting. As I understand it (again, forgive the outsider!) more people down in Alabama call themselves 'American' ethnically, and their blend is older and more 'stabilised' than up in the north where things have been a little more disturbed. Is that fair? Thus, she thinks that American IS a blood thing now for her family, while you're more reticent. Her kin are mostly or completely British Isles, yes? While you have later German infusions, no?

Yes, it is differ by region. The South was formed of a melting pot of peoples from around the British isles, who settled the area in the early 19th century (the expansions west of the Appalachians were mainly from already settled people east of the Appalachians rather than direct from the British Isles), and there was essentially no migration into the area afterwards until very recently.

In contrast, the midwest and west was settled throughout the 19th century largely by people from Germany, and the northeast by a patchwork of ethnic groups, first the English (referred to themselves as 'Yankees', 'WASPs' etc), then later ethnic groups such as Italians, Poles, Irish, French Canadians, and Portuguese.



All things being well (too much to hope, I fear) you might be in the same boat in a generation or two.

It's already changed. As late as 50 years ago, people got married mainly within their own ethnic group, Irish Catholic/English marriages were still a big no-no, even though the English had lived in the US for 3 centuries by that point. My Italian friends have told me that in their grandparents time, they were expected not just to marry other Italians, but a family originating from the same part of Italy.

It also is effected on who you are defining yourselves against. In the south, things were quite literally 'black and white', in the north it was more 'Americans' (Yankee English in New England, people primarily derived from Germany in the Midwest) in contrast to 'white ethnics' from Catholic parts of Europe.

Religion also was a factor, in the South the Southern Baptist church being a unifying factor mainly, in the North hanging onto the religions brought over from Europe such as Catholic, Anglican (Episcopalian), Presbyterian, Lutheran playing a large role in keeping the ethnicities seperate. This may have been more of a result than a cause though.



You seem to be concentrating on genealogical data rather than more subjective feelings. Being around 13/32 Irish, would you call that an important part of my ethnicity? I'd call it more 'ancestry' really. Ethnically, I often just say I'm English, and not too many quiz it, unless my surname comes up and even then most people don't care much.

In your case, you are 2/3 English, live in England, and English has contained a large celtic component, so I don't see anything wrong with you just identifying as 'English'.

[YggsVinr]

I only bring this up due to the serious attempt by americans to disconnect from their original land and language of one's ancestors, when people migrate here from other countries it is often a wide practice to "become american." thus losing all connections to ones original land, culture and way of life, and america does a splendid job of making sure we get rid of just that! we make it look un cool and un-American if one does not adopt the language of the country that was founded by Englishers so thus we support the "throwing away of other cultures when people come here... but yet we call our selves the melting pot? "

So really it would seem that the only people who have any way of truly knowing about their culture and their ancestors are current northern europeans who live,speak, and have items from their country of residency.

so Americans... are fucked ? thats my conclusion we butchered every Northern tie we had to Northern europe because it was Un-American...

Edit : id like to take a moment and suggest that what flowers says are pathways are really all inter connected... if you do not know your language... then the book that you have that holds myths and stories of your ancestors is useless.. pretty much making it a paper weight and nothing more.. thus making you not care and have no pride in your culture which then connects to traditions being handed down from generation to generation all because you did not or care not to learn the language of your ancestors.

What you have to realise is that whether Canadian or American we still possess some tidbits of our ancestral culture, probably moreso than many realise. Even if your parents or grandparents don't speak their ancestral language, see if you can get any old stories out of them, recipes and so on. Sometimes they themselves will not realise that a certain story or folktale is actually an Americanized version of an older version. Even if you don't speak the language of your ancestors (which you can easily learn) you can undertake to discover which regions they came from, local folklore, histories and other traditions. You can also try going to live in the region of your ancestors for a while to try to immerse yourself in it. What you also have to understand is that the traditional culture we've been passed on as North Americans of European descent is one that is likely no longer as prevalent in the region of its origin, and that in many respects we are the inheritors of dying traditions from the fatherland.

Those living in the colonies are by no means "fucked", you just have to do your research, think critically, ask the right questions, and dig deep. Pennsylvanian Germans still have a rich culture, same with the Acadians, and I'm sure the Irish all around America have still retained some of their ancestral culture whether they realise it or not. If your parents or grandparents have nothing to offer (which seems unlikely) then you can always seek out a community within your nation that does, which there most certainly are. While its difficult to ever be apart of a cultural community you weren't born into, you can still study the culture so that you might eventually act as a conduit for future generations. If you plan on having children, while you have not been born into the community that doesn't mean that they can't be.

[Lulletje Rozewater]

Dear Mr. Flowers.
Had I filled myself with all you know,what room should I have for all that you do not know.


:Flowers----- They are afraid of the resurgence of Indo-European culture. They have intellectually invested in the idea that internationalism is good and that anything that glorifies the non-European world is preferable to anything that seems to lend prestige to European culture. All of this is so ironic because the ideals from which they draw are entirely of European origin. Nevertheless, as a matter of ideology, but probably more as a matter of an intellectual fashion trend, the academic establishment frowns on anything that they see as “glorifying” the European culture. They would probably argue that their reasons for this vaguely have something to do with Germany in the 1930s. In conversations with German academics in runology I discovered that the same things are happening at German universities now as happened in American ones in the 1980s and 1990s – anything relating to ancient or medieval northern Europe is being dismantled.

You call it internationalism,I call it globilazation.
This is wrong from the perspective of European history.
You call it runology I call it stone throwing.
You call it dismantling I call it silence before the storm.
Do you wish us to go back to Rosicrucian Societies finding a mysterious substance that would transmute base metals into gold from human semen.
Do you want all males to masturbate in an effort to attempt a transmutation.
It does not need an Einstein to vilify runology of the past.
History is fine,culture is fine,but do not preach the obvious under the banner of runology.
Must we religiously follow the worth of Homo Erectus of old and forget the evolution into Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
There is no turning back,there is adaption or die.
If you think a clay doll or wax image is supposedly given the inner qualities of a European culture by means of some ceremonial observance of runology and in some way mystically linked with modern times and anything that affects its past affects its future in a similar way,then my dear Flowers,pick a June lily(Lilith) under a waning moon,soak it in laurel juice and bury it in dung.Worms will breed therein.Dry them and scatter on your enemies-the Academic Establishment-,and when you wake up from a bad dream, you will see yourself sitting at a breakfast table in the 21st Century with a Rosary in your hands




Flowers:--- There is also the fear that Europe will really be able to make peace within itself based on the Indo-European model, rather than the Christian and/or Marxist model. This would discredit their intellectual prejudices once more. Specifically on Dumézil and the tripartite theory, his theories have the potential of forming the basis of a pan-Indo-European cultural unity. They are the greatest challenge to Christianity and to materialistic positivism in the 20th century. So it is not without some justification that Dumézil has been so widely attacked. His theories do pose a challenge, and are not merely intellectual curiosities. They call for some sort of action and some sort of change on the part of the reader of his ideas.
When last did you see an Indo-European???
Have you not noticed that the Christian?Marxist model is outdated.
Have you not realized that Runology-Glastonbury Legend-The Elixir of Life-Divining numbers-Salem-Virgins with a Pagan Past-Ritual Magic etc is replaced by an old fashioned Computer.
Should we like Barbarossa(Frederick 1 of Germany) revive our energy by bodily contact with young boys or Pope Innocent VIII letting healthy young children stroke him for more for their more youthful energy. When you profess the Runology of old,see to it that you mention the bad side of it too.



The dirty little secret is probably merely that in academia the study of old languages and ancient history is hard, whereas what they are replacing all of this with is relatively easy. So that the “war on the Indo-Europeans” is really part of the general “dumbing down” of the academy.
Well,that is what evolving is all about.

[Rachel]

What you have to realise is that whether Canadian or American we still possess some tidbits of our ancestral culture, probably moreso than many realize.

how can this be? america is making an even larger at attempt to make other countries american... we are over in iraq fighting a war primarily because we feel that Iraqis should have our way of life and our type of governing body. ( we only went into their country after btw we put their leader in power and supported.)


take for example this every forum, most if not all of you speak english.... that has been a product of america making an even larger attempt to make every country and everyone in it like us!! aside from the already english speaking countries.

so now while you say we hold a tidbit of our ancestral heritage with us for always i fail to see how this is true when america is making such a large attempt at making everyone else into us! and with this mass production of globalization happening at such a fast rate soon many people won't have any ancestry or an understanding of a connection to a particular culture.

i am not sure if our ancestors thought this out well enough... and maybe we are thinking too much......

maybe we should just let things happen..?


i could be totally off here ... it has been know to happen... what do i know i am only 20;)

[YggsVinr]

how can this be? america is making an even larger at attempt to make other countries american... we are over in iraq fighting a war primarily because we feel that Iraqis should have our way of life and our type of governing body. ( we only went into their country after btw we put their leader in power and supported.)

take for example this every forum, most if not all of you speak english.... that has been a product of america making an even larger attempt to make every country and everyone in it like us!! aside from the already english speaking countries. .


You need to distinguish between the culture of a modern nation and the smaller cultures that inevitably exist within it. I would argue that there are two, if not more, forms of American (or Canadian or Australian etc.) culture. First there is the larger culture that is a result of the world's own existence within contemporary times. As such the contemporary "culture" of the nation is the food of its age (fast food etc.), the media of its age (Hollywood etc.), and the ideologies of its age (war against terror, war against drugs, consumerism, capatalism etc.) Every nation has their versions of modern popular culture and modern popular ideology as enforced by the federal government. In Canada we have modern multiculturalist issues that preach against the preservation of European Canadian heritage, our own household name fast food joints, so many here too adore Hollywood, rising consumerism, many support the obliteration of French as one of Canada's two official languages, of old European cultural entities within the nation and so on. However, despite all that you still have small communities that continue to bear their heritage. In French Canada, particularly in smaller communities you still see strong remnants of 17th century rural Norman and Breton culture as well as the distinct culture which we developed after centuries of living in this land. Culture is fluid like that, in that what was once Norman or Breton, through many centuries of separation become but another branch of a once larger culture. Now our culture is distinctly French Canadian but there are still strong parallels between our culture and that of our Norman or Breton ancestors. Same goes with Irish Newfoundlanders, the Scottish in south eastern Ontario and so on. What the contemporary government and masses view as the culture of their age is really nothing but that: the popular culture of our age, and most people within the nation don't even realise that anything else exists because they do not look for it in the right places or perhaps at all. That does not by any means mean that no other cultures exist within it.

Let's take the Mennonites or the Amish as an extreme example. They, too, are English speaking Americans living in our modern age, yet they exist within their own cultural nucleus. While this is an extreme example such examples exist all across the board, again using such examples as the Pennsylvania Germans, the Acadians of Louisiana, the Irish in Boston and New York, Scandinavians in the mid-west. These people all exist, to varying to degrees, as distinct cultural entities within the greater contemporary popular culture of America. Your government and contemporary popular culture may be working to destroy those entities, but that doesn't mean you have to let them. Those who make up the community are its life blood and your culture will only exist so long as there are those who maintain it. These people and communities still exist within your nation.

[Lulletje Rozewater]

i am not sure if our ancestors thought this out well enough... and maybe we are thinking too much......

maybe we should just let things happen..?


i could be totally off here ... it has been know to happen... what do i know i am only 20;)

Our ancestors are death as a dodo,so we do the thinking for them.
Age means nothing and 20 is old enough to think,which you do

[Lady L]

how can this be? america is making an even larger at attempt to make other countries american... we are over in iraq fighting a war primarily because we feel that Iraqis should have our way of life and our type of governing body.

I feel mostly that they should have to take care of their own situations but, I believe that many of the people in Iraq want the change for themselves, especially the women and I don't blame them. I don't think its as simple to put all the blame on America wanting them to be " American " IMO there is more to it than that.


take for example this every forum, most if not all of you speak english.... that has been a product of america making an even larger attempt to make every country and everyone in it like us!! aside from the already english speaking countries.

I really don't agree that just because we all know English that these people here from Europe, Norway, Australia, or wherever is making them American.

Just look at it like the English are who conquered the world, and in that the language has followed. The English language is not " American " nor is that where it stems from.


so now while you say we hold a tidbit of our ancestral heritage with us for always i fail to see how this is true when america is making such a large attempt at making everyone else into us!

Read above again. Another thing is this, if you want to live the fast life of a narrow minded American you can, but more importantly you can not. You can research, read, study and learn anything and everything you want to about your heritage, and then you can live your life by those ideas if you choose. :) So, I don't know why you seem to have this opinion that its impossible. There are obviously people and yes Americans too, that do this...some of us are here. ;)

[SwordoftheVistula]

how can this be? america is making an even larger at attempt to make other countries american... we are over in iraq fighting a war primarily because we feel that Iraqis should have our way of life and our type of governing body.

It's not really an 'American' way of life, it's a way of life which took over European/western countries in a gradual process over the 20th century. In the US, this was organized in large part by the 'Frankfurt School', a group of leftists expelled from Germany in the 1930s who moved to the US and took over the educational system. The Constitution was designed to prevent exactly this sort of takeover, but it is no longer respected or is misrepresented.


( we only went into their country after btw we put their leader in power and supported.)

That was the 'old America' that had a pro-American foreign policy. Saddam Hussein was not a communist or an Islamist and was willing to sell us oil, so he was supported. Unfortunately for him, he also handed out $25k checks to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, enraging the neoconservative supporters of Israel in the US, and once the Cold War was over it was no longer important to have anti-communists in power in various 3rd world countries.





take for example this every forum, most if not all of you speak english.... that has been a product of america making an even larger attempt to make every country and everyone in it like us!! aside from the already english speaking countries.

Now that we can communicate with the entire world via the telegraph, telephone, and internet; it's natural for one language to become a 'default' language for everyone to communicate with. Those technologies were invented here, plus the already widespread use due to the vast empire and trade network ruled by England, so English ended up being that language.

[Rachel]

so then it's just acceptable to continue this way of living and thinking...?

[YggsVinr]

so then it's just acceptable to continue this way of living and thinking...?

Its not as simple as that, and the answer to your question is something you need to decide for yourself. How do you want to live? Do you find it acceptable for yourself to adhere to the current mentality? If not, then distance yourself as much as possible from that mentality. How the individual lives and interacts with their own nation is something each individual must decide for him or herself. You cannot, at this point, force the majority in your nation to stop living and thinking the way they currently do. However, nor can they truly force you to live and think entirely in accordance with their own lifestyle and ideology. If you wish to search and learn more about the culture of your ancestors then do so. It is not always easy, can take years or a lifetime to do, but it is by no means impossible and if that is the path you desire then you will surely live a more satisfied life. However, if you don't feel that that is the path you want to take then forge another one for yourself or continue to live in adherence with the current mentality. We cannot simply sit here and make broad statements about what should or shouldn't be. It is all in what you, yourself, do.

As the poem goes: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

[Lady L]

so then it's just acceptable to continue this way of living and thinking...?

Didn't you hear anything we all have said ...? :p;)

[SardiniaAtlantis]

Yes.