1. Why is social change both a winning and a losing proposition for traditional people?
With the rise of modern culture among tradition people comes many advances in standards of living. Better health care and longevity, better and sturdier homes equipped with running water and electricity, instant communication with the outside world and higher education. But other more traditional lifestyles eventually fall away. Traditional medicine based on religious beliefs are replaced by modern doctors and practices eroding the old superstitions. Old skills of self reliance are replaced by contractors, plumbers and all sorts of specialist and new regulations concerning the home. A new and ever shrinking and confusing awareness of the societies place in the universe moves from being the center of it to being on the peripheryof it.
2. Do the changes described here improve the lives of the Kaiapo? What about the Gullah community?
As stated above it improves the physical well being of the individual members but at a loss to the sense of community that was central to their society. Oral tradition with it's group interaction and knowing each other is replaced by the impersonal pronouncements of the Dianne Sawyers, Ted Kopells, and the talking heads of "Meet the Press". Community entertainment and socialization is replaced by "Two and a Half Men", "Clifford", and the big Hip-Hop concert on the mainland.
3. Do traditional people have any choice about becoming modern?
Yes they do. But the price is steep. They make take the road of the Amish, living in a self imposed semi-exile state to preserve their traditions but slowly losing their younger members to the outside world. Or they can embrace modernity but losing the traditions of of their culture that made them unique through the erosion of all that use to be negligence. They will also lose their native home to developers and land speculators who will capitalize on the new availability of their once isolated lands and it's resources.
No comments:
Post a Comment