| |
| Theory |
|
Countries and PeoplesA country's or people's culture are products of millennia of development. Though before we even consider culture we should first define "country" and "people." Too many people conflate the two. The 196 countries on the planet today are not natural divisions of "people," but instead are the artifical boundries set up over the course of human history. With most of that boundry drawing coming after 1900. Virtually every border in the world today was not determined by where similar people live, but through military and poltical artifice."Peoples" can be thought of as those speaking the same language, having the same religion and having a historical claim to some portion of land. Sometimes those people are mostly within one country, such as the French, and sometimes they are spread out over several countries, such as the Kurds. Thus this book will refer to people as ethnic groups and countries as political groups. They are not the same, and should not be confused. It is admittedly difficult for most readers to separate the two because we have been hearing about the "Iraqi people," "Hungarian people," "Mexican people" and so on. For average readers there are 196 peoples on the planet, because there 196 countries. American, Australian and Canadian readers particularly will have difficulty separating the two because we are the three countries who have combined the two separate entities -- the American, Australian and Canadian people are considered anyone living within the three countries. Regardless of the language someone speaks, or the religion they practice or the location of birth, as soon as that individual is within the borders of the three countries, and obtain legal citizenship, they are transformed into Americans, Australians and Canadians. These three countries are the First Order of Countries. There are a handful of countries where there is a movement towards this sort of acceptance of divergent peoples within one country: Indonesia, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa -- though not totally accepted as with the first order. But these five are in fact, more tolerant of diversity than countries we perceive as tolerant, such as European countries. Thus, these five are the second order of countries. European countries seem tolerant and we refer to them as western, developed democracies, but in fact the theory of people-hood far outstrips the concept of nationhood. Thus the French and the Italians and the Spanish and the Poles and the Germans, etc, are more concerned with protecting their people-hood, their language and historical lands and religions and ways of life, than they are with building the diversity which leads to prosperity. Sure, they're prosperous to a degree, and even free to a degree. They all have huge immigrant populations. They are not generally at war with each other. On the other hand they jealousy guard all their cultural insecurities, worried whether the other one there is getting a little further ahead. The wars of the 1900's that raged across the continent are emblematic of the protection of people-hood and antithetical to building diverse prosperity. The same with Japan, Korea, Thailand, the Phillipines, Malaysia, Nigeria, all the countries of South America (except Brazil) and Kenya, Tanzania, and the West African states. People-hood comes first, and acceptance of diversity comes second. It was the USA which altered the peoples-centric thought of Europe, with our occupation after the Second World War. We might have legally only been occupying Germany, but with the introduction of the Marshall Plan, Nato, the United Nations and other organizations and programs the United States basically occupied Western Europe. Not colonized, but occupied. We have not been entirely successful, but to a major degree we took a continent hell bent on destroying other peoples to one that at least agreed to stop slaughtering each other and begin to think of joining together in diversity. The European Union is but the most visible manifestation of the change of thought. Not entirely successful, but only half way there. The free passage of peoples is extremely recent, and a certain sense of jealousy still prevails throughout the continent. The Russians, a less diversity tolerant people than Americans, but though further on the road than West Europe was in the 1940's, brought Eastern Europe up to their own level of tolerance and thus an uneasy peace was achieved among the Warsaw Pact states. It was only the relentless efforts by the United States to contain the Communist leaders of the Russian Empire that brought about the further enlightenment of those peoples to the point of their own revolutions of the 1990s. Basically, the peoples of Eastern Europe and Russia realized that there was more prosperity and civil society to be obtained through diversity than through conformity to a cultural goal. Starting in the late 1990's and leading to today, the Europeans are finally coming to the realization that diversity of peoples within one common border is better than the jealous guarding of borders between people. They are not out of the woods yet, and Yugoslavia was their worst fall back into protection of the people. The peoples of Western and Eastern Europe, from Ireland all the way across Russia to the Pacific, have seemed to finally come together in accpeting the concept of America. That is: the diversity of people within one common border is better for each individual and for the society as a whole in every single measure of human development. The realization that individuals pursuing their own unique version of the culture they live in breeds respect, peace and proserity has seaped into Europe. There are forces at work trying to prevent this. These anti-diversity forces are a hindrance of further development of the civil society and prosperity and the basic rights of man. Anti-diversity forces always express themselves in the sense of a separate people who have some divine right to preservation of their people-hood at all costs. Thus even within Europe there are those who say their Frenchness is more important than the free transfer of goods from one corner of the continent than the other. The French remain poorer and more limited, but they have preserved their Frenchness. While the Greek farmer remains poorer and becomes resentful of the French. If the French make no effort to inhibit the Greek from selling and shipping goods, the Greek will become more prosperous, and respectful of the French. Meanwhile the French will become richer, because the Greek will not countervail the French by preventing him from selling and shipping goods. Thus the French and the Greek will become friendlier, more understanding of their individuality and both will prosper more. I use the French and the Greek only as an example, it could be the English and the Poles, or the Hungarians and the Czechs. The longer they try to jealousy guard their people-hood the longer they will keep themselves poorer and less respectful and less diverse. In every other country on the planet the people who inhabit a country consider any one not born there not a member of that country. Instead, all the other people who enter the countries are foreigners. And their children are foreigners, and are their grandchildren. Thus, whether in England, France, or Germany, or in Japan, Korea and Thailand, or in Venezuela, Argentina or Mexico, or Egypt, Nigeria or Congo -- anyone who wasn't born there, regardless of whether they speak the langauge(s) of that country, they are not ever considered intrinsically a part of that country. A large number of conflicts, whether within countries or between countries, are because of the perceived injustices one people at the hands of another people. And about half of that conflict stems from one group of people refusing to accept another group of people within the same borders. The other half of the conflicts arise from one group of people refusing to accept that they are divided by artifical borders. Economics, control of natural resources, historical perceptions of land ownership, religion and other factors all seem to be far back in the conscience of peoples who are fighting each other. These seem to be at the forefront if only because people who have solved these problems, namely, America, Canada and Australia cannot grasp the problem strictly in terms of peoples. We are already beyond those considerations, having moved on to this lesser group of considerations. So we look at a place like Yugoslavia and cannot at all understand the problem. Nor, when we look at places like Rwanda and Burundi contemplate that conflict in the terms the peoples fighting it perceive it. The Kurds care not a wit about economics as such, they are concerned about the distribution and mixing of the people within the artificial borders. There are dozens of examples from across the globe. To the people of the first order of countries the differences in peoples are irrelevant. We have grasped the irrelevancy of the provenance of peoples, and moved on to the task of building prosperity, civil society and individualism. To many of the peoples still fighting on the basis of people-hood the other factors are irrelevant. All these peoples willingly sacraficed their economies and development of resources because of their greivances as peoples. They would rather destroy the country to preserve their identity as separate peoples. They seem to prefer suffering as a people than prospering as a country. While this is a broad brush explanation, meant to start off the thought process, there are many minor variations on the peoples theme. Only a region by region, country by country and people by people assesment can truly set out the myriad problems, and solutions, that are faced by the world. Peoples seem to prefer one leader, one way of life, one religion, one language, one concept of living. Countries prefer a vast diversity in all of these, because we recognize these as builders of prosperity. We accpet differences in every area of human life becuase it makes life better for everyone. Peoples will accept incredible hardships becuase they are dedicated first to the preservation of their people-hood and only secondly to the prosperity that diversity brings. Peoples are have also shown to have a desire to mercilessly slaughter other peoples in a vain attempt to become the only people. Which brings us to Cultures. Cultures are those things which define a people or a country in the eyes of other peoples and countries. In many ways Peoples and Cultures are the same outside of the first order of countries. The most significant difference is that peoples came first, before cultures. People are based on DNA. Cultures are based on ideas, or beliefs. So in the dawn of history there were groups of people who were all somehow related who set forth into the world. They "peopled" the world. Being related by blood they were related by DNA. They were small groups, perhaps just dozens or hundreds of people. They all were pretty much the same. They met up with other groups of people. They either peaceably got along and intermarried, spreading the gene pool and greating ever larger groups of similar and related, though now more distantly, people. Or they slaughtered each other. These bands of people multiplied, and spread and changed and intermingled, and yes, slaughtered each other. Eventually we got to the point of written history, whether in stone, as in Stonehenge, or in writing as in Ancient Sumeria. But a human record was left. And they expressed a sense of people-hood. Innately there arose a need for a leader, someone to make the final decision on matters of consideration or dispute. Regardless of how you think a leader was created, there seemed to be a combination of brute force and intelligence. Indeed, all human endeavors seem to attract people who are good at them. If a person is no good at a task, he moved on to another task, otherwise he could not survive. Some individuals were good at leadership. As things got more complicated, it became more organized, and that led to ideas. And ideas led to cultures. Ideas were needed to explain every thing and make the world around them comprehensible and explainable. Regardless of whether you think a certain number of people were zapped onto the planet by God, or evolution rose us up out of the swamps, there is no deny the fact that there has been a growing number of people, who have created a shifting set of ideas to comprehend and explain the world around us and it has been getting more and more complicated. The leader's ideas about people-hood were pretty simple for thousands of years, and to some degree that's true among more primitive peoples today. But as the world got more complex so did the ideas. Religions formed. Building projects started, political ideas were floated about, trade began. By the time of the Greeks and Romans, which were the start of the world we live in today, there were dozens of countries, mostly based on one people, but already multi-people countries, that were interacting with each other all over their regions. There were different unconnected regions around the world, but within regions there was lots of interaction. Just like all those millennia before the beginning of recorded history, either peoplel got along and intermingled -- or they slaughtered each other. Those that intermingled and tolerated, even encourage diversity were more respectful, more peaceful and more prosperous than those who adhered to their people-hood over all else and were determined to be the only people. They were confined by their technological advancement, but they were better off than others. Thus the Romans were the best at advancing civilization. Every region was the same, there was one group who seemed to be able to get along with all the other groups. While all the other groups were more intent on fighting each other. The Han Chinese became dominent becuase they accepted -- even if they had to force the acceptance on to recalcitrants -- the diversity of other people within one common border. Thus they were forever able to grow bigger. The way this was done was that the most powerful and most diverse country worked at subduing the peoples fighting them and force them to join the peaceful association of peoples. We remember all the wars of "conquest" yet we forget that there were also a multitude of peoples who joined together peacefully. Wars leave records, they're, in modern parlance, sexy. Peace is dull. Reading accounting reports about the transshipment of wine from Greece to Turkey is far more boring than reading about the Trojan wars. Sure there was war, but there was peace too. As the world moved, particularly Europe, into a higher state of learning and reached out to the rest of the world the various regions began to interact. By1492 the peoples of India, China and Europe not only knew about each other, but had been interacting for hundreds of years. There were periods of slaughter of peoples between perceived borders followed by great empires were diverse peoples lived together in relative peace and prosperity. Because of the technological limitations at the time these peoples were probably freer than many of the people on the planet today. The state couldn't be that intrusive becuase the state had primitive power. The only thing that remained constant was that each individual group of peoples stayed in one group. The language groups stayed together. The French stayed the French, even if it was a bunch of French speaking prinicaplities which eventually became the France of today. Even all the different Japanese Shogunates eventually merged into one Japanese State. But the Japanese and the Koreans didn't merge. Nor did the French and the Germans. They remained separate peoples who jealousy guarded their DNA. That lasted until 1492. That brought the discovery of the New World, which radically changed every thing. When the Mongol hordes came across the steppes, they found well established peoples. When the Romans got to Egypt they found a well established peoples. When the Catholics came upon the Moors in Spain they found a well established peoples. When we got to the New World, and to Africa a few decades before, we found nomadic peoples and primitive peoples and people who were far behind the Peoples of the Eurasian land mass and along the Mediterannean. When a European who knew Notre Dame in Paris came across an American Indian or African he was surely surprised at the vast difference. He knew when he went to India he would find truly spectacular buildings, and when he went to China or Japan, again, truly spectacular things. When he got to Africa and the Americas there wasn't much of anything. This resulted in a free for all. The newcomers and the locals had absolutely no idea how to deal with each other, they were just so different. So they set about in trying to slaughter each other. The newcomers won. |