So long as that rate of change doesn't cause the cultural suite to stagnate leading to social problems and a sense of malaise in people like myself.
Any idea on how to find the balance?
Dear Dr.,
Well, we start from the idea of what people are, which is humans made, as it were, in the image of the Creativity of the universe. Call that God or not, doesn't really matter, the universe creates things--planets, frogs, rainbows--and we can create things, too. This is the basis for our value as a species, that is, that our identity as creative individuals best affords us the good life, which corresponds with the survival of our species and the concomitant technological transformation of the biosphere and the rest of the universe immediately accessible to us for the time being.
From this perspective, the highest or most important thing to preserve is a healthy linguistic tradition, which means a well-stocked language (metaphors, words) and a literate population capable of reading the classics of its own tradition, and the translated works of others. It can, I admit, help to learn other languages; translation helps broaden the mind; but it also helps to have everyone in the country speaking the same language, so that everyone can be included in the national dialogue.
Most polite people will dislike talk of racial preservation, you probably are, and LaRouche is adamantly against it, but, some people still care about it, unconsciously, preconsciously or consciously. A given race is preserved by the expedient of industrialising and otherwise developing the countries from whom the cream of their populations are being skimmed by emigration. That is, if we would rather not be inundated by people of alien races, changing the racial stock of the nation, the humane solution—indeed, the solution mandated whether or not anyone cares about race--is to help make where they came from worth living in, since people most often emigrate due to lack of opportunities, and the presence of some kind of national strife that makes life there unpleasant. The fact that people are immigrating to the European-predominant parts of the world indicates a profound immorality embedded in the world system of political economy.
Religion, I would recommend recognising that Christianity is one of the three essential developments that lead to modern Western civilisation (the other two being the Renaissance and Classical Greece). Making it the official religion would help, I think. Not the state religion in the sense of being compulsory, but official in the sense that its foundational importance to Western civ is recognised and its tenets should be taught in schools, its holidays are the basis for official holidays, and the like. This may make some people grumpy. I'm prepared for grumpiness if it means maintaining the traditional and Classical value that Christianity has for our society. I'm not perfectly convinced of this, but there you have it.
Culturally, the matter is more difficult. As dudalb astutely pointed out, I am a follower of Lyndon LaRouche, who has no time of day to give to popular culture or distinctly national culture which doesn't have anything to do with Classical art. This all he shoves into the drawer labelled “counterculture” before proceeding to close and lock it. I grasp the danger counterculture has: it's addictive and distracting and a personality marinating in it can lose the capacity for appreciating Classical beauty. In fact, this is where I want to emphasise that the political situation being sought, by myself and by my fellow LaRoucheans, orbits Beauty. So in dealing with counterculture, which is perpetually changing and increasing, the question is how can Beauty be derived from it. I'll give one example: abolish the “intellectual property” laws that prevent Classical composers from using elements of what amounts now to peasant music, counterculture. I don't know if that's a feasible or even more than a token step towards both preserving national culture, but it's an idea.
I hope this answers your question.
Cpl Ferro
