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Originally Posted by ApK
The self-contradiction of saying the event of the past don't matter today and that the lessons of the past apply to the future aside, these arguments entirely miss this point.
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Actually there's no contradiction whatsoever. Your example (Native Americans vs. European invaders) was (basically) of a hostile invasion by a militarily and technologically superior enemy, as were mine. Neither of them were a relevant comparison to the cultural and technological cross-pollination which has taken place ever since the dawn of history.
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Working to preserve what we hold dear of our individual and cultural distinctiveness in the face of outsiders trying to foist on us the metaphorically plague-infested blankets of their own dear-held beliefs is what I am talking about.
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If the majority, or a significant minority, of the population does in fact hold dear the same things that you do, then those things will endure. If nobody gives a toss, then they'll go the way of the Do-Do. That's just the way it is and always has been, just as there has always been a small, but vocal minority who decries any change at all, usually on behalf of a made up majority they imagine themselves to represent.
Look at the UK, where archaic traditions and rituals abound despite serving no other real function than to signal the Britishness of participants and foster pride in those who observe. The same can be seen in most (probably all, I would imagine) European countries, where rituals and traditions dating hundreds of years or at times a millennium back are still carried out to this day. We've all been plenty culturally "polluted", mainly from the US, and yet geographical and cultural distinction persists.