Disappearing cultures - Wade Davis

Anthropologist Wade Davis can be heard on two podcasts with similar, but complementary, lectures on the same subject. While we enter the era of a globalized world and have global problems such as climate change and receding bio-diversity, we tend to think this only hits the eco-sphere, but there is also the ethno-sphere, as Davis calls it, and therein we observe a similar and connected problem: the impending disappearance of languages and cultures. Just as with disappearing species we must ask the complicated question whether it is bad if languages and cultures disappear.

On his talk at TVO's Big Ideas, Davis gives more examples of exotic fading cultures, yet in his speech at SALT (Seminars About Longterm Thinking aka The Long Now podcast) he arrives at the general thought and the bottom-line of his view on the issue. Both lectures are extracted from a series that was broadcast as the Massey Lectures at CBC and as podcast available until December 4th, 2009. It resulted in a book: The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. This is also the title of Wade Davis's lecture at Big Ideas as well as Wade Davis's lecture at The Long Now.

Davis repeatedly says at SALT: Our world is a model of reality. And when he speaks of those small communities and tribes whose languages and cultures are disappearing: Those people are not failed attempts at being us, they are a unique answer to the fundamental question what does it mean to be human and alive. It is important not to take them as savages or as people living in the past, but as real, full fledged human beings who chose to live this way and find here a good life. And when their way of life disappears, a real and sincere version of humanness disappears. It will first of all leave our world poorer, less diverse, but ultimately, possibly, less resilient, less vital.

It is hard to wrap your mind around this issue. And it is hard not to get carried away with the noble savage romantics when you hear the sample stories. I would give you this challenge: listen without judgment. And then wonder about our history. Countless cultures have gone lost. We must have been diversifying, unifying and living and dying forever. If we cannot forcibly preserve what is already moribund, what can we do to keep variation going?

I find it an immensely demanding mind set. And I have experienced this struggle also when listening to other anthropology podcasts. When Tara Carter spoke of the Bambuti people in the Congo, who are hunter gatherers today and seem to love their life and surely seem to have a good life. When James Scott explained why civilizations can't climb hills, which showed how people live in the hills and mountains by choice (and not in the allegedly civilized plains and cities) and how throughout history there has been a migration in both directions. This seems to say that there is no such thing as a progress in human history but rather a varied menu of human conditions existing simultaneously and serving as an object of existential choice for man.

Allowing to appreciate the diversity and allocating value to cultures that are radically different requires a mental distance from one's own culture. In order to see the values of that which is utterly outlandish one must leave for a moment the most fundamental values of one's own culture, which is paramount to thinking without thinking, or being without identity, since we are fully defined within our own cultures. And yet, somehow, sometimes we manage to do this.

More Big Ideas:
Waiting for Godot,
Religion as culture - Camille Paglia,
Christopher Hitchens on the Ten Commandments,
The empire,
Lawrence Freedman - Big Ideas.

More The Long Now:
The Long Now podcast,
Ran Levi about The Long Now.

Podcasts in Spanish?

After having asked you about podcasts in Russian and podcasts in Swedish, I turn to Spanish. Do you know of podcasts in Spanish to recommend?

My reader Jacky wrote to me about the following four:

The first one La Rosa De los Vientos (compass rose) is a three hours radio program broadcast, and podcast from Spain (feed). They talk about history, archeology, astronomy, science, secret services and much more.

In fact, one of the segments of the program Pasajes de la Historia (journeys of history) is a podcast by itself (feed).

Ciencia y Genios (science and genius) is a podcast about the great brains of our history. Their lives and investigations are told in first person (feed).

El Bloguipodio (feed): La Bloguera and Dabloguiman from Washington DC talk about news, politics and more. (It needs to be pointed out that these two are very entertaining, but speak with a microphone on the table in a room which does not have the best of acoustics)

France since 1871 - Yale lecture podcast

France since 1871 (feed) is history lecture series that has been available for quite some time as a podcast. I knew it was there, but I was not particularly drawn to a modern history of France in particular, more to a more general European perspective. This we got at Yale from the same professor, John Merriman, as you may have seen in earlier reviews (see below). And now that I got acquainted with the lecturer, I decided to give the other course a try.

I have followed by around one third of the course and it sure worth a recommendation. For one who has followed the more general course with Merriman, there is much familiar talk to be encountered, yet the professor has more time to dwell on it. It needs also to be pointed out that this first part of the course is thematic. Merriman takes up a number of issues and treats them freely around 1871, taking us back, frequently as early as the French Revolution and painting the picture until the very beginning of the twentieth century.

Looking at the subjects of the rest of the lectures I expect that a little bit of this thematic approach will remain, but largely it will make place for the chronology. Merriman will carry us from the build-up of the First World War until France by the end of the twentieth century. This looks like a fine addition to the wide menu of podcasts in European history.

More John Merriman:
History of India or Europe?,
Industrial revolutions,
History of Europe.

Benefitting from the labels (and search) on the blog

This blog contains over 1500 posts, 90% are podcast reviews or lists of podcasts that you would want to check out. The question is: how can you find what you are looking for? I try to help you by adding links to relevant other posts whenever I publish a new one. I also add labels, which link up to sets of posts in the same category (or of the same language). But there are more options.

In addition you can use the search engine that sits on top of this page. It allows you to "google" through my pages on any keyword or combination of key words.

While looking at the labels on a specific post, you may feel limited to that particular subject. What about other general areas? Look down in the left margin of the blog and find a complete list of labels on the blog. The number between brackets indicate how many posts there are labelled with this category. Here are a few labels you might be interested in:

Ancient History - there are so many history posts, but here is an option to narrow down. I intend to make more of these, just like I intend to add these as directories to the big, big history podcast directory.

Berkeley, UCSD, Yale - Great suppliers of collections of podcasts.

deutsch, Nederlands, עברית - other languages you may want to check out

economics, philosophy, psychology, science - podcasts in the various disciplines

uchannel, New Books In History, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History - great podcasts that I regularly review

History of British India - Vinay Lal at UCLA

A lot of action has been going on around the history of India on this blog. The few podcasts on the subject are lecture series by Vinay Lal at UCLA: History of India (feed) and History of British India (feed). The main criticisms on Lal's work are that his lectures are not well organized, his knowledge seems limited and his interpretations are heavily politicized.

This has been voiced in comments and in blogs that refer to the course on the whole history of India. Lal is supposed to be a specialist on British India and hence the new course (History of British India (feed)) is having me listen in closely.

So far the outcome is slightly disappointing. We have had five lectures, the last of which was not podcast (only 1 minute came through) and what Lal has been teaching is almost completely identical to what he has also said during the previous course (History of India (feed)). Also, since he seems to be giving the narrative in a chronological way, but in effect goes on thematic tangents. So we are still presented with material that is not immediately well ordered. As to the politics and the quality of the knowledge, I am looking forward to find what other listeners will write - either in the comments below, or in their blogs.

More Vinay Lal's:
History of India - the search goes on,
8 podcasts I listened to,
History of India or Europe?
History of India.

The China Hegemony - LSE Podcast

The LSE podcast is one to keep an eye on constantly. The London School of Economics publishes here guest lectures on a weekly basis and offer the best on insights on the most compelling issues of the day. Especially in the realm of economics and geopolitics you will have a constant stream of information from the best minds. In addition to their lectures, you will frequently find much interest in the consecutive Q&A sessions. The audience is frequently as knowledgeable as the speaker.

Apart from top academicians, economists, policy makers and diplomats, you occasionally have journalist speakers who have distinguished themselves with noteworthy writings. One such speaker was Martin Jacques who wrote a book and held a talk with the same title: When China Rules the World. The typical way in which this is a work of journalism and not of an academician or a politician - and we have seen this several times at the LSE podcast - is that Jacques has written the book and holds the lecture extrapolating freely from indicators, in this case, as if it is already a given that the world will soon live in a Chinese hegemony. Whereas this free reasoning can sometimes weaken the talk, in this case it works very vitalizing.

His picture of the Chinese hegemony is an analysis of Chinese culture, Chinese history, Chinese strength and the mere application to an assumed future is just the icing on the cake. What is to learn is how one should expect China to act more in accordance with its history rather than as a copy of western hegemony. In this respect Jacques uses the term 'civilization state' as opposed to a nation state, which not only emphasizes the difference between the western way of thinking in nations, but also to show the continuity of the People's Republic within millenniums of Chinese history and culture. Of course China will modernize, but in a Chinese way. It will not colonize like the west, but it will more likely rule according the old Chinese tributary ways.

Did I say that the audience poses interesting questions? Not always, but here it does and draws from the speaker also analysis of the weaknesses of China. In short: what can stop China from ruling the world? And the short answer is: China. Listen in order to find out how.

More LSE:
The myth of work,
Pasts and futures of Christianity,
Global capitalism - the Gray view,
Israeli at the London School of Economics,
Michael Sandel.