Several posters (Ana and Anna, maybe others) have interpreted my position on
history in a way different than I intended. Mike's statement about culture
being history in the present (is that right mike?) is very much to the
point. Everyone talks about being a member of a culture but how often do
people talk about being members of a history? Yes, this happens all the
time when people (say soldiers who shared an especially hard mission, POWs,
etc), identify themselves as member/participants in a unique history. We
don't often understand this on trans-individual levels but it happens
occasionally; e.g., recognizing oneself as a "baby boomer", a completely
historical category that will catch the attention of any American born
between 1946 and 1960.
I saw something on TV that really brought this home. One of these
international type ads they do on the Sunday Morning talks shows. They
showed a woman in Dublin requesting in Gaelic some wonderful corporate
product. The subtext clearly something about diversity and global economy.
But how close did Gaelic come to being a dead language? I don't remember
exactly who said it, Sapir or Whorf, but one of them pointed out that
culture is preserved in language as a fly in amber. When assimilationists
get serious the first thing they go for is the language whether in Ireland
or the U.S.
When one speaks a language, one does not describe ones own relationship to
it as "awareness". I can be aware of the fact that someone is speaking
German or French and not know what they are talking about, understand a
little, etc. One would say that one knew how to speak it if one knew how
to respond, to enter into the conversation. That is the relationship to
history that I was trying to indicate. If one feels some kind of
?moral?/'?emotional? involvement in the events that unfold in some
particular history, it is not a matter of being aware, but of feeling that
one's own being is somehow involved with the outcome of the historical
process in question. That is a far cry from simple awareness.
What is a wannabe once s/he's paid his or her dues?
Paul H. Dillon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 01 2002 - 01:00:20 PST