Enduring Culture

Culture that is appealing, vibrant, and of value always endures – while culture that is lifeless, ugly and valueless fades and is forgotten like Parthian sculpture.  Greco-Roman styling washed over the Assyrian and Babylonian styles and overcame them.Greco-Roman was more appealing, enduring, and true. A Greco-Roman boar sculpture would not have a head disproportionate to the body for instance, even if it the artist might style it anthropomorphically.

What is interesting and appealing is the Greco-Roman influenced Parthian art, and many of those pieces survive to this day. When tribes meet then trade of goods and trade of culture ensues – it is as natural to humans as breathing is.

A small minority in every tribe or community lives in fear of change, in fear of new things, new people, new ways. They cling to the old, whether the new is represented by new culture or new technology.

Sometimes that old that they cling to is ugly — and sometimes not. The things beautiful and true however cross borders and are adopted by other cultures — thus the appealing endures over time, and all things ugly enjoy a fad or a short period of propagation, but over long periods they fade away.

Thus you see Zen gardens in homes in the United States, and you see neon lights all over Tokyo. Here’s an example of what can happen when cultures collide, and this will survive.

So in 500 years you will still see Shakespeare in the park, you will still hear beautiful music, but the works of Maurice Bardeche will be horrific museum curio on some dark shelf, known only to a curious and studious few. Ugly and evil fades and is forgot, truth and beauty survive. So, if you want culture that survives and is cherished, look closely at what you cling to, and what you toss aside.

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