Quite a few reasons! More than I prefer to go into detail upon here. One obvious consideration is that it would be a huge coincidence! Another is that when I am told that values and goals are implicitly universal, and yet I don’t share them, it seems to obviously suggest that they and I are of different cultures. It is trivial for me to demonstrate that they are not universal, and put the onus upon others to explain why they feel they should be.
I never suggested any such thing. You seem to refuse to consider that there are numerous cultures, with their own historical vantages. You have even said numerous times that people who strive to exist outside of your cultural frame of reference must be essentially backwards. That there is no culture or quality of life apart from a “default” that you insist must be good enough for everybody. It comes off as ethnocentric and a bit bigoted. It is the usual shortcoming of so-called “western society” - to focus the lens of anthropology upon everyone but themselves, under the presumption that their culture is the default baseline by which human existence must be measured.
When have I ever said any such thing? There is no “everyone else”. I ask each person what their culture is, instead of telling them. And I can accept their answers without feeling threatened. You are the one who insists that if I am not a member of your culture, that I must be delusional, and must have no real culture of my own. Sorry, but I think it is disingenuous.
It isn’t “everybody”. It is a continuum. Any time someone posits a universal truth that isn’t supported by mathematical axioms, it is shorthand for Most. But you know that.
Would you really say that New York City had the same culture as New Orleans? Or that Nashville had the same culture as Las Vegas? Or that Mississippi and Michigan share the same culture?
I would think that Toronto and Buffalo share the same culture more than Toronto and Iqaluit do, despite Toronto and Iqaluit both being in Canada and Buffalo being across the border.
What I’m taking from what @popobawa4u has said is that we each have our own culture, which is a blend of every other culture that we’ve been raised in. My personal culture includes the culture of my mother’s family, who are very literate and argumentative, my father’s family, who are very musical and laid back, the culture of the Catholic Church, in which I was raised, the culture of the Greater Toronto Area, which is one of the most culturally diverse areas in Canada, plus theatre culture, plus sci-fi fandom, etc., etc… Each has its own traditions and rituals, its own imprint that it has left on me.
I think that “we both have the same culture because we’re both American” is both excessively reductive and a slap in the face of what America is supposed to be.
Donald Trump as President is basically an unimaginable hell. Not at first, but when he starts dismantling all the normal stuff we take for granted like health care & food safety, and it all gets replaced with fear and suspicion. It’s already started during his campaign and it’ll only get worse and rage harder if he’s elected.
Which is probably why I think a nuclear hell-scape seems quaint. There is some seriously fucked shit happening in our world, and given how we’re more interconnected (yet mediated) than ever, it seems all the more scary.
I also inadvertently implied Trump has started dismantling stuff. He hasn’t. He can’t. Yet. But he has started his campaign of hatred and animosity. It’s late & I’m mentally loopy. Yes, nuclear hellscapes seem rather quaint.
I think most people think their day to day lives are an uphill battle. The primary appeal of the post-apocalypse is, I believe, the promise of a world without those people (whether those people be bankers, immigrants, the religious right, godless atheists, tea partiers, liberals, whatever).
Obviously, we’ll be the ones to survive, since we saw it coming. We all know that with our own personal determination and self reliance, not to mention our superior values, we’ll be able to do much better if only we didn’t have those [insert group of your choice] holding us back.
