- Living Cultures Group Page

I guess this will be the place for our talk about Chapter 3?

Peace through respect, not through lack of violence, "but active engagement of compassion" (pg. 116). Globalization is tantamount to violence to local culture by robbing individuality and our "common humanity".

The culture of violence , as Shiva described in Living Cultures, assumes many forms, all devastating to local societies. The “vicious cycles of violence” (p. 109) realized through globalism, greed and “free trade,” erases cultural diversity, essential for humanity's survival. The issues raised in this section must be understood before any meaningful changes take effect. What the West refers to as “making other cultures civilized” (p. 110) actually drains the life from a living society, creating violent destruction in its wake. Imperialists do not see what evils they create, and view native social structures that do not fit into a narrow view of Western culture as something to be controlled and made “productive.” This belief comes from a “misguided definition of poverty,” where “non-Western modes of consumption are often mistaken for misery and poverty.” (p. 113) When multinational corporations such as Monsanto patent seeds with non-renewable traits, it does not take into account the violence created towards indigenous and “sustenance” farmers. Under-production and wide scale crop failure are rampant in the Indian farming class. In southern India, the end result is extreme poverty and despair, leading to no less than mass suicide, which Shiva describes as “the worst form of genocide.”(p. 120) The need for the steady flow of capital in a market economy takes precedent, and the push for “development and poverty alleviation” actually creates new forms of poverty and dispossession.

This “monoculture of economic globalization “ goes hand in hand with religious fundamentalism, using separation and subjugation to create suffering, especially at the expense of women, who are “displaced from productive roles in society, (and) are rendered disposable.” (p. 120) The use of existing class inequities, by both “capitalist and religious patriarchy” who feel the “divine right to rule... make women as human beings disappear.” (p. 132) Roshi7

HOW DOES BEING CIVILIZED MEAN LIVING AND LET LIVING? HAHA! “An imperialist West cannot be a civilized West since civilized people do not destroy other civilizations” yet over time our culture has taken over every single indigenous people sitting on our land to the point that there are none left. We’ve become captive in our own lifestyles and have taken control not only over the people of this world (and ourselves) but the earth, literally. We feel we should not be denied anything, it is our right! We were born special, better than everything else on this planet and because we are able to, we will control the plants and how many grow, the animals and how many of them are left, and the food and what you have to do to get to it. I don’t think Western civilization is the only problem, it is the civilized culture as a whole. The selfishness that is inherited throughout our generations causes confusion when you preach sustainability and protection of the environment. “You mean we shouldn’t be doing and taking what we want and don‘t need? Well why not??”

good stuff:

"voilence cannot have a culture" - SAMDHONG RINPOCHE (prime minister of Tibetan govt.)

SANSKRIT definitions:

sanskriti- "culture" activities that hold a society & community together

vkriti- (destructive processes) that which disintegrates & violates

CULTURES are alive. you can see them, touch them, feel them, taste them, smell them, experience them, love them.

violence suggested destruction but cultures suggest connectivity so they DO NOT belong next to each other in a sentence.

I'll just start with my thoughts on the chapter.

The government and corporate take-over of culture, however unappealing, is very successful in America mainly because of the ignorance and the laziness of a vast majority of it's people. It's not even that we don't want to understand, it's that we are kept from understanding. Living in our neighborhoods and going to our schools, everything seems okay. We are raised to think that America is life, what's cool is cool, and there is nothing we can do to change it. Jump on board or be ridiculed by all those who have conformed.

So we buy the clothes that we are told are "in", the food we are told is "good", and we base our interests around what is currently the most popular trend. We are brought up to be content with our community and not worry about what we are doing as a nation. Corporations have even gone as far as advertising in public schools. It seems they figure that kids spend a large majority of time learning, when they could be looking at ads for their new product. And we will buy the product, because it's familiar, and it's easy.

This corporate world leads to a society of competition and selfishness. People are afraid of change, and of difference. Discrimination causes violence and puts a barrier around our community, keeping other cultures that aren't our own separate from us.

Earth Democracy has a positive outlook on the situation, and suggests a change from a "killing culture" to a "living culture". Shiva offers that cooperation instead of competition will lead to a society of sustainability rather than discrimination and violence, and will put an end to the culture restriction and narrow-minded attitudes of its inhabitants. -Adam Parker

Once again, I find Shiva's writing to be off the mark. Upon reading the first few pages of the "Living Cultures" section, I shouted "BULLSHIT" aloud. Fortunately, I had the fortitude (but only just) to continue reading to parts where Shiva does in fact begin to touch on ideas that I can get behind her on.

Let me start, however, with what I found to be dead on the mark, before I reveal the twisted hypocrisy. The death of small-scale subsistence farming, as well as the cultures and peoples dependent upon it, is a tragedy that Shiva gives horrific yet necessary gravity. Small-scale farming and the maintenance of biodiversity, so tied to the cultures who make use of these practices, could not be more valuable to the continued ecological health of Earth and humanity. The death of these practices in favor of corporate farming of clonal monocultures is destined to cause widespread epidemic crop failures.

But what is the real value of biodiversity? - Biodiversity - Barry

This question remains answered only implicitly by this chapter; allow me to elaborate. First off, I'll begin by offering a narrow operational definition of biodiversity as it pertains to agricultural crops. Biodiversity is the amount of variation between the genetic code of individual organisms in an ecosystem. Rather than referring to a natural ecosystem, let us call our ecosystem a farm. In order to illustrate biodiversity, I'll give a counterexample to show you what biodiversity isn't.

Breadbasket Wheat Field: This farm is like those you might see in the "fly-over states." These farms can be massive, and are designed to produce a single crop variety over hundreds of acres. This single variety of wheat is not descended from the wheat that grew in its place the season before it, but rather from science run amuck. Every year, somewhere in a warm part of Texas, a single test field of wheat is grown in which several of the commercially available varieties of wheat are tested to see which will produce the highest yield that season, while being the most resistant to the elements. Once the winner is found, the cooler farms of the "bread basket" then plant that type of wheat solely on all of their fields. To give you an idea of how uniform these fields are, individual wheat plants are not just closely related to the rest in the field, they are clones of every other plant in the field, as well as all of the plants in all of the other fields that year. As clones, they all share the same characteristics, same resistances, and the same weaknesses to any pest or disease that may become immune to their genetic alterations that are designed to make them resistant to parasites.

For more information about plants, agriculture and biodiversity, I highly recommend checking out the following books:

• Seeds of Change by Henry Hobhouse
• The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

If you haven't seen the problem with monocultures, let me cite historical precedent. Some time ago, in a poor island nation, the people were desperate for some way to adequately feed themselves. For years they had struggled to fulfill their nutritional needs, but were prevented from growing a balanced diet of crops by growing conditions and poverty. One day, however, explorers came by ship to their island, and brought with them a new crop. This crop, coupled with their limited livestock, could fulfill nearly all of their food needs in the absence of any other. Also, this crop always produced the same large amount of food. In fact, in order to grow more, one needn't wait for some of their harvest to come to seed, but could grow more identical plants from cuttings. For some time the people of the island were able to live happier, richer and healthier lives. However, many years later, some farmers began to find their plants rotting in the fields. This black rot ruined the plants, but was local and limited to only a few farms. In generations past, any such plant affliction would be limited in range, as it would only affect crops in a region that had little resistance to that particular disease, thus only harming the yield slightly. However, this new disease could not be contained, as every one of these plants (grown from cuttings) was a clone of the original parent plant and therefore equally susceptible to the disease. And so the black rot swept through the island like wildfire, causing a famine that killed millions. Are you familiar with this great tragedy?

However, just as the Islanders sealed their fate unwittingly, so is the cultural diversity of this world being destroyed unintentionally. This is where I differ from Shiva, and indeed believe that she is wrong and hypocritical. She honestly believes that it is the culture of the west... no wait stop. I'll come out and say it. She believes that The United States of America revolves around a culture of hate. She very clearly believes that we western imperialists are of hateful intent, shitting upon good peaceful cultures throughout the world. What she doesn't realize, however, is that not only are we not the oppressors that she paints us out to be (indeed that is an utter fabrication) but we are equally the victims, only separated by time and space. Does she believe that the small time farmers of the midwest were not also decimated by corporate agriculture? Does she believe that our leaders actually intend to impose a religiously fueled agenda of hatred upon the world? Does she believe that the ethics of corporations are the direct result of western cultural teachings?

Just as I don't know well the culture and history of India's people, she does not know well the culture an history of mine. I am not a religious man, but I will speak on behalf of those who follow "western" (whatever the fuck that brand she gave us means) religions. Just as with ANY religion in the world, there are those who would be extremists; persons who manipulate their religious views to impose their violent selves upon others. This, however, is NOT exclusive to the western world. Furthermore, the large multi-national corporations that blindly cause problems for small-time farmers are not in any way representative of the viewpoint of the people of the west. People are just people, no matter where they are from. To lay the blame on specific groups or cultures (as Shiva does) is to put a wall between us. This is why I didn't like this chapter. Shiva was quick to decry cultural ignorance and intolerance, but just as quick to prove her ignorance and intolerance of the culture that she painted as an enemy.

I have to stop my rant, as I'm worried about becoming heated and irrational. The short synopsis is: Shiva was spot on in identifying the threats facing the cultures of Earth, but was off the target in identifying the cause. These big corporations are not fueled by misguided ethics (though some people might be), but rather are just a large animal in a petting zoo; unwittingly crushing those too small for it to notice. The way to approach this is not to blame a particular culture's world view, but rather to bring the problem at hand to the attention to those who are willing to do something about it, without vilifying them.

- Danny

//Sorry Roshi7 for not having posted sooner (thermodynamics = teh suck)

Danny - In my interpretation of Shiva's Living Culture, and your post, I must say that I agree with your assessment about 80%. I think that Shiva's point of view is what you take issue with, with her decidedly anti-Western (read USA) slant. The attention she pays to the evils of Western society is a bit melodramatic, to be sure, especially when she brings up “mass suicides” in the Indian farming class. It does make me want to claim “shenanigans.” Some further reading does support her claim, based on numbers supplied by the Indian Home Ministry, as well as reports in the New York Times (another bastion of somewhat left leaning thought). Don't worry, I lean to the left myself.

Shiva's writing is nearly Swiftian, as she uses terms like “genocide,” but remember, India has been a whipping post for the west for centuries, and India is no stranger to imperialism. You can thank our European friends (read Britain) for that, part of the nefarious “Western culture,” where exploitation of raw materials was de rigueur. And the roots of globalization can be traced back to the East India Company, an early precursor (what other kind?) to Monsanto, who seems to get the brunt of Shiva's rage. But this is not a history class. I see why she uses hyperbole and exaggeration in her viewpoint, and I think it boils down to two factors; she needs to raise awareness, using suicide numbers to “shake the tree,” and she wants to sell books. I do believe that Shiva is more pragmatic about the reality of India's plight, and her causation for the problems of Indian farmers leans to the simplistic. She must have a good deal of awareness of the West, one cannot be a darling of the left without it.

For those who decry Western Imperialism, their arguments must be taken to the extreme. It is necessary as a tool of rhetoric. Sometimes it is the only way a discussion can be started. To be timid in arguing a subject which uses a term such as genocide, I believe, would be grave tactical error. Roshi7

Shive brought up biodiversity in this chapter! HEY, this is where I got the idea for my essay! But what is the real value of biodiversity? - But what is the real value of biodiversity? - Biodiversity - Barry

I'm just glad my Service Pack Update for Vista didn't eat up my laptop or my entire Wednesday night. Roshi7

Did anyone see Tony Blair on "The Daily Show" Thursday night? He was talking about the benefits of Globalization! Hope he got his fee in advance!

- I did not see "The Daily Show" as I can't stand John Stewart's snide leftist quips. You'd better worry, I lean to the right myself. ;) -Danny

SOME PERSPECTIVE! An anti-environment, de-evolution song. Here are lyrics.

posted by Jessica.

Thats pretty funny, though trippy... is it British? - Danny

Talking Heads! luv em. Roshi7