134 sats \ 1 reply \ @ways_wilderness 25 Jun \ on: Is cultural self-reflection a good thing? culture
Anything and everything should be up for honest examination, really.
The problem is that so much of what is "our culture" these days is alien, a mixed up thing, and in my opinion really synthetic.
So any examination should start with that, and uproot everything that has been pushed & propagandized for ages! Especially post Bernays.
Furthermore a healthy examination of any culture should be rooted in living it, that makes sense of everything. Of course its not realistic to literally go back to what was, what I mean is that one should get as close as possible, that way you'll start seeing very clearly why a lot of details and patterns are forming the core of any culture.
Take the Northern cultures as an example, back during the tail end of the Cold War I had some literally cold experiences: doing a year in the army, including a winter North of the Polar Cirle.
Now I'd already grown up in a culture dealing with this, but living for days or even weeks on end in a tent together, all the way down to minus ~40 Celsius/Fahrenheit really made at least me understand far more... On a gut level, I'd say.
I've also been doing some deep dives into cultures I was not born into, but actively and completely living it for some years makes things kinda dawn slowly, all while the myriads of details also are understood & stored in the mind :-)
Rational analysis on its own is even worse than nothing when it comes to things like this!
The problem is that so much of what is "our culture" these days is alien, a mixed up thing, and in my opinion really synthetic.
What is it you think is really synthetic about our culture? Understanding the history of that thing might lead you to greater clarity.
I think it's pretty cool that you commit yourself to physical traditional living. I do the same thing, although instead of elements exposure, I subject myself to rather rigorous physical training that challenges the myriad of possible expressions of the human form. Instead of solely analyzing traditional approaches to movement and physical expression, however, I take it upon myself to try to understand the varied expressions of the human body based on current understandings of anatomy and exercise science.
I don't know the actual numbers, but if you take into account the number of bones and muscles in the human body, and the different ways they can move, I believe there actually is a "fixed number" which demarcates all the different ways the human body can move. Fascinating! I hope to someday have something like an "optimal aptitude" of these possible physical expressions.
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