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<H1><A HREF="pt1-03-continents1.html">Cultural immune systems</A></H1>
<P>Ideas and perspectives are like viruses, with a life of their own. They seek ever new host populations – or they die.</P>
<P>Through carriers they transplant, mutate and propagate. If a host body doesn't tolerate or successfully resist a virus, it gets a fever.</P>
<P> Immunity to infection is strengthened in a healthy 'body social' if it enjoys life. Antibiotic cultural preservation measures work short-term, treating symptoms only. Longterm they disincentivise cultural experimentation and expression.</P>
<P>The best pro-biotics are meaning-in-life, creativity, innovation, celebration and encouragement.</P>
<P>A healthy, florescent culture has little to fear from new influences. They mirror a culture back to itself, revealing facets no one noticed before. A healthy culture takes the best and forgets the rest – it is too busy <I>creating</I>.</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">Every culture has characteristics which, when mirrored by other cultures, reveal a need for reform and change. Some characteristics show up to be sound and good. This mirroring is one of the big processes of the 21st C.</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">Damage has been wrought for 300 years by Western cultural imposition. Here we stand, and the balance is now shifting.</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">It is incumbent on formerly subject and client cultures to regenerate, and on the West to get out of the way and assist only when invited. Its capability, clarity and ideas are valuable, but the West's right to define world trade, culture, morals and geopolitics is now under serious review.</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">A monocultural world is inherently sterile and unsound. Cultural diversity strengthens human survival capacity. Reduction of diversity provokes a mass response which re-creates diversity anew – especially in today's big cities and amongst the young. Culture is increasingly a matter of identification, not of birth.</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">Each culture is challenged to cross gulfs and find points of creative contact. Longterm, cultural imposition is shifting toward to intercultural exchange and collaboration. By necessity. This shift can hurt.</P>
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<P CLASS="linksmedsm"><A HREF="pt1-04-rationality.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Click for the next page">NEXT: The Rationality of Nationality</A></P>
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