I wrote this in response to a colleague's post about globalization and it's effect on religious practice and musical traditions. (I'm in an online Master's in Ethnomusicology program through Liberty University, and while I do not share their particular set of religious beliefs, I do advertise myself as Christian. This whole "quoting the Bible" thing is very new to me but I think I have a knack for it.
I find globalization to be sometimes scary and sometimes beautiful, and will be the first to admit that I think it's great for the culture where I live to be an amalgam of diverse foods, colors, and beliefs from around the world, while I also harbor the hope that the places where these beautiful things came from are somehow preserved so that the culture is not lost. However, the development of a culture and its subsequent collapse is a cycle like the adaptation of a new species of animal and its eventual extinction as the ecosystem changes around it. The Mycenaeans, like the woolly mammoth, had their time in the sun, shaped the world around them (moreso the Mycenaeans than the mammoths), and then disappeared from the face of the Earth. In Isaiah 43:18, God says "Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert" (KJV). Earlier in the chapter, the Lord says "Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and show us former things?" (Isaiah 43:9 KJV). Does this indicate that the world has been set on a path towards homogenization all along and that we should let go of diversity? I personally hope not. Rather, I have my fingers crossed that the Lord has set us on a path to agreement; that someday all the peoples of the Earth will concur that diversity of tradition, of musical instruments, of appearance, language, and thought, is beautiful, and should be greeted with love rather than hate.
25 August 2019
Dallas, TX
I find globalization to be sometimes scary and sometimes beautiful, and will be the first to admit that I think it's great for the culture where I live to be an amalgam of diverse foods, colors, and beliefs from around the world, while I also harbor the hope that the places where these beautiful things came from are somehow preserved so that the culture is not lost. However, the development of a culture and its subsequent collapse is a cycle like the adaptation of a new species of animal and its eventual extinction as the ecosystem changes around it. The Mycenaeans, like the woolly mammoth, had their time in the sun, shaped the world around them (moreso the Mycenaeans than the mammoths), and then disappeared from the face of the Earth. In Isaiah 43:18, God says "Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert" (KJV). Earlier in the chapter, the Lord says "Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and show us former things?" (Isaiah 43:9 KJV). Does this indicate that the world has been set on a path towards homogenization all along and that we should let go of diversity? I personally hope not. Rather, I have my fingers crossed that the Lord has set us on a path to agreement; that someday all the peoples of the Earth will concur that diversity of tradition, of musical instruments, of appearance, language, and thought, is beautiful, and should be greeted with love rather than hate.
25 August 2019
Dallas, TX
