Direction to Perfection? Nononono....

"Who would resist the proposition that more fellow feeling in the world is better than less, and that to extend the interloutive in the world is better than to diminish it? At the same time, there is a paradox here, one that demands of us a sense of proportion. Although the anthropologist is called to bring diverse people to intercommunication, he or she is also called to resist the homogenization that lies in mass communication. We are called by our very expereince to celebrate the great variety of voices in the human chorus. The paradox is that we at once work to amplify the scale of intercommunication-and in effect contribute to homogenization-while at the same time we work to insist on the great variety of voices in communication. We must maintain here too a sense of proportion. We must recognize the point at which wider and wider cultural intercommunication can lead to dominant voices hidden in the homogenizing process. Human intercommunication has its uses and abuses." -James W Fernandez

I argue this point over and over--at what point do the benefits outweigh the negative concequences, and how are two cultures able to keep the balance? When two mix it can become a beautiful thing, but so many unique ideas are lost. When Americans go to other countries and help to bring them into the new age, medicines, technologies, everything to save hundreds of thousands of lives are those other cultures in fact whoring the thing that makes them *them*? Who can say no to living a more comfortable lifestyle. We are, in fact, animals. We strive for the things that are going to make us more likely to live long and reproduce. How can one group of people look at all that technology has brought us, and they are without, and not say yes? It is the prostitution of culture and it is wrong. But with lives in the balance there is no compromise.