Culture and Change in the Social Imagination...

When it comes to culture, any kind of change is actually an absorption or integration or adaptation of another culture's information. Why? Because, it seems wise or suitable or the right thing to do at the time. Another culture may appear to be doing well or better than or it appears to be better off because of a certain practice that it has adopted and or adapted to.

Some cultures are more open books than others and it can be to their benefit or not... in either case. Those that seem to be more closed are taking a risk in the eyes of some and yet they may think that melting into the global network is the real risk.

Change does not come easy and it is not always welcome. But what is real change and if it were real, by whose standards or expertise claims it to be real change? You know what comes around goes around and that there is nothing new under the sun ~ Ecclesiastes 1:9.

There is in fact no 'real' change. There is only mankind and mankind is flawed. Man is greedy by nature. Man is only willing to stick his/her neck out when it seems like there is an advantage in doing so or forced to; the altruistic man is an ideal type that anyone would like to be or thinks they measure up to be. Therefore, any change whether on the individual level or cultural level is likely following that order. As within culture 'groups/societies' this applies as much as it does to wider scenarios - culture to culture.

Is there appropriation? Most certainly. Is that bad? No. In fact, such exchanges of cultural data and its absorption benefits any culture that choose to do so based on the above commentary. Yet, you are still thinking that change does exist... what about technology? Isn't it changing everything? Yes and No!

Yes, because as it was when we gave up hunting and gathering, or the car for the horse, or the telegraph for the telephone or the light bulb for the candle. It would seem that culture changed; but what really changed was only how a given culture experienced such technology in a place and shared it in a place.

Culture did not really change; because the meaning of it did not change - what it means to be this or that and not that or this in a place.  Oh, but you insist yet that cultures change and that certainly what it means to be an American has changed. Has it?

Doesn't it still mean to have certain liberties: such as the freedom of speech, and the right to assemble and to be represented? Yes, it does. Just because the actors change or new 'sets/props' come on stage doesn't mean things have changed or that such 'change' is equal to 'real' change. But, then again... does 'real' change exist? There is no thing new under the sun said a wise man named Solomon!