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May not have originated with him but he speaks to it in Out of Our Past. I think that as long as the group refrains from becoming Hyphenated-Americans retaining a bit of ones' cultural baggage is okay; we all enjoy having Irish, Polish, or another type “roots”… as long as we aren't more “that” than “this”.For Skiguy: it's okay to have our bias when we study history, as long as we know it's there. Kind of like a filter on a camera lens, that distorts the light for a certain effect; as long as we realize it is there we understand the distortion that is present. If we are unaware we think what we are observing is the real deal... same with bias or our cultural baggage; as long as we know it's there we can deal with it.
I like Degler's Salad Bowl (as opposed to the Melting Pot) idea; he said that while assuming many of the traits of the larger culture, the “Romanization” if you will… groups could also keep some of their old world culture as well. The thing, according to Degler, that would prevent the Balkanization (my term not his) would be subscription to the democratic traditions of the US. These overriding traditions, as delineated and protected by the constitution and the Bill of Rights, are the dressing on the salad… the unifying factor that allows the parts remain individually identifiable but also to be integrated into the united whole.The other side of the issue is when every group retains all of their cultural baggage without any effort to be acculturated into the larger society. Then we get the Balkanization issue.
Not at all; history without why is meaningless. Without an understanding of why they happened and why they mean something in the long term (matter to us today) historical facts or events or people are just Jeopardy answers. In the original Greek history means learning by inquiry.Sorry if my previopus post sent the wrong message. History has a hard time being objective as we are inclinde to judge what happened throught the filter of our own culture. When we judge any other time or culture by own values they will always come out on the short end.
MHO only… The geography of an area gives the inhabitants certain options (based on topography, climate and weather patterns, flora/fauna, proximity to other groups and a bundle of other considerations including their raison d'?tre or "reason to be"...); their culture is a result of how they play the cards they are dealt by Mother Nature and chance. History, then, is the record of how they change through time.Not to confuse me with the old time determinists... realize that nature offers possibilities that different groups at different levels of development will use differently but generally geograhy influences culture; that is, all the material that the society sees fit to pass on to the nextgeneration, either by way of formal educational processes or as societal standards (contemporarymorality). Culture is the result of our geography; we are like we are as a result of where we live and what is there to work with, as well as how we interact with other people and places around us. We must recognize that who and what we are as a society and culture impacts this interaction with other groups and therefore, our history.
Geography is a study of the space we occupy and how we use it; the themes are location (literally where it's at), place (what it's like there), interaction (between us and the environment… how we make our living there). [T]he aforementioned movement (interaction between and among places), and region (how an area is alike internally or different from the area(s) around it).History is the story of how we change through time... culture is what we are like based to a large degree (but not totally) on our relationship(s) with our geography.History, geography and culture, like the old saying (a sit-com song really)... "It's about time, it's about space, it's about the human race...". IMHO at least... 8)
Only thing that trumps the YB-36 is the the B-52!B-36
Demographers...who fall under the umbrella of Geography. (I happen to have a minor in this).
The fourth theme of geography; Movement, the interaction between and among places... though I teach history I'm a dyed-in-the-wool geographer 😉
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0466327/publicity… Korman article at IMDB.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121949/plotsummary...Wild Kingdom @ IMDB; Malin Perkins narrated I believe.Cheers,Wally
Nicely put Daniel. The South was, in many ways, our aristocracy (or so they felt) being to a large degree Cavaliers; those that weren't were from the borderlands or Scots-Irish and generally of a military inclination and so for the Revolutionary ideal as well.
