(seen at Small Ritual)

and it seemed to us, talking afterwards, that in postmodernity everyone is simultaneously in the global culture, and searching for a tradition to provide what that global culture lacks. but one of the results of the global culture is that it gives access to other people's traditions while dissolving the bonds of our own. so we all, pakeha and maori, african, european and asian, abandon our own traditions with a sigh of relief while grasping enviously at other people's which of course will liberate not enslave us. and then we complain that those others don't take enough care over preserving their traditions for us to sample.

which complaint isn't just the privilege of white westerners looking at 'ethnic cultures' any more - in a postmodern global culture the scrutiny and expectations come back the other way, and in all other directions. only this week an American writer in the Times was lamenting that us Brits aren't preserving those British traditions that Americans so love. we feel disappointed when others turn out to be globalised and boringly contemporary like us - and yet we're insulted when it's suggested that we should be the ones to forego global culture for the sake of historical preservation and cultural diversity