In the last article, I wrote about moving from competition to collaboration. In this one, I would like to talk about moving from mono-culture to appreciation of diversity. We have monoculture on many levels, be forestry or food production, but also culturally and with ethnicity.
I remember as a teenager in Germany when an influx of people from Turkey began I heard people, including my own parents, being afraid of losing our culture. Was that true? Is is true that I could loose my culture due to people with a different culture?
Are we losing our culture because people immigrate, or are we getting exposed to a different culture? Usually when we travel, we are sort of okay being exposed to a different culture, but at home, no that is my culture. There is discomfort, there is fear of change, and it brings up judgment
The contemplations I sometimes do start with: I wonder what would happen if..... ? Writing about diversity, I couldn't help it and I started thinking about what would happen if we created a new culture, one that is pulling from the funnest, most beautiful parts of all the different cultures that are around us.
Where does culture come from? Culture grows out of the environment that we are living in, grows out of the religions that we subscribe to, grows out of collective beliefs. Those are the base of the culture. Today, the world is a village.
While many people still consider themselves a citizen of their country, what if we are actually global citizens? In another contemplation, I realized how much people are moving, moving within their country, but also moving to the other countries, even other continents. I just need to look at myself. Originally, I was born and grew up in Germany. I came to the USA for a limited time period, and over 40 years later, I'm still in this new country.
Things are changing. Are we willing to move to a new country and learn about that culture? That does not mean I have to adopt it and make it my culture, but at least learn about it, to respect the different culture.
Do we see our own culture as the correct one and the other as the wrong one? That could be as an immigrant, as well as a citizen, Can I respect another culture and the people living in that culture without having to judge them. I may not like things about that culture. That's not a problem; but not liking is not meaning judging it, making it wrong,
Nature thrives on diversity, and we humans have introduced so much monoculture. Just look at the monoculture in the forests. How much have we substituted the variety of different trees after they were cut down with just one quick growing, inexpensive tree called the pine tree? Now, with the changes in the climate, a monoculture is affected by insects. The trees die, the dead trees become a fire danger.
There is monoculture in food crops. We used to have small fields that the individual farmer grew some wheat or corn on. Now we have large fields. These large fields need fertilizer because the soil gets depleted. The depletion of the soil requires pesticides because the plants are not as healthy anymore and, again, get easily affected by insects. Lastly, we eat the unhealthy plant.
Appreciating diversity is the ability to look through a different lens.It is the ability to appreciate differences and that does mean change for many people. Many people resist change. They don't like change. So where can we change enough to begin appreciating diversity? I will leave you with the invitation to explore that thought for you.