Aloha,
On 7/21/2010 5:13 AM, nagasiva yronwode, YIPPIE Director wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite">we've
sometimes
discussed that kind of thing amongst friends with at least a
partial interest in ethnomagicology. the immediate issue for your
paragraph above would be how far to go back so as to refer to
"remaining". there have, at least within this region of the world, been
successive waves of influence and religiomagical development, andthese
seem to be identifiable in some measure.
A little more on my earlier use of "local/regional" vs. "national"
cultures in talking about SF Bay Area occulture.
1.) The entire SF Bay Area cultural aggregate (that I have in mind)
is historically shallow. European presence in the SF Bay Area did
not show up until roughly the 1780s. At most, I'm thinking of
a 200 year period, and really of the post Gold Rush period.
Note: I'm using the term "cultural aggregate" to refer to the
whole evolving group of subcultures, whether local/regional,
national, ethnic, mixed, or whatever in character.
2.) I don't think that there was much direct influence from indigenous
cultures on the development of the SF Bay Area cultural aggregate.
Unlike cultural interactions in Eastern North America. Indigenous
cultures of the SF Bay Area were swept aside by European immigration.
I think that their influence was mostly indirect.
3.) The SF Bay Area cultural aggregate was--and remains--an
immigrant one. Mostly, what we see is cultures arriving from
elsewhere and contending in and with new circumstances.
Diversity, even if unsuspected or ignored or denied, is the
paramount cultural circumstance. Adaptation to diversity,
accommodation to diversity, acculturation as a condition of
diversity was--and remain--crucial cultural processes.
4.) The post Gold Rush SF Bay Area cultural aggregate was--and
remains--national or international or global in regard to its goals
and ambitions. It incorporated and was largely driven by a desire
to have and to create "high" culture. Mostly Western high culture,
but not excluding non-Western high cultures.
I have a sense that this is a key feature of the SF Bay Area cultural
aggregate. One that I'm finding tricky to describe.
The SF Bay Area cultural aggregate looked outward. I was upwardly
mobile and a social climber (if such notions can be, metaphorically,
applied to cultures). Post WWII, the SF Bay Area enjoyed its status
as a leading world city. It was the opposite of isolated, remote, or
provincial.
"Local" in this regard probably gets at developments in the
constellation
of subcultures resulting from things like location, transportation and
communication technologies, and responses to immediate circumstances.
As transportation technologies, communication technologies, and such
developed, the national characteristics of the SF Bay Area cultural
aggregate were able to express themselves more and more. These
national cultural expressions displaced more and more of the local
subcultures and qualities.
(What I'm getting at is something like this: Nobody could imagine
talking about themselves as "bi-coastal" when it took a clipper 90
days to sail from New York to San Francisco. But it became more
or less commonplace when a 7-8 hour flight on a jet airliner became
possible.)
I don't think that the SF Bay Area cultural aggregate aimed in any
manner to grow as or to be a "local" culture. In contrast, I think that
Salt Lake City by and large did. Even though Salt Lake City shared
many of the same aspirations to a high culture.
5.) "Local/regional" vs. "national" is not the same as "rural" vs.
"urban."
The SF Bay Area cultural aggregate was urban focused.
6.) The SF Bay Area cultural aggregate was--and remains--innovative,
creative, experimental, and sophisticated.
7.) At the same time, a deep rooted appreciation for the land as a
wild place, for the landscape and ecological communities unmolested
by too much human presence was a powerful current in the SF
Bay Area cultural aggregate. Not for nothing was it a major influence
on the development of environmentalism as ideology and movement.
8.) In many respects, I'm thinking of the "local/regional" vs.
"national"
contrast as if they were literary schools or movements that are
probably
less different from one another than the terms themselves imply.
It's more a matter of focus and aim and quality of participation than
it is
of marked cultural differences between the "local" subcultures and
the "national" ones.
In my earlier post, for instance, I describe several post WWII Craft
Trads
as "local" mostly because they did not appear to aspire to any
"national"
presence or recognition. "Local" here may touch more (in some
respects)
on style rather than orientation to place.
Obviously, I'm describing complicated cultural characteristics and
processes in very broad strokes. And, for me, at least, getting at the
details of SF Bay Area occulture over its history is challenging. I
have a lot more suspicions and intuitions and inner clues than I
do specifics of person, time, and location.
Musing Occulture As Cultural Change! Rose,
Pitch
