[ExI] America: Home of All Evil

[Stefano Vaj]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 8:25 PM, Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at insightbb.com>
wrote:

>  I agree. I wonder why given that, aside from redneckism, American culture
> is largely grown from a mix of various other cultures that despise us. Is it
> the fact that most of us would gladly do business with, work with, or marry
> others of different cultures despite our differences? Is that somehow viewed
> by others as being unprincipled? Any other ideas? Why do you think this is?
>

Mmhhh. Good questions. I think that the real issue is not hybridisation -
this has always taken place, and nobody ever made such a great fuss about
it. Rather, it is the feeling that "Americanisation" leads to an entropic
loss of diversity, cultural identities, popular sovereignties, different
destinies, and so forth. Russian domination was hated in Eastern Europe when
the iron curtain was up, but the repressed nationalities immediately bounced
back as soon as soviet military control was over. People feeling threatened
by the "Americanisation" of their countries fear the threat of a loss of
their "soul", whatever this may mean in their specific contexts.

Getting back to transhumanism, the idea of a globally-enforced New World
Order where diverse collective options - i.e., as with what technologies or
posthuman changes are acceptable and what are not in a given system of law -
would be strictly limited is not an entirely comforting thought. From Bush's
ONU resolution on cloning and genetic engineering to Fukuyama's End of
History to Huxley's *Brave New World* there is some common ground that may
not be too well received by people who would rather make whatever they like
with their future, including in indisputably "western" countries such as
France or Italy or Spain or Switzerland.

Stefano Vaj
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