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I can't really remember what we talked about in class. I know it was about Jared Diamond, and how we should analyze what he's saying, and that he was kind of pompous and then I just kept thinking "cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake cake" for the last, oh, thirty minutes of class. So I spent half the class thinking about cake. Not quite the most productive day, but y'know. Cake.

I think cultural change has patterns and explanations very similar to the explanations humans have for cosmological, geological, and biological change, partially because (and goodness how I've beaten this horse to death) humans are the ones explaining the phenomena and I feel they're inclined to take what they know and apply it to other things. It could be the reverse of that too, if that makes any sense.

On Saturday I went to New York City to visit my brother, and as we inevitably end up doing whenever I’m in New York City, we went to the Museum of Natural History. For whatever reason we spent a large portion of time in the “Peoples of the World” exhibits (ex. Peoples of Asia, Peoples of North America, Peoples of South America, Peoples of Africa), and these exhibits are both very good and very bad. They’re very good in that they present a lot of information on the development of human beings and culture and the diversity possible within one species, and while they try to be as engaging as possible they do not water the information down as much as in some other museums.

They’re very bad in that they’re old. These exhibits appear as though they haven’t been updated since the ‘60s. They describe certain peoples and patterns of migration as living in/moving through Soviet territory. They use an out of date Romanization system of Chinese. The typeface of the exhibits scream ‘pre-1990’. And, while not belittling any of the cultures displayed, there’s a subversive feeling of attempting to be politically correct and just winding up with an undertone of the noble savage in need of saving. It’s distressing because there’s so much information at the museum’s disposal, so much they could be doing, and what is probably the most sensitive area of the museum is ignored. It’s not just these exhibits that are older: the animals of the world exhibits are old too, for example, but those are all taxidermy and really, really shouldn’t be updated unless it’s just text. The museum is in constant limbo of moving from the old to the new, and I know it’s a very difficult process, but at the same time I am a child of the Internet. I want everything to be at my fingertips in a heartbeat. I want the newest, hippest thing, and I want it now.

I suppose what I’m trying to say with that is now that we have reached a period in human existence where everything is instantaneous and changes so quickly, how do we update our history and culture to function in a new age and keep it relevant? How can the past stay up to date? Should we abandon it, or keep trying to drag it with us?