The value and the cost of cultural preservation

As any worthy financial advisor will promptly inform you, diversification is a key factor in the struggle to survive in a changing environment. With shifting conditions there will always be winners and losers, but by distributing your risk the chances are that, on average, your pluses are higher than your minuses. This is a lesson that life as we know it learned billions of years ago, when it first discovered sexual reproduction: in a very delicate balance, the offspring of two individuals is genetically different from each of the parents while, at the same time, staying close enough to be sexually compatible to produce offspring of their own.

This diversity has allowed the survival of life in the world at least on two global-scale cases. The first one was the Permian-Triassic extinction nearly 252 million years ago, where complete genera were wiped out of the surface of Earth due to the elevated temperatures and the reduction of oxygen in the seawater (with the subsequent acidification). It is estimated that approximately 80% of animal life died and took between four and ten million years to bounce back, precisely from those few who were better prepared to deal with the new conditions. If the environmental change had been in a different direction, it would have been other species the one who survived. A second, better known catastrophic mass-extinction happened when a meteorite impacted Earth about 66 million years ago creating the Chicxulub crate and causing the end of the dinosaur era in what is call the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction. The thick layer of dust floating in the atmosphere for decades lead to the demise of most cold-blooded animal species, while at the same giving evolutionary opportunities to the mammals who thrived in the colder climate to raise to the apex of many food chains.

Photo: The Advocacy Project

We have discussed several times in the past the importance of diversity not only on the biological level but, way  more importantly, also in the cultural level. The need for biological compatibility necessarily imposes a limit on how strong the changes can be at the genetic level, but cultural evolution is much less constrained, since it only evolves non-material uses and practices that can be exercised on a private scale. Of course, there are some minimal civic requirements, such us speaking (some of) the same language or accepting the current law and system of justice, but the range of personal options can otherwise be very wide.

Within the background of these freedom, human groups tend to cluster around shared practices of every kind, from religions to sports clubs, from charitable associations to book circles, and the dynamics of society (particularly in democratic countries) are shaped in such a way that any group their ideas to the greater pool that feeds the society at large. And this diversity can, when properly handled, help the society thrive.

However, the benefits of diversity do not show only on a societal level. Smaller groups such as companies or even working teams can leverage the different points of view. On very visible example is the programming practice known as "extreme programming" or just XP where, among other things, there are two programmers manning one workstation: while this might seem inefficient, because each programmer could be working on a different problem, the fact that two brains are working on the same problem and at the same time provides enough diversity that the quality of the code produced is significantly better. This improvement comes not only from the "policing effect" (the fact that someone is looking over your shoulder will push you to hold to the programming standards more tightly than you would otherwise) but also from the different thoughts that the other programmer might have. From questions whether an explanation in the code is sufficient to whether a certain piece of code makes sense as it is or should be reworked, the constant feedback loop uses the differences between two minds to enhance the output. This example can be expanded to medium size teams, where for instance women can bring some perspective in an otherwise all-male boardroom, or African American can contribute helpful insights in a predominantly white department.

However, in spite of all its benefits, this diversity is certainly not for free. Culturally diverse groups necessarily require more explicit and frequent reminders of the shared norms and eventually even policing of these norms, with the costs that the reminders, the breaches and the policing impose on the group. The fact that some particular norms might be adopted as group norms can also impose additional constraints on the team, that is expected to follow them out of respect for a limited minority. But, in most cases, these additional costs are easily offset by the increased productivity of a diverse team when compared to a uniform one, what makes cultural preservation not only a moral matter but also a practical one.

There is still another type of cost that I find really problematic: when particular cultures are the consequence of some kind of segregation or system inequality, it is hard to determine to which extent that particular culture is worth keeping. Marginal or marginalized groups such as gypsies all over the world, African slaves in America, almost every flavor of American Indians, the Black population of South Africa during the Apartheid regime or the Jews in Nazi Germany, have all lead to the development of a culture of "the oppressed" as an exclusion of the culture of "the oppressors". From this perspective every time some speaks the Romani language or displays the particularities of the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) it becomes a reminder of this situation of exclusion, which can be, at the same time, painful for the members of the excluded group and shameful for the rest.

Contrary to other excluded collectives such Jews in many parts of central Europe or Asians in the Western US, who were allowed, or at least managed, to educate their children, both the Romani and the AAVE traditions are intrinsically oral and inextricably linked with their inability to access any significant formal education. Furthermore, their cultural isolation set up the perfect background for the cross-fertilization of linguistic uses and practices that were often regarded as "incorrect" or just "vulgar". Deprived of a regularizing force, nothing stopped an inadequate use of the language from spreading among the community, forging what eventually became tantamount to new dialects, but still tainted with the sign of exclusion and lack of education.

Contrary to this trend, many South American Indian tribes, who suffered exclusion both due to racism and to the difficult topography of the regions they inhabited, have historically embraced education (in the frame of the oppressing system) as their way out of exclusion. In fact, it is surprising for many native Spanish speakers (particularly for those from Spain) the command that many of these ancestral tribes have of Spanish, to the point that they seem to be educated well above their actual scholar achievement. And this performance has proven to be such a successful means to get out of poverty that it is actively encouraged by the parents, siblings and the community at large, even if that means leaving part of their original culture behind, or at least relegated to "private use".

With these results, it would seem obvious that traditionally excluded communities should embrace education and cultural assimilation as the means to improve both the financial and the social status of their members. Instead, individual who take or declare their intention to take this approach are frequently criticized as traitors to their cultures ("you have whitened yourself") and even cut off the community, closing the door to an eventual return.

The question that I have (once again, it is more about the questions than about the answers) is what the right balance is between embracing the dominating culture and preserving the oppressed one? Is it possible for an African American student to attend an Ivy League university without losing their roots, or at least retaining enough of them that their return to the community would not only be possible but it would even make sense from the communal point of view? Are the changes in lifestyle so sever that they would never return? Is there a half-way stop where the ancestral communities can find a more prosperous way of leaving without complete renouncing their ways?

Resignification is a very powerful device, but in my opinion it risks keeping the oppressed communities in an unfavorable situation even when the social environment has already lost many of the hurdles that once used to exist. It is OK to honor your ancestors, but they would probably not want you to keep living in poverty just for their memory's sake. Have a nice weekend.