The problem with philosophical discussions about "culture" is that 9/10ths of them will be semantic arguments about the definition of "culture." You cannot step twice into the same river and "culture", whatever it may be, is that river.
I like your analogy for a lot of different reasons. I'm gonna be honest here, I've never had a discussion about having to defend the value of cultural diversity. I just thought it was always a given. In your experience, is there a structured, objective way to go about it, or will it mostly be an exercise of spinning our tires in the mud?
Not my analogy, Heraclitus'. I'm not a fan of one-size-fits-all arguments. Misunderstandings are generally through nuance and perspective and those should never be assumed.
Hmm. Yeah. In my mind, the concept is more of an abstract generality, which is part of the reason I was trying to think of specific examples to try to support how I feel about the subject. I know the entire concept of culture is massive and complex and I'll admit that bioemerl's post made me think about the matter because his argument has left me genuinely befuddled. In my defense, it's not something I've ever thought too deeply about. So now I'm thinking about it. It's something.
I'm really not a fan of arguing abstractions to begin with. You're necessarily stripping away many of the details that often make up the true core of the debate. One of my beefs with the article above is it claims to be about "HOW GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT KILLED CULTURE" but is mostly several thousand words of 50-year-old abstract thought welded onto a couple names. It's an attempt to extend the abstract to the real, and a half-hearted one at that.