The evolution of old world culture with the New World culture

            This post is prompted by recently reading a 1914 book by former President Theodore Roosevelt about his trip into the Amazon.

            Now this book is basically a trip report, and focused mostly on the flora and fauna part of his trip.  Now he did almost die, and the adventure part of the trip is poorly reported in his book. It is better reported in another book published around  a decade ago.

            But one thing stood out to me. It was the difference in the evolution of two cultures in our new world. One culture being the remote Amazon, the other being the USA he was from. 

            Simply said, he admired the local people who did most of the work, like paddling, portaging, setting up camp, etc. And most of them were some combination of Negro, native Indian, and European.  Of course all of them are dead, now. And he bragged on them often in his book. And some of them died, including almost him, too. It was a very tough trip of exploration. But he also seemed to always focus on their appearance, as well as their performance. Bottom line to me as I read his book, appearance in heritage counted, but so did performance under duress. And he was impressed, and reported so in his book.

            So now I was born and now live in the new world USA culture, and the subject of racial heritage still comes up about everywhere. Some of it is overt, some more savvy. Simply said, what is important to we the people.  And in our best English principals from our history, mission first is the idea, like advancing our cultural American ideas, to include for those descended from African people usually brought here as slaves in the old days. But also I think it is realistic to expect this ongoing whole integration process today to last one or two centuries more, to include those of multi-racial heritage in the present USA culture. After all, racial integration in the name of cultural integration is often a frustrating business for those politically inclined. I suspect those in love don't really care that much.

            And what Theodore Roosevelt observed and reported on in 1914 in the remote part of the Amazon he explored is a good way to proceed in the USA culture we live in today, too. Said another way, we all do live here together, and letting people, vice the politicians and other do-gooders and charlatans have their way, is probably the best path to go on. After all, that is probably what will sort out, anyway.

            So, in summary, I truly believe in the melting pot idea, not the multi-cultural idea as a way to go into our future as Americans. In actuality, the melting pot idea is what is happening, anyway, again in my opinion. 

            And I think we these days are at least as good as the people in the book were in 1914. Said another way, the culture in the Amazon area explored in 1914 was, well, theirs; and now we can do the same in our own culture today, and in our own way, and if we want to.

             Only time will tell.