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> thesaurus.. stultify.. descecrate
küçük düsürmek* (abase, bring into contempt, debase, degrade, depreciate, detract, disparage, give affront to, give smb. the wall, humiliate, lessen, lower, make smb. feel small, run down, score smb. off, snub, stigmatize, stultify, take smb. down a peg), hakaret etmek* (defame, desecrate, give affront to, insult, outrage, revile, revile against smth., revile at smth., slight, vituperate), hakaret* (contempt, contumely, cuss word, defamation, epithet, hotfoot, indignity, insult, invective, opprobrium, outrage, revilement, slap, slap in the face, slight, slur, snub), gücendirmek* (badger, chafe, disoblige, displease, gall, give offence, give offense, give umbrage, huff, miff, offend, pique, tread on smb.'s corns, vex)
*Turkish terms
NB: these as given all seem directed at someone or something, but most can be generalized and/or conceptualized.
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I think what I'm looking for (or even invent) is a word for the process by which meaning is stripped, especially when it is stripped from a culture.
Think of imperialism or colonialism and its imposition of will, although the loss I'm thinking of is more subtle, and gradual, an intangible force with no apparent cause that is depleting the meaning.
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ah, erosion then, in a figurative sense.
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This is pretty close: 'anomie'.
According to Emile Durkheim:
"Under exceptional circumstances, when society is disturbed by abrupt transitions, it is incapable of regulating man's passions, it is then in a state of anomie."
Wolfgang Jilek, in studying the Coast Salish Indians off the coast of British Columbia and in studying other groups, has coined the term 'anomic depression', defined as such:
"This concept is introduced to denote 'an affective, psychophysiologic and behavioural syndrome developing in reaction to alienation from aboriginal culture under Westernizing influence.' The syndrome derives from experiences of anomie, relative deprivation and cultural identity confusion."
While these are sociological terms that carry with them deeper meanings in that context, this is the result of the process I am referring to.
I am wondering if there is a specific term for this process.
Please pardon my obsessive tendencies. Sometimes there is only one word that will do and you'll know it when you hear it.
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'an affective, psychophysiologic and behavioural syndrome developing in reaction to alienation from aboriginal culture under Westernizing influence.'
I have seen the term "coca colanization" used to describe this force, for that is what it is, a "force".
Another metaphor derives from plate tectonics. The dominant [Western] culture 'grinds' out the cultural identity of everything in its path.
It is a grinding down to a cullet, a pulverization of identity. What would you call that, Aorto?
What you have in the end is not a people or an identity, but a cullet. Hence, a culletizing force or influence.
I assume the word you are looking for would come from the studies of plate tectonics. Those grinding, scraping, crushing, pulverizing forces must have a name.
Perhaps "shearing". The shearing away of a cultural identity as in:
cataclastic metamorphism: Takes place in an environment where intense pressure due to shearing is common, as in a major fault zone.
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First out, arto, if we are to extract a word from the whole of things for the purpose of functional communication we need to be clear about what exact attribute we need to abstract.
If you consider a culture to be static then you have to talk in relative terms, in that all cultures are in a continual state of transition from within by the natural interactions of the breeding group and the ever changing interactions with the environment or from without through the interactions and interventions of outside human groups.
As this is the case then your word must only have value in communicating sharp degrees of disintergration because the thing we call culture is arbitrary at best.
Can you more tightly define what it is you want?
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Thanks for all your replies. I'll have to dig into cullet a bit. I suppose you are correct about a culture being in constant flux. However, and perhaps I am a bit cynical here and jaded by apocalyptic issues, I am thinking of the current cultural malaise we are in. It is not so much that the culture is static, per se, but the fact that 'culture' seems to indicate something 'other'. The reference point for 'other' is anything that isn't whitebread American.
McDonaldization was a term coined a few yeares ago for the process. Example: rock and roll songs I grew up with are now used in commercials that have nothing to do with the song; in fact, the commercial, in many cases, is the antithesis of the song. Ozzy Osbourne's 'Crazy Train' (every mother's nightmare when I was a kid) used in an Oldsmobile commercial. I mean, c'mon.
Anyhow, it is this force that is grinding out homogeneity and meaningless drivel. I'm exaggerating for effect here but our buildings have no character, our ads lack any originality, our movies and songs are all remakes and all our telephone inquiries are touch tone and computerized; worse, movies are all computer animated and our songs are all done on computers. No need for instruments, no need for live actors.
Maybe there really is no term for it. But it is that drive towards efficiency and ease that is causing all of this because, in doing so, creativity has no place here. Creativity seems to be understood now in a materialistic sense as an innovation in maximizing this efficiency.
I'm not sure if that helps or not!
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, if I may, with:
'Culture' is really anything other than us. As we lose culture in this country, we move on to other countries. A logical progression seems to indicate that at some point in the future, 'culture' as such will cease to exist. We will all be the same.
Meaning implies a distinction, almost the antithesis of homogeneity. In our homogeneous culture, meaning is leaving. It is being surrendered or even stolen by a conglomerate force that drains the meaning from it, leaving us homogenized, sterile, empty, meaningless. Let me say first that I am not thinking that you are necessarily wrong and I am necessarily right. We are only talking opinions, after all!  But several things came to mind as I read your posts, the first being: are we sure there ARE truly disparate, distinct, cultures? I should think that pretty much any culture that has access to television and now the internet has at least a likelihood of taking on parts* of what they've learned about. I guess my main difference with your opinion is along the lines of what someone else said, about society and culture constantly changing. Change is pretty much guaranteed, one way or another. (Aside: I happen to be a person who overall does not deal well with change; as I was told recently, "Life goes on, Jackie". Well--it's true, but that doesn't mean I have to like it!) But--just because a culture changes, it doesn't automatically follow that what it has become is worse--just different than it used to be. Some individuals may not like what has happened, but...whatever the changes, there IS still some sort of culture. Homogeneous culture does not necessarily equate to NO culture. *Another question is: at what point do you decide that "culture" is lost? When some of the people begin to give up their native dress? When some of them begin to speak English (to say nothing of the question of the different kinds of English)? How many? .001%? 20%? 75%? What about their business practices? When the first McDonald's opened in Moscow, did that mean that Russia had lost or begun to lose its culture? What about now, as they struggle with free enterprise? You mentioned looking alike; what about buildings? Frankly I don't think it's likely that one Wal-mart opening in England (sigh) means that they're going to rebuild everything in modern-warehouse style. I believe I got the gist of what you were saying; I confess to having a black-cloud sort of worry for several years now that in the not-too-distant future the entire world will be in the hands of just two or three companies; but I believe and hope that we're both wrong on that. There are still quite a few folks all over who are strong advocates of retaining separate (cultural) identities; and, optimist that I am, I think society as a whole will eventually learn to work and live together without insisting that we all be the same.
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Jackie, here are some words that have helped me to crystalize my thinking on the matter of getting on with it. I have a dear friend who has always said, "life is about doing stuff." More recently, cynics have.. well, redirected this: stuff happens. This has led my friend to ask, from time to time, "why is life so hard to live with?"
none of this, of course, provides any real answers, but then what does?
but we digress.
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