Prosletyzing

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Proselytizing should certainly be allowed as a matter of freedom of expression, but the idea that there are no situations in which it's undesirable or culturally damaging strikes me as a little suspect. Then again, I'm completely obsessed with memory, diversity, and identity, so I would think that. I'm realizing more and more by the day that my views on the subjects of cultural history and (real or perceived) protection or assimilation are...uh, most other people would probably consider them really strange, and I'm starting to despair of ever finding a school of social theory that doesn't seem somehow, either definably or indefinably, wrong to me on this.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'd be rather ignorant of Anglican history if I didn't. Then again, that's because I think the way Christian proselytization is usually done is fundamentally flawed and has been for some centuries.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Proselytizing should certainly be allowed as a matter of freedom of expression, but the idea that there are no situations in which it's undesirable or culturally damaging strikes me as a little suspect. Then again, I'm completely obsessed with memory, diversity, and identity, so I would think that. I'm realizing more and more by the day that my views on the subjects of cultural history and (real or perceived) protection or assimilation are...uh, most other people would probably consider them really strange, and I'm starting to despair of ever finding a school of social theory that doesn't seem somehow, either definably or indefinably, wrong to me on this.

Nathan, I understand where you're coming from, but there's serious conflicts between cultural preservation and individual autonomy IMO.  Even without proselytizing, you'll have cases where people flat-out reject the culture and faith of their people and turn to an alternative, whether a foreign religion or something like Communism that has a similar function of leading people to renounce their traditional religion and join an international community opposed to it.  Should these people be denied that autonomy?  I really don't see how unless we go with an Afghan-style "apostasy=death" line.

Not at all. I'm not even opposed to the sort of proselytization that's being discussed. I might for various reasons think of it as undesirable or dangerous to various aspects of human diversity that I value (I'm with politicus on that particular subject), but I do so, shall we say, quietistically, with the understanding that keeping intact the right for people and ideas to move freely in the world is equally if not even more important. I lack either the ability or (fortunately) the inclination to force the rest of the world to be obsessed with the things that I'm obsessed with.

I've been rereading Stanley Hauerwas's excellent (and upsetting) book Resident Aliens, and I think that it articulates a set of ideas that could be applied to a lot of different types of cultures that are (or perceive themselves to be) under stress, or even--and I think this is actually a lot more important than any individual culture--to the idea of a diverse, humane, organic set of human cultural traditions itself. That'd be a lot better than trying to force hundreds or thousands of genies back into their bottles, or banning proselytization (which as poorly-done, ill-advised, and damaging as it can be and often is I don't think is really in and of itself the main culprit in any of these discussions), or restricting travel and trade.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well, obviously it's culturally destructive insofar as the people doing the evangelization are attacking elements of the culture. That is what I was referring to, and why the history of Christian missionization in non-Western countries has often been, shall we say, less than conducive to Christian charity. It's not a problem inherent to proselytization at all; it's a problem with the attitude taken towards groups of the proselytized. It's perfectly possible to convert a person or group of people and leave their collective memory and history more or less intact; it just requires sensitivity, tact, and possibly creativity with regards to what was there before--including, yes, syncretism at least on the level of popular piety. (Keep in mind I'm also from a family that identifies strongly with a diaspora.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

For a good example of how this can be quite positive when invading on "local culture", consider that illegal evangelists in Iran have made it so that many people in the younger generation are closeted Christians, it's spreading exponentially amongst the youth, and subsequently weakening the regime.

That's indeed a good example. Of course it's easy to argue vehemently about universals when your particulars are as comfortable as ours are here safely ensconced in America.