05-05-2015, 12:38 PM
Hawaiian Exceptionalism ? Nature over Nurture?
Is that the impetus to these musings ? I'm afraid you're plowing a'a here. There is (obviously) nothing intrinsically superior in the genetics of those identified as Hawaiians over any other human group. There is little in the culture today that suggest any rigor in maintaining status quo, the culture is a borrowing one; religions, polyester, tinned meats and new starches (in abundance), tahitian moves at Merry Monarch, and political philosophies from Marx to von Mises. The culture I see in East Hawaii, and statewide as well, is one that seems more East than West in it's underlying ethos, irregardless of the (seemingly superficial) embrace of Christianity. Therefore I would speculate that they would not have been able to maintain whatever cultural purity they began with, just as what happened after contact.
This is consistent with what actually happened to the Sumerians sometime in the millenia after grains were domesticated and before Greece was ascendent, beginning what we now call Western culture.
Is that the impetus to these musings ? I'm afraid you're plowing a'a here. There is (obviously) nothing intrinsically superior in the genetics of those identified as Hawaiians over any other human group. There is little in the culture today that suggest any rigor in maintaining status quo, the culture is a borrowing one; religions, polyester, tinned meats and new starches (in abundance), tahitian moves at Merry Monarch, and political philosophies from Marx to von Mises. The culture I see in East Hawaii, and statewide as well, is one that seems more East than West in it's underlying ethos, irregardless of the (seemingly superficial) embrace of Christianity. Therefore I would speculate that they would not have been able to maintain whatever cultural purity they began with, just as what happened after contact.
This is consistent with what actually happened to the Sumerians sometime in the millenia after grains were domesticated and before Greece was ascendent, beginning what we now call Western culture.