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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: November 19th, 2023

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  • I find the need of immigrants to change the way of life of the locals to fit their own way of life (eg their old way of life):

    1. Arrogant. Are you sure your way of doing things is better? The locals have been living in their cultural biotope for ages surely there are advantages to how they live their life? How would you know that your shortsighted (ie you’ve been there too short) “improvements” are actually better?

    2. Conservative. Wanting the natives to adopt your way of life is actually a form of conservativism. You’re the one who moved there, surely you came there to experience change? Yet here you are trying to change everything back to how it is at home.

    3. Blind. You should assume you will never completely understand local culture, simply because you’re looking at it through your own cultural lens. This leads many immigrants to conclusions that are inexplicably wrong. The problem is you can never be sure if you are wrong, because you don’t know what you don’t know.

    All these things lead me to believe you should always be very careful when trying to change local culture. Even when you think you are right and “improve” things, you might still end up being wrong.