The Scots Have Influenced My Culture, What Do I Do?

[fluter]

it appears that the Scots have played some role in the development of the Southwest as it is today; and the Southwest has been a "melting pot" of cultures going back for a long, long time.

Scots have influenced dang near every part of this country, in fact!

Squash, beans, and maize are growing in my garden, BTW.

Yum! Now you need some okra... I wonder whether it'll grow there.

[Bugbear]

I do grow okra, which originates in Africa if I remember correctly, I don't have any growing this year, I also grow it's cousin, hibiscus. I have dwarf sunflowers.

Food and crops are an important part of culture, I would think... I will go look up what the Scots tend to grow, but I read a blog on line about Scots growing sweet corn in a greenhouse the other day.

* Ok, I ran out there and planted a handful of okra seeds; it's late in the season for that though. I had a couple of them growing early on, but something got them.

* Here's the Scottish hog and crop report: NFUS
I'm sure Jock could tell us more on the traditional crops.

[Bugbear]

Here's what The Oxford Companion to Scottish History, Michael Lynch, 2007, says about Caledonian societies outside Scotland.

Many have noticed that the Scots abroad have enjoyed a profile much greater than their actual numbers: "America would have been a poor show if not for the Scotch" is the well-known saying of the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. It has been argued by Christopher Harvie that the flourish of Caledonian societies in the 1880s allowed the emigrant Scots' communities to dispense with their British imperial identities at a time of its greatest unpopularity. The numeral strength of the Scots diaspora, exaggerated to 10 or 20 million, could strengthen the question why Scots did not govern at home,
and why emigration was "forced" in the first place. Yet the phenomenon of expatriate nationalists continues to sit uneasily with those who remain behind.
Caledonian societies have sustained a sense of Scottishness abroad, and helped financially a number of national causes and campaigns at home including, recently, the new Royal Museum of Scotland. Yet they perpetuate a history of Scotland too often locked in to a romantic and Highland-dominated past which
ignores the socio-economic hardship which prompted so many to seek a life elsewhere. (60)

I'm all in favor of people who have a "sense of Scottishness" being involved with Caledonian societies , and I acknowledge that these and many, many other Scots have done a great deal for my country.

There's been a bit to untangle for me, but I am trying to say that I do not have a sense of Scottishness, I have a sense of having been influenced by Scottishness. I've had to let go of a lot of things in sorting that out- no need to go into the weird myths in my family.

Hope that explains it.

[Micric]

Bugbear,

Since when have Oaks originated in Mexico????????????
And how did they get to GB and the rest of Europe thousands and thousands of years ago??
I await your reply with interest!

(:-)
R.

[muirkirkca]

Cultures have been transposed ever since mankind have been migrating around the globe. Some regional characteristics may stand out such as the love of football in the US. Others migrate such as basketball,golf, hockey etc.
These are in the sports word but the same thing is happening with fashion, music and other cultural identities.

I wouldn't be too fussy about living in a society with a singular religious or national identity. Too constraining.

Summary - don't be too concerned.

[Bugbear]

Bugbear,

Since when have Oaks originated in Mexico????????????
And how did they get to GB and the rest of Europe thousands and thousands of years ago??
I await your reply with interest!

(:-)
R.

Ask MacBean, he's the one who said it...

I've never studied oaks, so I don't have an "off hand" answer, or even know if they did originate in Mexico. However, I do know oaks are all over the northern hemisphere, and have been in America for thousands and thousands of years. So, how does a plant genus spread all over half the globe? The ice ages, squirrels and birds did it! People may have also helped.

I have read, quite a few times, that the horse originated in North America, and later went extinct over here after propagating across the old world. It requires you to think in terms of millions of years, hundreds of millions in some cases, and extremely different climates over time, along with a slowly changing surface structure of the globe.

I view it as gene pools because that, except in human culture, is what is being copied and spread around the globe. MacBean does not put it in those terms.

muirkirkca,

I never can get the multiple quote thing to work. I would not have been able to look at my own culture, and the influences the Scots have had on it, if I had not been able to talk to the Scots on the forum. That direct conversation is what began to make things clear to my point. Over in another thread, I called it family brainwashing. That is what I am trying to overcome.

[wildrover]

I suspect that if any of us were to compare our daily routines, holidays, cultural quirks, likes and dislikes, even our slang, with another country--or even another state, town, borough, or region--that we would find we do indeed have a unique culture.

Also, consider what comes to mind when you think of someone else's culture...separating out the stereotypes, what remains is probably fairly unique.

In other words, I'd say America and Canada, for all their size, do have quite unique cultures...even though the concrete indicators of them may seem to be fleeting, nebulous, or regional.

[Bugbear]

No, wildrover, I've made a mess of things with this, at least for myself; I realize that now.

[MacBean]

Bugbear,

Since when have Oaks originated in Mexico????????????
And how did they get to GB and the rest of Europe thousands and thousands of years ago??
I await your reply with interest!

(:-)
R.

Way off topic, but as it sliped in, here goes. In considering the origin of plant groups, scientists have usually considered that the place where the greatest number and variety of species exists is the ancestral origin of the group. Thus tropical Mexico, with a huge number (ca. 150) of oak species, many evergreen or semi-evergreens, is considered the ancestral home, with rights to control authentic tradition! The following may interest the botanically inclined:
http://danr.ucop.edu/ihrmp/proceed/nixon.pdf

What, you didn't know oaks were evergreen (Bugbear surely does where he lives)? In the US we call them live oaks and, for the most part, they are evergreen. Even the deciduous species in Europe or eastern North America retain their brown leaves throughout the winter, sort of like the emigrant Scots and their tartans! (gotta keep it on topic)

How did they get to Europe and when? Surely not thousands and thousands of years ago, more like tens of millions. This bit is perhaps even more interesting. China and Japan share a flora with the North America, especially the forests of Eastern N.America (oaks, maples, rhododendrons, redwoods, etc.). It is usually thought that the European species arrived overland from China rather than across the Atlantic(I figure about a yard a year would do, but acorns are loved by birds and move faster than that). They finally arrived in Scotland where they were used to dye the wool for our beloved kilts, make the inks used to print our Bibles, and furnish the wood for the ships that scattered us to the far corners of the world.

[Mike_Oettle]

Terry wrote: “. . . some kids learned that part of my heritage was German. They called me a ‘nazi’!”

And when my dad was in the army during the Second World War, people used to say to him: “You’re a squarehead. What are you doing fighting the squareheads?”
It was more than just ethnicity.
And during the long winter of 1944-45 on the Gothic Line, two English-speaking white guys from Natal (probably in my dad’s regiment, which is headquartered in Pietermaritzburg) were chatting with each other on the radio in Zulu, confident that no-one could understand them. Suddenly a third voice broke in, also speaking Zulu. It turned out he was from one of the (only two) German settlements in Natal, also spoke fluent Zulu, and was in the German Army!
And, like Terry, I also had to deal with a bit of anti-German sentiment going back to the world wars.
My mother even used to talk, when we had infections, of the “germans” that were making us sick!
Regards,
Mike