Does "heritage" matter?

I don't know, Walter. I guess that's what I'm trying to work out there.

I mean, take something like circumcision. For some people it's a cultural imperative (heritage) for other's it's just something that they do because it's traditional.

Mine was done on medical advice against more urinary infections.





David

The way I spell is easier n faster.
U do more unnecessary labor.





David

It is important to me because, for the most part, it is the only thing I know about my relatives. Both sets of grandparents were dead or died soon after I was born and on my mother's side, both sets of her parents were dead or died soon after she was born and she was estranged from her adoptive family.

I never got to meet any of them so digging into generational history is the only way I've been able to learn much about the family on her side of it. We've been able to uncover photos and info of relatives going back six generations, all on her father's side. There is very little known of her mother or her mother's history other than her death certificate and a very short diary her mother kept while she was pregnant.

On my dad's side, he had four brothers and a sister who also had many children and there is a richness of heritage there that we can trace back to Ireland.

How does the knowledge manifest itself in my life? It helped fill the gaping hole and yearning for extended family and eased the envy of others who were surrounded by the love and kinship from multiple generations.

I understand what you mean.

I think, it might have to do with .... well, most Americans have immigrants as ancestors.
But when their children (or they) look back at the country they are coming from, they behave similar to emigrants in my opinion.

And then it's not heritage but tradition, in my opinion.


We've a procession in my native town since 1622, because the twon was saved from Christian the Younger of Brunswick.
So, the citizens and the town's councillors made the vow to make every this procession.

Most look at it as a tradition. And those, who call it an heritage mainly mean by this that it is a burden to go 'religiously organised' around the town wall

Normally you would be correct. But, you are not deep in south Texas.

all this talk reminds of how i discovered i was psychic, i was at a track and field event, when i came upon a man carrying a long staff over his shoulder, i asked him, "are you a pole vaulter?", the man looked stunned and replied, "no, i'm ukrainian, but how did you know my name was valter?"

My wife's name is not Valter, djjd.

so that othere forum is exactly like this one

I realize that. Hence the wink.

I'm Jewish and other stuff by culture/ heritage and just spent a week with the Jewish side of my family -- there is definitely some sort of exhalation/comfort/ belongingness about it. Especially since I had never met some of these people (next generation) and sozlet had never met her two "cousins" (second cousins, I think), and they were instantly astoundingly simpatico. The group of them (her + two cousins) were mistaken for siblings everywhere. And I met a cousin of some sort (my first cousin's daughter) who I'd last seen when she was a tiny girl (she's now adult), and she and I look so much alike and seem to have so much in common.

Something out of that stew strikes me as "heritage" and important, but I'm not sure I could put my finger on it.

Wrong!

Ukrainians with names sounding like "valter" do not exist.

He was pulling your leg, Joe.

(Nice try, though. )

Yes, heritage matters to me. Even though I rarely dwell consciously on my heritage, it keeps creeping up to me from behind when I don't expect it.

• I get annoyed about American Cole Slaw (which is bastardized from the German Kohlsalat (Cabbage Salad)). The reason is that American mainstream cooking goes with the creamy North German recipe, and I'm a South German who knows that the only true recipe is based on oil, vinegar, and bacon. And the cabbage of course.
• I can't believe how little most Americans appreciate, or even know, about their literary classics. Caring about your literary heritage appears to be a very German thing. I never knew this until I moved to America. Until then it was just a fact of life that a well-rounded education must include a decent grasp of the classics.
• During the reformation era (16th century), South-Western Germany has spawned a cornucopia of protestant reform movements, most of whom have made it into America in one way or another. Even though I no longer believe in god, my cultural instincts owe very much to these reformers' ideas on how a community ought to run itself and how truth ought to be searched for. These cultural instincts have been imprinted on me without any conscious effort, simply by growing up in a Suabian family. I'm a cultural pietist in much the same way many American atheists are cultural Jews.

So yes, heritage matters. And everybody has one, even the mutts among us.

In the context of the question, I take heritage to refer to that which is from predecessors, birth or bloodline. And for me, I'd have to say "Not really".

Over the last several thousand years, as populations have increasingly mixed, there is less of a singular-distinction one can draw (picture the top stone on a pyramid - rests on thousands of stones below it). So many people, from so many divergent heritages go into your average human being nowadays that - for me - I have a hard time personally justifying laying claim to any bloodline-derived heritage. My surname is quite traceable (and I've found its origins back to 14th century Germany). But I draw a differentiation between my name and my actual heritage by birth. Hell, there's probably every variation of human-being in all our bloodlines, by this point.


I can definitely see how it can be a source of identification and personal pride for a lot of folks. Nor do I see anything wrong with that; unless, like all things, such is bastardized into justification for an "I'm better"-mindset.

Thanks

And for that I give thanks to Allah every day.

Will it please you to know you have moved that labour to the reader ?

I hate to tell you this, but you all come from a cave in South Africa.

As for my heritage, my ancestors were more enthusiastic than selective but I come from a very old English family. I wonder about my ancestors from time to time, and one thing keeps coming back....why didnt the inbred bastards leave me with more money ?

Next time we get together Ill take you to the Ephrata Pietist HQ of the 18th century. These bretheren (and sisteren) were so full of Their Anabaptist Palatinate selves that they ate their Rotkohl only with bacon and hot vinegar/ sugar dressing. They also dressed up like Cappucians . THey left behind typical austere religious instructions to their nonexistent descendents and a neat Shaker like settlement (the only one on existence).
I could never figure how a civilization that, on one hand developed beer into its highest level of attainment, could live like these jerkwads.

(Not that theres anything wrong with it)

We put our local Anapabtists in cages and let them die high up on a church spire.



That should be done with everyone who makes krautsalat the way Thomas likes it or rotkohl with with bacon!

It's revealing how proudly you still embrace this part of your heritage.

If the creamy-cole-slaw heresy persists, these martyrs have died for nothing.