Opinion
The cultural vitality of Alaskan communities
By Harry Davidson
Affluence does not translate into cultural vitality. Alaska’s regional and local corporations corporations have increasingly participated in the global economy, providing dividends for their shareholders, while social crisis indicators continue to decline and are among the worst in the nation (See Alaska Humanity News, May, 2005).
Cultural stewardship and vitality cannot be built on economic prosperity as defined by today’s global marketplace. This is painfully evident. A glance across the rubble of America’s cultural wasteland is evidence enough. So cultural vitality and stewardship is not just an Alaska Native problem-it is a human problem on a global scale.
The first thing that needs to be done in a conversation about culture is to define it. The word ‘culture’ is so widely used today to describe almost any group activity that it has nearly lost its original meaning. Not so long ago the word meant, “The training, improvement, and refinement of mind, morals, and taste.” So culture had to do with transmitting and developing the noble, the good, the true, and the beautiful. This is not the job of a corporation or a government. This is the job of communities. Remember? “It takes a whole village to raise a child.” And insofar as a community embodies the noble, good, true, and beautiful, then it is able to transmit these qualities. Where they are absent, culture is absent, and there is essentially no vitality and nothing to steward.
This is the case in many communities across America today. Pop culture and post-modern culture is actually the absence of culture. Which is to say the absence of a vital spiritual life within a community. This is also true about many of Alaska’s communities, both urban and rural. So the first question to be asked concerning cultural stewardship is whether there is true culture within a community to be stewarded. Communities that have no real culture will eventually disappear. And some communities that actually do have real culture will also disappear due to overwhelming external circumstances that subvert the best efforts of those communities to sustain their culture.
Alaska’s rural and Native communities are unique in this global struggle to preserve and sustain local cultures and communities. Though in many there are acute social problems there is often still a strong sense of community ownership and connection to place, along with the presence of a vital spiritual life. These qualities are stronger than the ebb and flow of economic prosperity.
Many of today’s rural communities existed before the historic gold rush years and outlasted the decline of the boomtowns. The boomtowns were built on fleeting economic prosperity, not the cultural foundation that the historic villages were built on. Some of those cultural origins still exist across rural Alaska, and that is reason for hope.
Is it possible that Alaska’s rural and Native villages could model an example, and provide the leadership for the rest of Alaska and beyond, in revitalizing and restoring real culture to our local communities? That minorities have often been the source of cultural and spiritual revival is historical fact. Such a thing could happen here in Alaska, and perhaps it has already begun. Communities that have lost real culture or never possessed it look with a kind of healthy envy on the communities that still do have real culture and real community. They lead by example, which is the most powerful form of leadership. Time will tell, but we have much to be hopeful about.
Now more than ever we need clear-sighted leadership. The heady days of corporate and government promises of a better, more prosperous future are behind us. The future rests in the hands of the communities across Alaska. We know that now, if ever we forgot. And it is just this, at this critical moment in our history, which is so important and a reason for hope.
Harry Davidson was born in Kodiak, raised in Southwest Alaska, and is now a business owner in Anchorage. E-mail: