Just as the natural environment depends on biodiversity, so the human environment depends on cultural diversity, because no one civilization encompasses all the spiritual, ethical and artistic expressions of mankind.
Interpretation
Cultural diversity is essential for a rich human experience, similar to how biodiversity is vital for nature's health.
In this quote, Jonathan Sacks emphasizes the importance of cultural diversity in human societies, likening it to the necessity of biodiversity in the natural world. He argues that just as ecosystems thrive through a variety of life forms, human civilization flourishes through a mix of different cultural expressions, as no single culture can capture the full range of human experience.
In practice
In a speech addressing cultural preservation, one might quote this to highlight the need for valuing different cultures.
Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
No one's of Pakistani origin in any British show. That's why every actor of color is here working in the States. It's true.
The pro skaters I know are responsible members of society. Many of them are fathers, homeowners, world travelers and successful entrepreneurs. Their hairdos and tattoos are simply part of our culture, even when they raise eyebrows during PTA meetings.
India is a country that lives in several centuries simultaneously, and her people at any given time and place encapsulate all the contradictions that come from being a multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual society.
But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.
I very much want to inject gay culture into the mainstream. It's not an underground tool for me. It's my whole life.
In a time of social fragmentation, vulgarity becomes a way of life. To be shocking becomes more important - and often more profitable - than to be civil or creative or truly original.
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