Evan Prodromou
Wow. Wildly negative results!
My guess is that a lot of it is the loaded anthropological term I used.
The answers may have been different if I'd asked if people had respect for their heritage, remembered their deceased family members with fondness, or used other phrases more in line with contemporary Western practice.
Or maybe not! I might try different wording in the future.
Evan Prodromou
@splicer mentioned graves, funerals, photos in the home and memorials.
I also listed statues; named holidays; use of surnames or family names; naming children after family members; "what the founders intended"; family recipes; family traditions; genealogy; inheritance laws; historical reënactment.
Other possibilities: keepsake items; place names like streets, parks, towns, and states.
Evan Prodromou
For me personally, I'm a qualified yes.
I have photos of family members in my house going back 3 generations.
We tell stories of those people. I've visited many of their homes, in multiple countries.
I'm named after my grandfather and my son and father are named after my great-grandfather.
I cook heritage foods, grow heritage crops, and celebrate heritage holidays. I try to trace genealogy.
I like to think that the effort and good will of my ancestors helps me and my kids today.
Evan Prodromou
@skullvalanche that's too bad! There was a whole Wikipedia article attached with much more detailed description.
Skullvalanche
@evan yeah, wording on this one definitely skewed my response.
Evan Prodromou
@arkiuat I don't know. Why do you ask?
Eric Forste
@evan yeah, but what proportion of your sample is exclusively descended from settlers on colonized territory?
Evan Prodromou
@shoofle I linked a Wikipedia article which covers veneration from a lot of different angles.
shoofle
@evan "believe in" is more of a sticking point here for me; i have respect for my extended family and ancestors but i do not consider it religious, which "believe" connotes, esp in concert with "ancestor veneration". like there are a lot of cultures that do specifically *worship* ancestors and that's cool and i kind of assumed that's what you meant with the poll at first
Evan Prodromou
@feonixrift you brought a lot to the question that wasn't there.
f.rift :fire_blue:
@evan " believe in" for me meant something very different than, is it something you do... more like do the ancestors do something in return
Ed
@evan @splicer this tells me that the polls on mastodon aren’t accurate reflections of anything. There’s no way at all that this is reflective of the bell curve in human nature. A reminder that unless a survey is created according to scientific and statistical best practices, the survey is meaningless.
Chip Butty
@evan @splicer don't forget white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism, genocide, climate change, biosphere collapse, wealth inequality, classism. Plenty of reasons to be angry and sad as well.
Evan Prodromou
@otfrom that's not a parallel list. I was listing ancestor-venerating practices; you're listing reasons ancestors shouldn't be venerated.
Evan Prodromou
@otfrom ok
Chip Butty
@evan I was listing why I was a strong no, as a counter to the anthropological language explanation
Evan Prodromou
@otfrom they are! And ancestor discussions are pretty divisive. I'm also angry at a lot of my ancestors for their failures. I think the best response is taking good and thoughtful care of our descendants.
Chip Butty
@evan apologies for the confusion and my failure at being a clever respondent.
I'm generally angry with my ancestors and worried for my contemporaries and all of our descendents.
I feel we have known we needed to do better and haven't.
Chip Butty
@evan I suppose the polls are meant to provoke us aren't they?
Evan Prodromou
@mpjgregoire I used exactly the words I intended!
mpjgregoire
@evan Is that what you had in mind? You definitely should have used a term other than "venerate".
In my family, we have records that go back about two hundred years on one side, four hundred on the other side. I certainly do tell the kids about their great-grandparents, whom I knew reasonably well. We've visited old homes, etc.
But when I read the question, I was thinking about prayers and visiting graves. So I answered yes.
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