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.
We know so much about the European food story, and we're getting to know about the American food story; but we know so little about the African food story.
A Nation's character is typified by its dancers.
You'd never know it from reading the rest of the Native writers, but Indians actually grew up with American pop culture.
The priest has just baptized you a Christian with water; and I baptize you a Frenchman, daring child, with a dewdrop of champagne on your lips.
We usually forget that apart from making a living on this earth, human beings live in societies and these societies have cultures. It is only through having cultures that mankind on this earth has an ordered and meaningful life. Music and drama are two of the many important manifestation of a culture. They are important because they represent the expressions emanating from the power of human artistic creativity
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.
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