It is obviously dangerous to become an "embalmed culture", as happened in the Byzantine Empire and China, and among the Incas, for that matter. One stops improving, and becomes less able to adapt to challenges. It does not seem as necessary that the cultural stimulus be external, and it also seems important what that stimulus is.
For example, Western Europe benefited from the fall of Constantinople by the influx of Greek scholars. To a large extent, that precipitated the Renaissance, with some earlier stimuli foreshadowing. By the material they brought was not altogether unknown and foreign. They merely permitted new books by old authors to be added to the shelves. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to imagine the same impact if the books involved had not been of a fairly high order of philosophical speculation, mathematical investigation, and naturalist observation.
Considering that, I would suppose that the maintenance of many centers of learning, and the broad sharing of scholarship, is more important than contact with foreign cultures. What is wanted is a lot of activity seeking to discover, improve, and refine, and sharing the results........ |
