Is a Link to Weave or to Connect?

Cultural diffusion, human interaction. It’s common among all the 'themes' of world history that we have studied. From the initial, Environment Unit to our latest Law Unit, the idea of cultural diffusion has been stressed as an important contributor to history and advancement. I find it interesting that almost in all the events that we have taken a look at, I can find myself analyzing and trying to connect dots and looking for signs of diffusion. On and on and on, cultural diffusion is key to life since humans began to connect with one another. From what I have noticed, as time has moved on and passed, societies have grown closer together weaving in and out of each other, interacting, each time more and more than before. Society nowadays is basically based on human interaction. I don’t think anyone can deny the fact that if you look at history, the closeness of different people culturally and what not, has increased and people become aware of what goes on in far off places. I also don’t think one can deny that currently, with all the types of media we have now and transportation ways, humans have never been so in touch with another.

Taking into consideration this extreme necessity and dependency of history, advancement, and society as a whole on cultural diffusion, when we were introduced the upcoming project concerning events and themes and all that, I began to look at cultural diffusion as a possibility. But the issue with this is that the project asks for us to develop a 'fifth theme' that could potentially be added to the ninth grade history curriculum and while cultural diffusion can be found in most places, what might be troublesome could be separating it from the other themes. The issue I have is not of what could fit into Cultural Diffusion as a theme, but rather as to how to extract and separate cultural diffusion from the other themes. Maybe it is not possible because while it plays a part in all four themes that we have studied this year, maybe it is the link between all of them and considering the fact that we stress it so much already, it might be pushing my luck to try and stress it even more. Also, I find it difficult sometimes to separate cultural diffusion from mere human interaction. Human interaction could be as simple as sharing a pen, unless sharing a pen was something unique to one place and that pen was shared from a person belonging to that place and another person from elsewhere, it could not be considered cultural diffusion because it has no significant impact.

Cultural diffusion is a difficult term to deal with, dealing with it as a theme, might be even far more overwhelming. So could it actually have potential to be a fifth theme for this upcoming project or should I try to deal with it more as a connection between all themes and find another actual theme that fits right in with the others, connected by this very link of cultural diffusion.