Cultural diversity should be preserved through natural means, rather than through legislation. Taking America as an example, we are a melting pot of many different types of cultures. As a result, we get things like Tex-Mex cuisine, an amalgamation of Southwestern and Mexican culinary ingredients and flavors. Through diversity, we are able to mix and combine different parts of different cultures into a whole new type of culture.
If governmental bodies stepped in and started legislating that all cultures be preserved, each individual culture would be segmented off from one another. Nothing new would grow; you would be robbing people of the choices they make when they decide to borrow influences from other cultures. By allowing organic growth of culture, you see the type of cultural development that we have today.
The only exception I can see to this is the preservation of dying cultures. There have been stories in the news about a few old languages dying out because the native speakers have either died out, or have crossed a cultural barrier, picked up a new language, and no longer remember it. By allowing funding and programs to be sponsored to prevent the loss of important parts of cultural history, we can gain insight from them in the years to come.
If governmental bodies stepped in and started legislating that all cultures be preserved, each individual culture would be segmented off from one another. Nothing new would grow; you would be robbing people of the choices they make when they decide to borrow influences from other cultures. By allowing organic growth of culture, you see the type of cultural development that we have today.
The only exception I can see to this is the preservation of dying cultures. There have been stories in the news about a few old languages dying out because the native speakers have either died out, or have crossed a cultural barrier, picked up a new language, and no longer remember it. By allowing funding and programs to be sponsored to prevent the loss of important parts of cultural history, we can gain insight from them in the years to come.