Marchy,
Over on Culture, Politics, Economics, and Love, you talked a bit about the poverty/prosperity issue. I think that is an economic idea and I just don’t really understand economics. It seems to me that you are wrong on that account, but I don’t know how so I won’t call you out on it, though I think someone should.
I think you are at least on the right track in your description of why politics and economics need each other.
But, I think you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of culture. If you dare, tell me what you mean when you use the word culture.
February 28, 2007 at 5:54 am
Well, culture is a lot of different things to different people, TS, so while I don’t think I am wrong, my deffinition may be different than yours. But I will elaborate a bit on what I was saying above.
In general, for me, culture manly about how people interact with one another. This includes the family/friends structure, superior/employee structure, and interaction with strangers. Knowledge of these components is crucial in the formation of laws and policies because laws and policies that don’t fit with social interactions can be destructive.
Let me try to give an example. (And people who actually know more about this, feel free to tear me down and correct me.) The US has had to rebuild two governements in recent years. First was Afganistan. When rebuilding Afganistan, the US, working with people living in Afganistan, looked at the family and social structure in Afganistan and created a new democracy. One that was not based solely on US democracy, but one that reflected the people of the country it ruled. Of course, Afganistan is not great, but its government is still decently strong.
The other country is, of course, Iraq. in the course of creating the Iraqi government, the US made a lot of mistakes. 1) They tried to use the system they created in Afganistan and transplant it in Iraq. The only problem is that Afganstan and Iraq had different interpersonal systems, and the new Iraqi government did not reflect the Iraqi culture. 2) The US used mainly Iraqi exiles who had fled the Europe and the US in the creation of the new government. Some of the people had been out of the country for 20 years. They no longer understood the day-to-day workings of Iraqi society, and so couldn’t create proper laws and policies reflecting the nation’s people. Of course, Iraq is still torn apart by violence, much of which is coming from outside its borders. But still, the government has no control, no power. I would imagine that much of this comes from the fact that the government and current laws have come from outside the Iraqi culture, and that is causing the government to loose its validity with its own people.
i don’t know if this has explaned by stance on culture, TS, but i hope it has. And if anyone else out there knows/thinks I am wrong about the whole Iraq thing, feel free to chop me down.
February 28, 2007 at 6:34 am
Hmm… its as I thought. I ask you about what you mean by culture and you write a paragraph and a half explaining that you don’t know what culture is, provide some empty categories and then spend the remainder of your post writing about politics.
Lets try starting from a specific instance of culture familiar to you and working upwards from that.
You say “In general, for me, culture manly about how people interact with one another.”
Lets chop off the “In general” and go with the “for me.”
Culture is mainly about how people interact with one another. Ok, so give me specifics…
“This includes the family/friends structure, superior/employee structure, and interaction with strangers.”
Explain these structures, please.
February 28, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Not sure where you are going with this Tequila, but I might point out that culture is not unique in being extremely problematic to define. There are all kinds of words that are so nebulous that academics throw up their hands in despair (religion, nationalism, modernity, etc.), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful, or that there is any one explanation.
Alas…
February 28, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Thanks for backing me up a bit here Capy. But, TS, i will try and answer your questions.
When I say “for me,” that is exactly what i mean. How I see culture, how I define culture. Everyone is going to use different measurements and find different aspects “culture” that they deam important. To me, inter-personal relationships are the most important.
You ask me to give you specifics about how people relate, but that is a huge category in itself. But I can try and give you a few examples. Because we are both in Japan, i will try and use examples comparing Japan and the US. The family structure in Japan is far different than the one in the states. As a child you are expected to live with your parents when the get older and take care of them. You constantly get multiple generations of a family living under on roof. This rarely happens in the States. Children tend to move on after moving out from thier parents houses, and never live with them again. Instead in the US, we parents go to retirement homes and nursing homes. To the Japanese, this is a very disrespctfuul practice.
Another example of culture in the frame of personal interactions is in drinking. In the US and the UK being drunk is often an excuse to commit violence and havok against others, whether you know them or not. In Japan, drinkers are still polite and respectful, even when drunk. There is respect for one another, even when people are drunk. You even been to downtown Tokyo on a weekend night? There are people passed out on the street, just sleeping where they drop. They have no worry about people stealing their wallets or doing other wierd things to them. The respect for others exists even when the other person is passed out in the gutter. You could never pass out in the street in any major US city and wake up the next morning with your wallet in your pocket and not covered in someone else’s piss.
Maybe these explanations help, maybe not. But I am more interested in a discussion here, and not a dialect. So if you want, let me know what you think culture is.
March 1, 2007 at 12:15 am
I know I wasn’t part of the original discussion that spawned this post… and I’ve never tried to convert to Islam, but I hope that my thoughts on culture may still be relevant. I have a very negative position towards “culture,” and I don’t feel the need to split hairs on the definition to make this point.
The way I see it, culture describes the set of unreasonable practices adhered to by a group of people. If a group has a logical reason for doing something, we don’t say that it reflects the culture of that group. We just assume they are acting rationally. However, when a group of people gather together and mutilate each other’s genitals, that’s justified by culture. To use the Japan example above, I would say that reason would lead each child to decide whether to care for his parents, independently of what others were doing. The influence of culture is that we all want to be NORMAL. If it is normal in my culture to care for my aging parents, then I will feel pressure to do so.
To return to the larger topic of this post, then, I would object to lumping culture in with politics and economics. Politics and economics can be pursued rationally, and therefore we can have cross-cultural engagement in those areas. Adding cultural considerations, in my opinion, is just too messy.
March 1, 2007 at 12:31 am
I think you make a good point, skepticalmind, that culture can encompass irrational practices. And no, I don’t think that just because something is “cultural” means that it is justified. However, policics and economics aren’t always rational either. Stalin’s politics: very irrational. The politics of going into Iraq: again irrational. But just because something is irrational doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider it when we think about actions to take. As I see it, creating a political or economic structure that does not take into account the culture, irrational or not, of a county, is doomed to be seen as illegitimate by the people of that country.
March 1, 2007 at 7:09 am
Marchy,
Remember when we argued about the existence of universal grammar a couple months ago and you suggested I read Stephen Pinker’s book, “The Language Instinct.” I did that and now concede that my arguments for the non-existence of Universal Grammar were silly.
I would say that particular cultures relate to Universal Culture in the same way that English grammar relates to Universal Grammar.
If I had to provide a working definition of Universal Culture, I would say that it is the ability to organize information about events that happen around you.
If you share a particular culture with someone, you organize that information in the same or in a similar way and as such you are able to communicate about events around you.
People are capable of creating pidgin cultures (as happens with people that learn a foreign language from a text book who then go and visit a foreign country).
People are also capable of creolizing cultures (this is called cross-cultural communication in the standard lingo)
People are also capable of participating in multiple shared cultures simultaneously in that some of information about events that happen around us is organized in the same way, though not all.
This is still a new thought for me, so help me develop it, if you would.
Skepticalmind, not to be too harsh, but you do have to at least attempt to do something like convert to Islam before you even begin to understand culture.
March 1, 2007 at 7:10 am
Oh and by the way, you’re doing it again, Marchy. You start off talking about culture and then cite politics as your examples. I do agree with the last sentence you write, though.
March 1, 2007 at 11:21 pm
TS, I was using politics as an example in my last post to try and illistrate why culture is important, in my thinking anyway.
I think I am having a little bit of a hard time comprehending what it is you are trying to say about culture. Let me see if I have this right… Universal Culture is this “lens” that every sees and evaluates their world through. People that have roughly the same “lenses” are people belonging to the same culture because they see the world relatively the same way, and so can communicate about it better. Is that correct?
March 1, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I will readily accept MarchHare’s point that culture cannot simply be ignored. Cultural considerations could lead a group or nation to reject an otherwise reasonable political argument or economic system. However, I want to stress my point that cultural considerations are inherently different from the other considerations at hand.
While applying Tequila’s nice definition of culture, consider the prospect of “bringing democracy to Iraq.” One might have reasoned that American political ideas would be appealing to oppressed Iraqis, and maybe even to some elements of the regime. Likewise, one might have calculated that western economic principles, if allowed to operate freely in Iraq, could quickly rebuild its suffering infrastructure and support a massive oil export industry.
However, if one thinks about the way that Iraqis collectively organize information about events that happen around them (i.e. their culture), one would quickly realize that Iraqis would nevertheless be hostile to American and Western ideas. This would reflect the strong religious ideas clouding the minds of countless Sunni and Shi’a faithful. Religious ideas, a key aspect of culture, prevent Iraqis from trusting different kinds of Muslims, and especially non-Muslims. Other elements of Iraqi culture would likewise prevent the acceptance of equal rights for minority groups and women.
Thus, we can recognize that bringing democracy to Iraq is destined to be a very difficult task, but NOT because the political and economic arguments are irrational. It’s because Iraqi culture, like any culture, is irrational.
March 2, 2007 at 2:30 am
Marchy- yup… now we are on the same page.
Skepticalmind – wow. You are so, so, so wrong in such a wonderful, wonderful way.
Culture is irrational, its true, but not for the reasons you think. Culture is super-rational. Actually, your comments made me realize that there is a much better way of defining culture than the working definition I provided above.
Culture is… reason itself.
That said, you should be very, very careful when you talk about things outside your own culture. Your cultural voice is coming through… I see how you reason. You are American. Before you say anything more about culture, you need to go try to convert to something you are not and what’s more you are going to need to ultimately fail.
You need to fall and miss the ground.
You need to start at the physical location where you are, leave, go to another physical location and you need to do so with an open mind. You need to go and entertain, just for a moment is enough, the idea of staying for ever. If you do this, you will start in your reasoning place, go to another reasoning place and end up in the… space between.
Wow. I am actually philosophizing right now. Its bizzarely wonderful.
March 2, 2007 at 3:04 am
TS – I once considered staying in Scotland, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me that doesn’t count…
I think of culture as a pattern of activity, or a set of norms and beliefs that is accepted by and often delineates a group of people. In that sense, I can agree that a person’s culture will probably define the bounds of his reasoning — like a starting point, ruling out some options and making others seem relevant. But how can culture be reason itself?
March 4, 2007 at 8:55 am
Actually, I think it did count. Its probably why you are asking me questions instead of telling me I am full of shit.
Here is why I think you haven’t quite seen culture in the same light as me yet. They speak English in Scotland, which means that they reason in a similar way.
Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not arguing for linguistic determinism here, but I do think that the language people speak and the specific way in which they reason (organize information) are correlated. Remember (from statistics class), correlation does not imply causation.
I am also not saying that Scottish culture is the same as American culture. For example, the accents in Scotland are significantly different than any of the accents in America.
However, when you went there you were still able to relate to the culture. Stated in more physical terms… you were still able to understand the language despite the difference of accent. As such, you may have missed a lot of the differences that would have eventually really gotten to you if you had stayed.
What’s more, and please correct me if I am wrong, but from the way you talk, it sounds like you were there on a study abroad program.
I think that study abroad programs make it easy to miss some of the major differences in the way people reason because, to be honest, it really is very upsetting to encounter true differences in reasoning. Sometimes devestating. I think colleges tend to set up a particular type of support system that protects their students from those more devestating experiences. The study abroad program gives you a taste, but you need more than that if you want to talk constructively and creatively about culture. Or so I think. (Please let me know if I am wrong about the study abroad… I am testing a pet theory of mine right now)
Also, there are three parts to culture; there is identifying cause and effect, there is empathizing with things outside of cause and effect, and then there is just doing stuff for no other reason then just… um… being a human being (?).
Logos, pathos, and ethos.
March 4, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I was only in Scotland for spring break, and sadly that is the longest I have spent in a foreign country. However, I still don’t understand where you’re going with this. The way you talk about culture doesn’t seem helpful, because nobody else uses the word the way you are using it. Is there something wrong with the everyday use of the word?
I’m usually the relativist in any given argument, but in this case it looks like I’m the one saying that Reason has more of an absolute value. The way I think of it, a sound argument is sound in any country. In the same way that mathematics doesn’t fundamentally change when you go to Japan, neither does reason.
March 4, 2007 at 11:58 pm
“Is there something wrong with the everyday use of the word?”
Yes. There is something deeply and terribly wrong with it. I think it is very difficult to explain exactly what is wrong with it and why it is so terrible, which is why I challenged Marchy on it in the first place.
As for your second comment, I have to think. I am not quite sure. Have you read Stephen Pinker’s book? Marchy and I came to this same point with regards to grammar several months ago and I was unable to back down on my point until I read that book. The book isn’t exactly about what we are talking about now, but you seem philosophical enough to adapt it to our purposes.
March 5, 2007 at 6:08 am
This comment was pulled from Should We Stay or Go
Here is my question for you skepticalmind, are you sure you are talking about culture?
Politics can justify a lot of things (for example, the war in Iraq), but can culture really justify anything?
Additionally, in what culture is genital mutilation justified (justified by its accompanying political regime, in my opinion)? What’s more important, why do they mutilate people’s genitals? What are their reasons?
“In the original context of my statement, my intent was to suggest that only “culture” could justify something as unreasonable as genital mutilation. I did not say “Iraqi culture,” or “African culture,” and that was very intentional. I meant “American culture” every bit as much as Iraqi culture.”
My intent is to suggest that only politics could justify something like genital mutilation.
“Additionally, since none of us is Iraqi, as far as I know, I think it is very presumptuous to claim to know what the people in Iraq want, or what the insurgents fear. At most, we can generalize that reasonable Iraqis will want peace and stability in a broad sense.”
If reason is the same everywhere, why can’t we know exactly what reasonable Iraqis want on all levels? According to your argument, if I am a reasonable person and you are a reasonable person, we both should know exactly what reasonable Iraqis want.
If reason is the same everywhere, wouldn’t our interests be the same?
March 5, 2007 at 11:24 pm
First off TS, your last point is an excellent one. The main reasons that I don’t think reasonable people can predict what other reasonable people will want or think is that people almost never use reason in a vacuum. When I say “reasonable people,” I don’t mean reason-robots… so I’m assuming that even these people will still reason in the context of a culture. I just happen to think that culture tends to have a negative influence on reason, rather than a positive or neutral one. Still, your point is well taken, and I would ultimately believe that if a bunch of Americans and a bunch of Iraqis (equal in all other respects) were to set aside their respective cultures, the two groups would be able to agree on a lot of political and economic ideas and desires.
Back on the topic of genital mutilation, I suggest the example of the Jewish religion, which I consider part of Israeli and other Western cultures, which justifies circumcision in religious terms (identifying God’s chosen people). Isn’t this at least PRIMARILY a cultural phenomenon?
March 6, 2007 at 1:10 am
specificity is great! now we can go somewhere with this.
How does this statement by you:
“and I would ultimately believe that if a bunch of Americans and a bunch of Iraqis (equal in all other respects) were to set aside their respective cultures, the two groups would be able to agree on a lot of political and economic ideas and desires.”
interconnect with this statement by MarchHare:
“As I see it, creating a political or economic structure that does not take into account the culture, irrational or not, of a county, is doomed to be seen as illegitimate by the people of that country.”
To use circumcision as an example. First, wouldn’t people want to be circumcised so that they could identify with others of God’s chosen people? If they don’t get circumcised, then maybe they can’t feel truly a part of their culture.
If they then set this concern aside in order to talk about politics and create a political structure with people who aren’t chosen by God who also happen to hold the belief that sexual pleasure is very important and who also happen to have all the power, what would happen then?
Would the resulting political structure be doomed to be seen as illigitimate by God’s chosen people?
March 6, 2007 at 11:33 pm
I’m more than happy to engage on this thought experiment, but I want to point out first that my comments above are more theoretical than practical. After all, how many people are willing or able to set aside culture?
That being said, I would expect very few people to rush out and get a circumcision just to identify with a group bereft of foreskins. Of course, if these people were to become convinced that the circumcised group’s religion was TRUE, then it would be a different story.
Unfortunately, cultures/religions aren’t the kinds of things that can be true, because they are not based on reason. (Any truth value would be a matter of luck, and we shouldn’t praise a culture or religion for getting lucky).
The second part of the thought experiment seems a bit muddled to me… can you restate it?
March 6, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Why is there a divide between theory and practice? Isn’t theory that doesn’t connect with the real world ultimately as empirically untrue as a religion that claims that God will choose you if you snip off your foreskin?
Indeed, how many people are willing to set aside culture? Your culture is the belief in a particular type of logical reasoning, which is impinged upon by this silly thing you call “culture”, but what is really “a particular culture whose reasoning started from values different from your own and has arrived at conclusions divergent from your own in support of those values”. Are you willing to set aside your culture? You value TRUTH. We really can’t continue this conversation unless you are willing to set that aside.
If you are willing to set aside your culture, then what would the different story be?
“Of course, if these people were to become convinced that the circumcised group’s religion was TRUE, then it would be a different story.”
What if you bit the bullet and admitted that the circumcised group’s religion was true to them and that no matter what you said, you would be unable to fundamentally change that belief?
What if the furthest you were ever going to be able to go down the road of changing other’s belief systems was to the point of making members of cultures whose reasoning is divergent from your own respect your “logical” culture while you respect their “religion that got lucky” culture? (And on a side note, again without meaning to be too harsh on you, but who are you to praise other cultures in the first place?)
I am really hoping you want to keep going with this conversation. I am super into it. I worry that I have been unclear though; what about the second part of the thought experiment seems a bit muddled to you? I’ll try to fix it.
March 7, 2007 at 10:40 pm
If I understand you correctly, then I’ve had this thought before. Take your comment on unapplied theory being “empirically untrue,” for instance. This begs the question of where we’re grounding truth for the purposes of this conversation. I think it is obvious that there are limits to human understanding, both theoretical and empirical. Given this point, the search for truth — to the extent one undertakes it — is inherently limited. Thus, it is possible for the situation you describe to occur: one group of people finds truth in a genital snipping God, another group finds truth in science. I have to admit that I know of no indisputable argument for why science is more “true” than religion. Even if the scientist demonstrates that science helps us to predict all sorts of natural phenomena, he still can’t prove that the natural phenomena are any more true than Gods.
Now, that doesn’t really have any impact on whether there is a TRUTH “out there,” in the sense that there is a “way the world IS independently of anyone thinking about it.” THAT is something we can simply never know. Maybe that makes it a pointless question, but I can’t help but wondering!
Still, assuming we can never know whether there is a single unifying truth to the universe, I think we (human beings) can still come to a consensus view. After all, we share a common biology, and biology provides us access to a common empirical world. The empirical world might be far from the TRUTH, but it is the only access to the world that we share. A religious person can say that they have similar access to a spiritual world, but this claim is dubious to outsiders because it cannot be investigated by everyone. However, even religious people can see, hear, feel, etc…
Therefore, without claiming that this worldview is ultimately more true than others, I think there are strong practical reasons for grounding truth in science.
So, hopefully now you see why I think culture/religion threatens the prospect of reasonable people uniting around the world. Culture/religion leads people to de-value what they have in common with others, and over-value regional differences.
March 7, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Oh, I am so disappointed. You can’t set TRUTH aside yet. [Actually, no I didn't read carefully enough. You did set TRUTH aside for a moment when you said:
"Thus, it is possible for the situation you describe to occur: one group of people finds truth in a genital snipping God, another group finds truth in science. I have to admit that I know of no indisputable argument for why science is more “true” than religion. Even if the scientist demonstrates that science helps us to predict all sorts of natural phenomena, he still can’t prove that the natural phenomena are any more true than Gods."
But, then you went running right back to TRUTH again because it looked like there was nowhere to go. You say you've had this thought before. How about pushing through it to the otherside this time? If you're game, I'll try the only other way I know to continue this conversation. If you're game, answer the following questions honestly.]
Are you good at being a part of culture? Do you enjoy going to church?
(answer the first question in as much detail as you would like, but just a yes or no answer without qualification to the second question would serve my purposes best)
March 9, 2007 at 10:06 pm
I am miserably poor at being part of culture, and the only thing I enjoy less is going to church.
March 9, 2007 at 10:11 pm
To be more clear – I can’t think of any part of “my” culture that I really embrace. The only example might be music, which I could see being considered part of culture, but my participation involves only listening to music. It might be more appropriate for me to say that I reject culture as a collection of things, and instead consider them one at a time. Does that help?
March 10, 2007 at 12:40 am
I don’t like going to church either, at least not as a way of life, but I do love visiting them. Now here is my question for you, please answer “the former option” or “the latter option”. Imagine you’re Catholic and you are going to mass on Sunday: which is better, a church filled with people or an empty church with just you and the priest?
March 10, 2007 at 8:57 pm
The former option, if we’re imagining that I actually believe in the truth of Catholicism.
The latter option if we’re imagining that I’m myself, but going to a Catholic church.
I find the “imagine you are someone else” type of exercises to be a bit tricky. I mean, if I were Catholic, I would be a very different person. If you mean “imagine that you’re going to go to a church and pretend to be Catholic…” then that would be different. Hence my two answers. Which way did you intend to ask the question?
March 11, 2007 at 11:31 pm
I meant if you were a Catholic.
My next question was going to be about if you, as yourself, went to Catholic church, which would be better: a church filled with people or just you and the minister. Since you answered that one already…
Now, which do you like better sitting at home alone in silence without the internet thinking about TRUTH or having conversations like this?
March 12, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I definitely prefer the conversations like this.
March 13, 2007 at 2:22 am
Ok, I am going to do something now and you will have to tell me if you can accept it.
I say: “[Culture] is the ability to organize information about events that happen around you.”
Marchhare says: “Everyone is going to use different measurements and find different aspects “culture” that they deam important. To me, inter-personal relationships are the most important.”
I say: “Your culture is the belief in a particular type of logical reasoning, which is impinged upon by this silly thing you call “culture”, but what is really “a particular culture whose reasoning started from values different from your own and has arrived at conclusions divergent from your own in support of those values.”
You imply that you agree with Marchhare in that not only is it important for you to use logic, it is also important for you to use logic when interacting with other people: “I definitely prefer the conversations like this.”
You further imply that logic is best used in one on one relationships: A church containing just me and the minister is what I would prefer “if we’re imagining that I’m myself, but going to a Catholic church.”
You also say: “Culture/religion leads people to de-value what they have in common with others.”
But later you say: “if I were Catholic, I would be a very different person.”
Which leads me to believe that what you say about culture is true in that you have devalued what you have in common with religious people to the extent that you “find the “imagine you are someone else” type of exercises to be a bit tricky.”
In fact, you devalue what you have in common with religious people so much that when you have to imagine the culture of someone who puts religion above even liberal democracy you say “The second part of the thought experiment seems a bit muddled to me… can you restate it?”
I believe the reason for this is that you feel “think culture/religion threatens the prospect of reasonable [by which I think you might mean scientificly-minded] people uniting around the world.”
This brings your critique of culture back to something Marchhare said when he was describing culture, he said that culture includes “interaction with strangers”
By this, I think he means interaction with people from a different culture.
You say “I can’t think of any part of “my” culture that I really embrace.” But you feel so little a part of whatever culture that might be that you feel the need to put parentheses around “my” when describing yourself as a part of it. What if you have simply misidentified your culture. What if your culture is logic and your interpersonal relationships unfold dialectically and rhetorically.
If this is true, then what does this say about your interactions with strangers? Do you have a healthy relationship with people from outside your culture or do you consider them as much a threat to you as you believe that they believe you are to them.
This was poorly stated. If you could, before we continue, would you restate what you think I just said in your own words?
March 13, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Okay… I understood you to say the following:
I’m mis-identifying my culture as the American religious right, when my culture is actually the culture of science/reason. My culture is unhealthy if it prevents me from interacting with non-scientific/unreasonable folks (in this case, religious people).
My previous post was an attempt to explain this position, though. I agree that there is a culture of science (really a “cult of science”). However, I don’t think I belong to this group. The cult of science believes in the scientific method in the way that religious people believe in prayer — not because science has provided reasonable demonstrations, but because they simply trust that science can find any answer.
Well, science cannot find all the answers. Reason would suggest that there are some things we simply cannot know. I don’t think that it is a cultural fact that I use reason to think about the world. After all, everyone uses reason, just in different amounts (would everyone therefore be part of this culture of reason?).
March 14, 2007 at 12:26 am
“Would everyone therefore be part of this culture of reason?”
I agree with this according to my definition of culture.
“After all, everyone uses reason, just in different amounts.”
I even agree with this according to my understanding of relativism so long as the people you are just people and not people of a certain culture.
“I don’t think that it is a cultural fact that I use reason to think about the world.”
As for this, according to my understanding of reason, it is culture. So I have to disagree there; at this point though, I am willing to go with your definition of culture.
“My [I'll change this slightly to "Our" since I feel you and I share the same culture.] culture is unhealthy if it prevents me from interacting with non-scientific/unreasonable folks (in this case, religious people). [I'll change this to "with members of a culture other than our own."]”
What do you think about this part?
March 14, 2007 at 1:05 am
I don’t see how your defition of reason as culture can work here. Under this view, everyone belongs to the same culture. If there is only one culture, how do we account for all the other differences? Shouldn’t we define culture in such a way as to capture the differences that people commonly refer to when they say “different cultures?”
To answer your question, I don’t think it is necessarily unhealthy to isolate within a single culture — at least not unhealthy in a medical sense. If by unhealthy you mean more generally “undesirable,” then it becomes a matter of personal preference.
March 14, 2007 at 2:33 am
“I don’t see how your defition of reason as culture can work here. Under this view, everyone belongs to the same culture. If there is only one culture, how do we account for all the other differences?”
From my scientific perspective, I would say that we do all belong to the same Universal Culture in the same way that English Grammar belongs to Universal Grammar. If I had to give a reason why I believe particular cultures differ from one another, I would say “environmental differences.” (of course, I would only say that within the careful bounds of this dialectical conversation… in a church, I would use different vocabulary or I would be respectfully silent)
“To answer your question, I don’t think it is necessarily unhealthy to isolate within a single culture — at least not unhealthy in a medical sense. If by unhealthy you mean more generally “undesirable,” then it becomes a matter of personal preference.”
I think it is medically unhealthy. I think cultural isolation is the root of racist actions (though racism itself is a word that I dislike since it is ultimately meaningless on a conceptual level; instead I would prefer to capture the ideas expressed by the terms racism/race with the terms ethnocentrism/ethnicity: therefore for racist actions please read: ethnocentric actions). I further think that ethnocentric actions in foreign and economic policies lead to epidemic (not disease, but epidemic) and to global warming (in that the ethnocentric viewpoint views the ways other cultures deal with their environment to be irrational, backward practices under the false conception that ecosystems are homogeneous worldwide and attempts to create panacea solutions to the human/environmental problem). I don’t pretend to have adequately defended any of these thoughts yet or even my quibbles with words derived from the rootword “race”, so if you disagree, feel free to call me out on any of these things.
March 14, 2007 at 10:02 pm
I’m increasingly thinking that our disagreement is purely semantic. You simply choose to use the word “culture” in a different way than I do. I don’t think your usage is inconsistent or incoherent, but I do think your usage is uncommon. That doesn’t make it wrong, but it means that many people won’t understand what you’re talking about when you say “culture.” Hopefully, you can accept that my view of culture is also consistent and coherent, even if it’s not as common as I think.
As for the unhealthiness of ethnic isolation, I continue to disagree with the medical use of the term. However, I agree that ethnocentric thinking has many negative results. Therefore, I don’t think it is unhealthy, but I DO think it is bad policy. I wouldn’t include global warming among the reasons, but there are plenty of others in my opinion. I think that the main negative consequence of ethnic isolation is the development of different religions. As I see it, religion and xenophobia combine to justify mass murder over and over again throughout history.
March 14, 2007 at 11:35 pm
I don’t agree that your definition of culture is logically consistent or coherent, though I do believe it is a common usage of the word and I don’t agree with your view on ethnocentrism. I can’t defend my own position any more than I already have, however. So I concede.