Cultural Relativism
Offline What do you all think about cultural relativism, the idea that cultures must be studied intrinsically and not judged against other cultures?
In many ways, I agree with this. Human nature generally defies cultural boundaries, and we all have the same biological origins. I don't "believe" in race, but we are talking CULTURE here. Yes, each culture has its share of oddities, unhealthy and dangerous, but some are more extreme and prevalent than others.
I'm thinking along the lines of what practices are rational, healthy and "morally" right. Obviously it isn't black and white, but there's a reason many of us cringe at certain practices that are unnesscessary, unhealthy and even cruel. I don't believe practices are universally "okay", since some of them are more detrimental to the species than healthy.
Furthermore, do you think climate has anything to do with culture? Would, for example, a warmer climate produce a more slow-moving environment or perhaps a "hazy" mindset, as opposed to a colder climate that makes it nesscesary to stimulate blood flow and thus encouraging a more rational mindset?
Yet one counterexample of the climate argument (which obviously plays some role, but what kind of role?) is the filth and cruelty of medieval Europe. Even hundreds of years later, during the time of Oliver Twist, severe child abuse and cruel child labor was prominent, accepted and largely ignored. Yet England is a colder climate.
I'm generalizing because this issue is very complex. What do you think?
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
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Offline Bah I don't want to waste your time Thomathy. Thanks for reading my post at least. I can see the problem between my post and the edit post clearly. Edit post is talking about something that didn't happen in the Roman empire. I've changed my mind on the subject. I think that culture spreads by being pushed and it can be pushed in various ways. Whether its more "moral" or not. THe most successful culture wins because whoever had it had the resources to spread and used those resources succesfully.
edit: regarding the land of literacy remark... I was thinking that you didn't get my post because of how I worded it, but in hindsight I don't think that at all. No, my point was loud and clear, and I believe it was wrong.
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Offline That is a far more reasonable view and it's not a bad, if simple, description of the actual process.
I admit I'm amazed. Most people need what I noticed spelled out to them and I think a considerable number still drool thereafter. It's impressive of you.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
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Offline Thomathy, in your quote, Penn said "Elvis didn't do no drugs!" multiple times in that Bullshit! segment. Might want to alter that one.
As for the OP, I guess I'll just address one issue and agree with Hamby and others, climate or surroundings shapes cultures big time. I took an anthropology class and there are some very well written articles about the theories of color in African-Americans, why certain groups of gorillas mate randomly in the wild to cope with humidity or various tensions or the validity behind why racism, bigotry and stereotypes are more prevalent in some parts of the world than others because of where they live. Just some snippets.
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Offline Yeah, good work spotting the flaw in your claims. Kudos to you for keeping an open mind.
I think it would do you some good to spend some time wrapping your head around what I was saying about referents. Everything that can be described as better or worse has to be described with reference to a scale. To be a scale, something must differ by degree, not kind.
Consider, even if you're rating different "kinds" of things on a scale, you must have a scale measuring something that each "kind" shares with all the others.
If you haven't, please read my article on how we can start talking about morality in terms of evolution. I think it will help you wrap your idea around the concept that morality can be relative without being arbitrary.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Offline Hamby: My scale of rerence is the scale of success. Whatever wins is the best. Is this scale irrational? I'll read your article on morality, I bet it's good. I really enjoyed your article on human sexuality and how it influenced or even created culture (from what I gathered) - thought it was interesting stuff.
As far as culture goes, I have a question. If you have a medium where all cultures can spread evenly, couldn't one win by popularity? Would it be popular by reason or something else? Or are some people subject to certain cultures because of their upbringing regardless?
Edit: Oh and thanks Thomathy. I had a "duh" moment actually. No drooling, more just "oh yeahhhhh" heh.
edit2: fixed some typos.
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Hamby: My scale of rerence is the scale of success.
Success at what?
If you have a medium where all cultures can spread evenly, couldn't one win by popularity? Would it be popular by reason or something else? Or are some people subject to certain cultures because of their upbringing regardless?
Well, cultures don't spread evenly, so I'm not even sure how to imagine a situation in which they did. If one were to win by popularity, it would necessarily have to grow faster than the others, which is to say that they aren't spreading evenly. To put it another way, your question is kind of nonsensical. (Not trying to be mean... it just is...)
I'm not aware of any culture that's ever spread through pure reason. I can't immagine how that could happen. There are very, very few examples, percentage-wise, of people who choose to move to other cultures. Put another way, people pretty much always believe in the culture they were raised in. (It's interesting to note that even people in cultures we view as very bad often think of their culture as superior to most others, even with its faults. That should give you reason for a long thoughtful pause.)
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Offline Right, it wouldn't make sense, and it's not possible either.
If I were to weigh a culture's worth on a scale of success, I'm saying it's the best culture because it's the best culture. That's candid, circuluar, and makes me laugh. Not a good scale I suppose!
Well, I should say that the best culture is the one that spreads the most, is accepted by most, and lasts the longest. If cultures are competing against one another, that makes perfect sense to me. The main reason why I choose the scales of popularity, portability, and longevity is because I personally feel that my culture is the best, but only because it's mine, and nothing else. That's not a way to really prove it's the best, seeing as how others could say theris is the best for the very same reason!
PS: Read your sugar article!
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Everything, including morality, needs a reference. A thing cannot be more or less anything unless there's a scale by which to measure. Sure, there are superior cultures, but they're not just magically superior with no referent. They are superior in technology, or superior in human rights, or superior in socialized healthcare... or... superior in keeping the populace ignorant of science. You see how it works?
That is a very good point Hamby. As I read this thread, I am getting the impression that some posters are trying to score one culture against another (which theyt may have been in direct competition with). I am not sure just how valid that idea may be though. Really, I don't think that you can just write up all the good things about a culture in one column and all the bad things in another and see how a given culture scores. Well, you probably can but it tempts poor thinking.
Consider the Second Greek Empire against the Mayan Empire just before the Europeans arrived. Both had some really good art and mathematics. Neither had indoor plumbing. Both had huge stone buildings, many of which are still standing today (on both sides of the world). Both had writing and widespread agriculture.
Looked at in a fairly large perspective, they both might score about the same. However, the next question which I would raise must concern the bias of the person handing out the points. Sure, superficially, the Mayan and Greek cultures had a lot in common but in the modern world, we might be tempted to give the Mayans a lower total score than the Greeks because the Mayans had human sacrifice where the Greeks “merely” had slavery and butt sex.
So the idea of scoring one culture against another is probably not a great way to go. Sure, there might be useful referents for comparison but past that point, one can easily get into a quagmire of suspect thought. Were the Mayans evil for one superficial similarity to Nazi Germany or admirable for the much larger similarities to the Greeks?
Never ever did I say enything about free, I said "free."
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Offline Thomathy, in your quote, Penn said "Elvis didn't do no drugs!" multiple times in that Bullshit! segment. Might want to alter that one.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
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Offline want to try to articulate an idea that I have been kicking around - so bear with me if this doesn't work.
Cultures are a complex interweb of systems and institutions, and one of the things that cultures do is they provide tools that individuals use to get their needs met. These tools may be physical tools (like cars and roads) or they may be institutional tools (like hospitals and schools) they may be ideological tools (like democracy and capitalism), or they may be economic tools (like a fiat-based monetary system).
All of these tools are put in the service of the people of the society, and the people of the society become bound to the tools by their needs. For example, hunter gatherers have an institution called a hunting party. You and I have an institution called a supermarket. Without these institutions we would be hard pressed to eat.
These institutions evolve. They literally take on a life of their own. Take agriculture for example - Once upon a time, human beings followed herds and engaged in hunts to feed themselves. Gradually, the plants that we were eating on the trail mutated to become more useful to us. As a result agriculture emerged independently in about 5-6 places around the world. This is literally an evolutionary advance in human history - the mutation and natural selection of plants drove the development of agriculture (see the book "Gun's Germs and Steel for details).
Once you have more agriculture, you have more food. More food means more people, more people means more agriculture and so now there are literally NO tribes left, and the world food economy is an agricultural one. As a consequence in this cultural evolution we have more people, and more free time. This creates a feedback loop in which more people and more free time allows for more innovation, which means more efficient agriculture which in turn leads to more people and more free time. Rinse and repeat.
These kinds of systemic feedback loops are found throughout society. It seems to me that what defines one culture as "superior" to another is the fact that some cultures have evolved higher level institutions to deal with higher level problems. So for example, we developed an institution of education which created rationalizations and ways of thinking about our culture that have not only allowed us to apply more powerful technology within our culture but to out-compete other cultures and to justify this as "for their own good" or "God's will" or "manifest destiny." These ideologies drove the expansion of our culture that was permitted by our technological advantage.
It's hard to miss that there is a strong parallel between this and the way that biological systems evolve. One of the processes that evolution gives rise to is that once an innovation takes place, it becomes the new norm. Once upon a time there were no multicellular organisms in the world. The single cell organisms still dominate the biosphere, but the innovation of multicellular and sexually reproductive organisms has created a stable phase-shift in the way the game of survival is played. I think that similar phase-shifts happen in human cultural systems and that these do represent a hierarchical organization that is a real point of reference in the world.
So for example barter is the basic medium of exchange. Then we moved to a commodity based medium of exchange (like gold coins). Then we moved to paper money that only REPRESENTED a commodity (the gold standard). Then we moved to our current monetary system - in which money literally has no intrinsic value except for the promises it represents. This is known as fiat currency.
This move from barter to gold happened at about the same time that agriculture grew up - probably because agriculture gave people time to go look for gold instead of just hunting and gathering. The printing press allowed the development of paper money, and paper money allowed the development of fiat currency. Fiat currency in turn has created social institutions the likes of which no hunter/gatherer, no farmer, no industrialist could have ever imagined. And so the evolution of one institution allows the evolution of new institutions. Again this represents a hierarchical progression.
So far so good, but as for morality - clearly moral compasses change as this social evolution progresses. As industrialism takes hold, legalized slavery becomes immoral. As industrialism becomes established equal rights for women become the norm. It seems to me that morality is following economics to a large degree. And so as social institutions evolve, so does human morality. Again this suggests a hierarchical point of reference.
So that's my idea. There are many ideas like it. This one is mine.
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As far as I can say, the best way to explain it is that human nature is a template upon which culture can express itself variably. In other words, cultures are somewhat relative, but all cultures will express within the bounds of our genetic programming. So the answer, I think, is a somewhat maddening yes and no. It depends on what specifically you're talking about. Will we ever have a culture that condones arbitrary murder? If so, it won't last for long. (One could argue that all the short lived utopian societies were examples of cultures that went too far against human nature and died.)
Well, remember that people in the societies we cringe at often cringe at things we do. Cringing or feelings of moral discomfort aren't reliable judges of objectivity in culture.
Without question. Really. There's no way to even question this it's so obvious from the data. Consider that almost without exception, every single equatorial pre-industrial culture has been polygamous. Almost without exception, every single arctic culture has been monogamous. Coincidence? Not with nearly 2000 well documented cultures on which to base the observation.
I wouldn't want to try to defend these specific ideas, but yes. Climate is a big factor.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I think Hamby got your first two points right so I'm not going to comment on them for now.
Yes, environment does play a big role but you have to be careful here. Just because one type of climate tends to produce one aspect of culture doesn't mean it always will. A more rational mindset, I do not believe to be one of these things. You might compare Africa with Europe. Africa looks much more irrational but go back 700-800 years and you'll see a big difference. Sure the Africans may have still been hunting down witches at that time but I am willing to bet it was no where near as bad as the atrocities of medieval Europe and at any rate they were just as irrational. Europe was likely more irrational as Europeans had access to all sorts of literature from Greek and Roman philosophers that they chose to ignore and destroy.
I should note that when I said Africa above I meant southern Africa, there were in fact many great kingdoms in northern Africa such as Egypt.
Climate tends to affect more the type of subsistence that people have. In places with suitable farming conditions people tend to be farmers, thereby producing enough wealth to support individuals who are free to think about matters concerning gods and produce eventually science. In this way temperate climates will usually produce more rational civilizations but remember this is nowhere close to being universally true.
As a disclaimer, the ideas I presented weren't things I believed per say, but ideas I've come across.
Interesting points. I definitely agree with Hamby on the template idea.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
I have been kicking this issue around in my mind for a while now. On the one hand, I think that there is no moral grounds for saying that a person's lifestyle is right or wrong based on culture. On the other hand, I think you would have to be blind not to recognize that some cultures are simply better than other ones. Our culture has institutions that define and protect individual liberties, it has institutions that promote science, education and the development of technologies. These are "goods" that our culture has been able to enjoy because we have these advanced social institutions like universal education, a free market, a system of checks and balances.
This is undoubtedly more advance, more humane and "better" than a tribal society treats it's women like breeding stock and that cuts off body parts for real and perceived infractions.
I think it's legitimate to say this. I think it's legitimate to say that the USA and Europe are BETTER than Islamic states. We are better not because we have better people (i.e. better genetic material) to work with, but because we have better, more advanced institutions that create a more powerful, more humane and more harmonious society.
This distinction is a big issue in Europe, where Islam is aggressively trying to take over the culture, and where Islamists use civil liberties to hide their intolerance (I have the religious freedom to kill anyone who criticized Islam for example).
I think that it's OK to say "our culture is better than your culture" and not get hung up on saying "all cultural views are equally valid."
One can even pick and choose - Our culture is better than yourse in these ways, and yours is better than ours in these other ways - for example. I think it's morally acceptable to do this.
Superior cultures have the ability to build better tanks, war planes and other weapons and use them to destroy inferior cultures if they choose to. Thats about the only real objective test of a culture.
Of course the 'superior' culture may choose to tolerate the 'weaker' one if it chooses. This is some ways can strengthen it as its not constantly fighting and can even absorb the better pieces of the weaker culture. Different cultures can coexistant for some point but eventually they will merge (or one destroys the other).
No one celebrates the Nazi regime because it is evil but because its economic system did not allow it to defend itself, if Hitler had won WW2 we would be taking the piss out of liberal democracies and the absurd idea of giving people who can barely count the vote.
This is bad. SOme cultures are wrong on many things.
Thank you for the contribution of your opinion. Come back if you'd like to defend it in any way.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I haven't given much thought on it especially with my limited knowledge on the subject. I'll chime in with my uneducated opinion on the matter, as I do find it interesting (especially since it's been brought to my attention)
For one, I do believe in culture superiority. I do not think that culture superiority means it is necessarilty better or worse as far as morals go. Morality is of course a grey area and can be very tricky. Since I'm not well versed on marily I keep morality simple and find out what is either constructive to human life, or destructive to human life. It seems to me that people who hold moral codes that are more constructive to humanity as a whole (liberties, free markets, social infrastructures, charities) are Better, in my humble opinion.
I want to touch briefly on the subject of culture superiority. It seems to me that cultures that are most superior do not necessarily have to be more "Moral" (on my own perception of morality) but more superior. Culture superiority brings results of cultural insurrection, meaning a culture that is superior is able to dominate other cultures thus assimilating them through cultural means(Culture warfare, not fighting with guns etc but with culture itself). For example, if a culturewith one dominant idealogy(such as freedom) appeals better when competing with other cultures it may "convert" other cultures into its own. Thus, you have what I call a cultural domination. I get the idea from how western civilization and its cultural ideas have spread from one land to another and dominated other previous cultures within their own lands.
I am an Ex-Christian.
Everything, including morality, needs a reference. A thing cannot be more or less anything unless there's a scale by which to measure. Sure, there are superior cultures, but they're not just magically superior with no referent. They are superior in technology, or superior in human rights, or superior in socialized healthcare... or... superior in keeping the populace ignorant of science. You see how it works?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Yes I do, but by cultural superiority my reference is that the culture is chosen over other cultures when people are given the decision to choose which cultures they want to be a part of. I think this is true, but not 100% as I'm sure there are a lot of factors in play. Generally speaking though, I think a superior culture would be one that is put against other cultures, and spreads to more peoples faster, etc. I can recall THe roman empire doing so well becuse they would allow people to continue their own cultures within the roman empire. This allowed the culture to become "intermixed" but I'll go ahead and label it as "Roman Culture" - if that's not a good idea let me know. AS the empire grew and grewe and people continued to activly be a part of it's society, it would look like the "Roman Culture" dominated the others within it's city-states. Thus, the "Roman Culture" was superior.
edit to add:
IF you had two seperate nations, with two seperate cultures, and one nation's culture started to spread into the other nation, wouldn't that be viewed as "Cultural Dominance?"
You see Nation A'S Culture is seperior because Nation B's culture becomes more like A's. THis is done through diplomacy and the spreading of ideas instead of weapons.
I am an Ex-Christian.
So the measure of cultural superiority is one that, when put against other cultures, spreads to more people faster and is adopted by those people who choose that culture over another?
That's problematic. Can you spot how?
Oh, and your equating words (expecially in regards to your edit compared to your initial post). Can you spot where?
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Would it be problematic if people are indoctrinated in said cultures? Defection is real, however.
I am an Ex-Christian.
[Hambydammit waits for the linguist to do his work... Geez... I hope there are some leftovers for me...]
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I'm afraid my point might be lost in the land of literacy.
Edit:
Yes, roman culture spread by force instead of cultures being compared. I THINK that's where you're finding the problem. Maybe that's just a bad example? I think that the more aggressive people are in spreading their ideas, the more their culture becomes superior. Perhaps it's not that the culture itself is good/ bad/ indifferent, but it is spread or MARKETED in the most agressive or successful ways possible.
I am an Ex-Christian.
[SmallChristian]I'm afraid my point might be lost in the land of literacy.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."