NationStates Jolt Archive

So that we are not trapped by a single example, and we can expand the discussion on culture, I'll start this new thread.

Question:

We will make value judgements about other cultures and cultural pracitices. Is it valid to do so (hard to avoid), and how and should we act on those judgements?


To start it off, I have cut and pasted this excellent quote:

To me ethics is about the functioning of a society, wheras morality is personal. An action can be ethical, whilst being immoral. Many people would claim this is the case with abortion for example. What I am claiming is that honour killing is ethical, in that it has a clearly defined and beneficial social purpose in the societies where it exists. It is however immoral for me. This means that I could not be a member of that society, nor could the majority here be. It does not mean that we have any right, duty, obligation, or responsability to try to change that society. In fact we have a duty to leave them to live their lives as they see fit, so far as they are not restricting our lives.

Question:

We will make value judgements about other cultures and cultural pracitices. Is it valid to do so (hard to avoid), and how and should we act on those judgements?


hurm... how to answer. The first question "is it valid for us to make value judgements about other cultures and cultural practices", my answer would be that of course it is. Humans have opinions on everything, and the moment we have a sacred topic that we must accept impartiality on, the moment we start on that slippery slope. It is our right to have an opinion on whatever topic we can think of. The second question, "how should we act on these judgements", to me requires a far more in depth answer, but seeing as I'm slightly pressed for time I'll give a more vague one. In as far as possible, we should not interfere with these actions, especially as the vast majority of them harm no-one. However, certain ones, the actions that are reprehensible to us morally (to use Alien Borns definitions which I agree with) should be acted upon, in several different ways. By voicing our opinion on this. Using facts, logic, argument as far as possible to convince the people commiting these acts that they cause harm to someone. I'll admit this tends not to be the most effective thing in the world, but it's also easy to do, and it lets the world know precisely where we stand. Also, by refusing to have friendly relations with these cultures, whether that includes trade, diplomacy, alliances, military aid. This is our perrogative. After all, we don't agree with their actions, and this is not an oppressive tactic. We would encourage those living in that society that are affected negatively by it to voice their displeasure with it, and encourage them to leave. The third measure, which we could take if it was base moral "no", such as genocide, would be military intervention. I'm all up for respecting cultural sensitivies, but some things can't be ignored.

The third question, Should we act on these judgements, again, for the most part, no. However, in the cases I outlined above, then yes, given that the responses are appropriate, I feel.

Hmmm....how about the question of cultural imperialism? Is it wrong to try to export your own culture in order to influence and change another's?

Isn't a value judgment simply a prejudice?

Prejudices are normal as everybody makes a pre-judgment of a situation and or person.

For example, I saw a great short about racism and prejudice. They showed a black girl dressed heavily as a gangbanger. The lesson was that your prejudice would suggest she is trouble. Talking to her you found out she was an honor student who like rap.

What seperates a racist from a simple prejudice is that you change your opinion after learning more.

Hmmm....how about the question of cultural imperialism? Is it wrong to try to export your own culture in order to influence and change another's?

What about doing it unintentionaly? (im thinking about Nippon here)

Isn't a value judgment simply a prejudice?

Prejudices are normal as everybody makes a pre-judgment of a situation and or person.

For example, I saw a great short about racism and prejudice. They showed a black girl dressed heavily as a gangbanger. The lesson was that your prejudice would suggest she is trouble. Talking to her you found out she was an honor student who like rap.

What seperates a racist from a simple prejudice is that you change your opinion after learning more.

did you go back and forth between your name and Hamilcar Barca (sp?)?

hehe

What seperates a racist from a simple prejudice is that you change your opinion after learning more.
If you don't change your value judgement (maybe she's an honour student who likes rap, and sells drugs on the side...you've just made a value judgement that honour student=good), does that automatically make your value judgement wrong?

Hmmm....how about the question of cultural imperialism? Is it wrong to try to export your own culture in order to influence and change another's?

I believe I also disagreed with this on that same thread, but I'll refine my answer slightly. Everybody exports their culture, it's not something that we can avoid. Simply by mixing with other people from other cultures, we export and import cultures. I believe that instead of... exporting culture, we should merely be completely open with our own. We don't hide it, we don't charicature it, we make it plain to see. We don't make a "sesame street" culture, "and that, little jimmy, is how we in sesame street speak to our neighbours. We SHARE with them, and we don't HIT them" which reads a little like that. Then, it's up to them whether they choose to be influenced by it or not. They're grown, and hopefully intelligent people, and they can make their own choices. But, importantly, we should allow them to return the courtesy. it shouldn't be a one way street.

Yogurt is a culture.

What about doing it unintentionaly? (im thinking about Nippon here)
Cultural bleed is inevitable. I'm talking about more active cultural exportation. Then again, it's hard to define. Sending popular Hollywood movies to other countries might seem to be active, but it may just be cultural bleed...Alien Born, I need your grasp of semantics here!

Yogurt is a culture.
An active one! :D Should we be exporting it? Would it contaminate or improve other yoghurt cultures?

Yogurt is a culture.

...of bacteria! *ba-dump ching!*

We will make value judgements about other cultures and cultural pracitices. Is it valid to do so (hard to avoid), and how and should we act on those judgements?


err... really? :confused: Maybe I'm an extremely rare example, but I couldn't care less what other cultures do. Its not my right to interfere in, or make judgements about, something I am not a part of.

Cultural bleed is inevitable. I'm talking about more active cultural exportation. Then again, it's hard to define. Sending popular Hollywood movies to other countries might seem to be active, but it may just be cultural bleed...Alien Born, I need your grasp of semantics here!


I dont think exporting entertainment is nesecarrily cultural imperialism... just morel like good business sense.

err... really? :confused: Maybe I'm an extremely rare example, but I couldn't care less what other cultures do. Its not my right to interfere in, or make judgements about, something I am not a part of.
So, you will only make a judgement if it directly affects you?

I don't really believe that. We make judgements all the time. It's part of human nature. Read the following two examples, and tell me you have not made a judgement about either of them:

1) A woman is gang raped. For the shame this has brought on her family, her brother drowns her in their swimming pool. This cultural practice is legally sanctioned in their country.

2) During a manhood ceremony, a thirteen year old boy is ritually cut on the cheeks with a knife. He bears it stoically, and is proud he has become a man.

Ok...now, do your judgements (good, bad, indifferent) about these two cases differ if:

-they happen in a different country
- they happen at your neighbour's house?

Yogurt is a culture.

No, yogurt HAS cultures. Yogurt itself is the medium and product of the cultures.

If any given group is being discriminated against according to my ethical system (that is to say, that of my culture), regardless of whether they're within my society, then doesn't the ethical system that I live in require me to act?

That is, if I do something to help an oppressed person in another culture, does my action violate their culture? Or are they violating my culture by opposing my expression of my country's ethics?

Sorry if that's needlessly confusing...

I dont think exporting entertainment is nesecarrily cultural imperialism... just morel like good business sense.
What if a country choose to ban these entertainments, arguing that it goes against their cultural values? Do you think that is a valid reason? Should you accept it and move on, or try to convince them otherwise?

So, you will only make a judgement if it directly affects you?

I don't really believe that. We make judgements all the time. It's part of human nature. Read the following two examples, and tell me you have not made a judgement about either of them:

1) A woman is gang raped. For the shame this has brought on her family, her brother drowns her in their swimming pool. This cultural practice is legally sanctioned in their country.

2) During a manhood ceremony, a thirteen year old boy is ritually cut on the cheeks with a knife. He bears it stoically, and is proud he has become a man.

Ok...now, do your judgements (good, bad, indifferent) about these two cases differ if:

-they happen in a different country
- they happen at your neighbour's house?

you know, bizarrely, I don't really seem to care in either case, no matter where it happens.

I guess I must be some kinda psycopath. *shrugs*

No, yogurt HAS cultures. Yogurt itself is the medium and product of the cultures.
Good point...yoghurt is like the people that form and are formed by culture...

Ok, stop, this could get ugly:)

you know, bizarrely, I don't really seem to care in either case, no matter where it happens.

I guess I must be some kinda psycopath. *shrugs*
Wow...I guess crime in your country doesn't bother you either. Must be nice to be detached and indifferent. Well, no, not really, but, whatever.

What if a country choose to ban these entertainments, arguing that it goes against their cultural values? Do you think that is a valid reason? Should you accept it and move on, or try to convince them otherwise?

Considering that several countries have banned western culture and since there are no invasion trying to convince them its not so bad it seems a little silly. Unless you want to talk about global culture, thats a whole different story.

Considering that several countries have banned western culture and since there are no invasion trying to convince them its not so bad it seems a little silly.
There doesn't have to be a physical invasion for such bans to be undermined. Should you seek ways to do this (or just let the people themselves get around the bans)? Is there any value for us beyond financial to export our culture?

Unless you want to talk about global culture, thats a whole different story.
Please elaborate:).

Cultural bleeding versus cultural imperialism.

I would look at this in the form of an analogy. Cultural imperialism is deliberate so it is like a breeding program for cattle or horses etc. There are certain results that are wanted, and these are judged, prior to their achievement, as being good. Cultural bleeding is much more a process of natural cross breeding. It may produce a rather ugly, unspecialised end result, but this mongrel, or cross breed will normally be healthier and have better chances of survival than the pure breed.

There is nothing wrong with cultural contamination. An attempt to keep a pure culture is either doomed to fail in the era of global comunications or carries with it such a price in terms of restriction of personal liberties and censorship that the society loses all vitality. Even if it were to succeed the end result would be a stagnant frozen society.

Where there is a problem is when one culture views a normal activity by another as being abhorrent. Advertising using scantily clad women in the West is an example of the lack of ethics in the society, as far as the traditional muslim world is concerned. The use of public flogging as a punishment in the Muslim world is seen as cruel and barbarous by the West.

Where cultural bleeding offends these ethical values, then the bleeding has to be stoped. Hollywod can not push its morals on the middle east. Nor can the muslim comunities in the West demand traditional punishments be applied.

No, yogurt HAS cultures.

Nuh uh ... I saw yogurt the other day and it was reading Stephen King while listening to Limp Bizkit. No culture whatsoever.

There doesn't have to be a physical invasion for such bans to be undermined. Should you seek ways to do this (or just let the people themselves get around the bans)? Is there any value for us beyond financial to export our culture?

If they want our souless movies, music, etc. churned out by the entertainment industry every year then let them have it.


Please elaborate:).

In this new millenium it is growing clearer by the day that culture world wide is changing. Sure, there are still some issolated areas (New Guinea) that have yet to be tainted by the global amalgamation that is slowly destroying anything that was once unique to one specific geographic area of the world. If you compare our knowledge to other peoples at the same time 1000 or even 100 years ago the differences would be staggering. Take China for example. In 1905 they had recovered from the boxer rebellion but were still living like they were in the 1300s. Now China is a world leader in producing cheap plastic crap and has a government that is based on the principles of a western thinker (Marx). Im sure that if the average Chinese citizen from 1905 would be horrified. To think that their government was ruled by western ideas! The more I think about it the more it seems that everything is essentially becoming the same around the world. There are very little truly unique cultures left, and more and more nations are modeling themselves after western countries.

Nuh uh ... I saw yogurt the other day and it was reading Stephen King while listening to Limp Bizkit. No culture whatsoever.

I love your satire of this thread.

*snip*
Thank you very much for these definitions. I will ask those participating in this thread to use these definitions when discussing the issue (rather than arguing about the definitions themselves).

I love your satire of this thread.
Not of the thread. Of the term culture. There is a difference.

In any case, I often expose my yoghurt to Mozart and Wagner. I've noticed that this increases the cultural content significantly. However, some flavours do better with Miles Davis. I'm not sure why yet.

In this new millenium it is growing clearer by the day that culture world wide is changing. Sure, there are still some issolated areas (New Guinea) that have yet to be tainted by the global amalgamation that is slowly destroying anything that was once unique to one specific geographic area of the world. If you compare our knowledge to other peoples at the same time 1000 or even 100 years ago the differences would be staggering. Take China for example. In 1905 they had recovered from the boxer rebellion but were still living like they were in the 1300s. Now China is a world leader in producing cheap plastic crap and has a government that is based on the principles of a western thinker (Marx). Im sure that if the average Chinese citizen from 1905 would be horrified. To think that their government was ruled by western ideas! The more I think about it the more it seems that everything is essentially becoming the same around the world. There are very little truly unique cultures left, and more and more nations are modeling themselves after western countries.
What you are describing is the spread of consumerism and technology, not necessarily that of culture, though culture of course plays a part in it.

I think there are in fact many unique cultures left...and unique cultures being born of a blend of influences. Imagine my country, Canada. My people were forcefully assimilated by European settlers, and yet we still retain aspects of our culture, blended with theirs. Native culture is DIFFERENT and unique to traditional native culture, and to non-native culture.

Consider as well that the cultural makeup of Canada is much different than it was a hundred years ago because of the influence of different immigrant groups. Is our culture becoming more homogenous, or less? Will Sihks, Natives, Chinese all become squashed into one similar culture? Or will they assimilate parts of various cultures while retaining aspects of their own? All of these groups might become used to driving the same cars and wearing the same clothes...but that does not make them the same in terms of values and beliefs.

So, you will only make a judgement if it directly affects you?

I don't really believe that. We make judgements all the time. It's part of human nature. Read the following two examples, and tell me you have not made a judgement about either of them:

1) A woman is gang raped. For the shame this has brought on her family, her brother drowns her in their swimming pool. This cultural practice is legally sanctioned in their country.

2) During a manhood ceremony, a thirteen year old boy is ritually cut on the cheeks with a knife. He bears it stoically, and is proud he has become a man.

Ok...now, do your judgements (good, bad, indifferent) about these two cases differ if:

-they happen in a different country
- they happen at your neighbour's house?

#1. Unethical, unless she ties the weights on herself and jumps in of her own accord. That cultural practice, as described, is a violent anachrosim that should be eliminated.

#2. Ethical. The boy is willing. No different than any other form of ritual SELF mutilation.

Makes no difference where it happened.