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[guest of Japan]

I think one can safely say that life over death, and pleasure over pain are instinctual and not cultural. Aversions to these instincts would be cultural and they most certainly do exist within the frameworks of cultures. For example, views on suicide, honor killings, self-mutilation, piety, fasting, and countless more.

[spatrick]

[quote="Dr.J"]I'd like to say to some of the posters here, watch out for 'cultural relativism'.

It seems like a good point of view to say: "No culture* is right or wrong, they are just different. Saying one culture is better than another is like saying ice cream is better than cake."

But, this is just wrong.

In the end, people all share similar basic values and similar morality. For instance, causing unnecessary pain and suffering is just wrong. And when one culture allows more or less of these basic values to be upheld, it is a better or worse culture.


Dr. J, your assumption that life is better than death, or pain is worse than pleasure has no bounds in reality. These may be ideals which most people will support theoretically, but in reality most humans find causing suffering to be gleeful (think petrol or electrical plants -- everyone knows they are destroying the world, but nobody wants them to go away without an alternative), causing bitter hatred with the aim at killing one another (politics, not to mention war), and seeking personal pain (child birth). All of these are instinctual, and probably more important than the ideals.

Anytime one posits an ideal, my flesh starts to crawl. There are no real ideals -- welcome to the wonderful world of postmodern hell (I really find it hard to believe that anyone can hold ideals, outside of religious, in today�s world. But hey, that�s my ideal.).

Patrick

[Dr.J]

Patrick

Most people do not find causing suffering to be gleeful. Not unless they see some higher (eg religious) end to it, in which case it isn't really suffering to them. As for polluting the world, that is a case of knowing the long term effects but just being selfish, which we can be.

Child birth isn't 'personal pain' (though it is physically painful), because the result makes so many people happy. Don't be ridiculous.

I wasn't really positing an ideal, and I'm not sure what you mean by that anyway. Human values are instinctual, and barring some strange genetic flaw, everyone shares them. I'm trying to explain this as best I can, but you seem to have completely missed my point as well as gone off on some "I've been lost in postmodern philsophy..." rant. I've been there, it's crap and it's a cop out.

Sorry if that sounds a little confrontational.

[spatrick]

Dr. J,

No need to apologize for being confrontational. I don�t think I missed your point, rather I see that as a copout, of sorts.

It seems that you are saying that certain a priori ... preferable states (?) of being exist. First of all, no one has proved that anything about being animal (here, we are discussing humans) is a priori, outside of some tendencies to practice certain habits. Birds learn birdsong, humans learn numbers, and what is right or wrong is learned.

That you believe that certain things are simply wrong and to be avoided -- even if you can show that these acts do, in the long run, hurt a culture -- has little bearing on the discussion of whether cultures are good, bad, or neutral. I�m currently in Argentina where the first Europeans killed off the natives by droves, then populated the place just to kill of many of them by droves. Yet, if you ask an Argentine (as I have) about it, they are quite rightly proud to BE argentine -- which they wouldn�t be if the killing hadn�t happened.

If you are espousing education, where if people know that these things are wrong, and then are punished for doing these things (genocide, perhaps), then you are out of the scope of the discussion, as you�ve landed in Ethics, the study of what is preferred (see Plato). In my original post I mentioned that what one prefers in the world, chocolate ice cream V. black pudding, has no logic behind it. Like what you like.

Humans will be humans. They will like to kill, cause harm, and submit to pain for something better (there�s that preference thing again, better). I don�t see the world as progressing any, though the world culture�s ethics may be becoming homogenous -- where more people may believe your position.

I�m not trying to get into a screaming match. My intentions are basically to maintain my point. Cultural relativism isn�t what I�m talking about for it posits two entities, one looking at the other. I�m taking it a bit higher than that.

Patrick

[Dr.J]

If I could understand you, I would probably agree with you.

Thanks for your time.

[Dave Kessel]

I agree. I learned Japanese and Thai and can speak both pretty fluently and that really opened up my eyes. Just like in the US they lump all Asians together so do Asians lump all Westerners together. They say the most stupidest things.

I found it that the Westerners who had the best time in Asia were the ones who never truly learned the language or learned just a few phrases- this way the were protected from knowing the things the locals were saying about them.

In Thailand I once even heard people scare their children with me, and telling that Westerners were not yet fully human because of all the hair.

The one who did not know the language would just see a smiling face mumbling something and exclaim just how friendly all these people were.

[Capergirl]

@Dave...I heard the 'not fully evolved' thing before from students and it was in English. In one of my classes in Taiwan (known as the "experimental class" as they had only had foreign teachers right from the beginning), the kids had excellent English (near-native fluency and pronunciation) and they would share these little tidbits with me. Pretty amusing stuff.

[khmerhit]

Too right.

I had a friend who lived in Thailand for a dozen years or so. he said once he learned Thai, things changed. Marked hostility from shopkeepers who couldn't rip him off, incredulity from others who refused to believe that a white guy could learn their language. They didn't like it. He didnt like it. He moved to Cambodia and expressly avoided learning Cambodian.

Nobody likes a level playing field!

[Lucy Snow]

I had a friend in Japan who was an ALT. He was also fluent in speaking, reading and writing Japanese.

One day in the teachers' room, he overhead one of the Japanese teachers talking about him. The Japanese colleague said that my friend was "stealing Japanese culture" by acquiring the language. When my friend confronted his colleague, there were lots of apologies and the next day, a bottle of whiskey as a peace offering.

But my friend felt betrayed. This was a guy he thougt was a friend, someone who was always complimenting him on his Japanese skills.

My friend left Japan after the school year was finished and returned to Oz. And his Japanese colleague never did explain how a foreigner learning Japanese was somehow stealing the culture.