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Cognorati
Joined: 09 Sep 2007
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 Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:23 am Post subject: Global Culture: Argument Against Cultural Relativity |
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It's politically correct to claim cultural sensitivity whenever non-Western cultures are discussed or analyzed, because it neatly diminshes peoples' fear that a conversation about culture well inevitably degenerate into a racist diatribe.
Some things are relative to culture, like aesthetics, religion or spiritual beliefs, language, facial expressions and body language, and even some conduct that doesn't radically infringe on the comfort of others (yes, even spitting, smacking your lips, and shoving to get a seat).
I don't care about those things that are culturally relative.
The issue with Korea seems to be that they just out of the loop when it comes to global culture and intercultural interaction.
Let me explain:
If you've been to any diverse place (and no, those places do not have to be Western), where people of different ethnicities have had extensive interactions (or are beginning to have interactions, usually based on economic imperatives, like Tokyo), there are some RULES that establish themselves organically, so that people can live with a degree of comfort and lessen overt hostility -- unfortunately, people establish these rules, sometimes, by trial and error.
The rest of the world is yielding to a global culture; Korea is not.
Some of the rules of global culture, IMHO, go something like this:
1. It is not acceptable to behave in a way that casts a negative light on another's culture and ethnicity; moreover, it may not even be appropriate to behave in a way that is not overtly negative, but may lead to discomfort. Some of these behavior would be pointing out another's physical differences, or bringing up the most negative association one has of another's culture.
2. It is not always appropriate to adhere to what you believe to be your cultural imperatives, if it will lead to discomfort or hostility between yourself and others.
3. It is not appropriate force ones' cultural imperatives on others, primarily because there will be hostility.
4. It is not appropriate to be vocal about adhering to folk beliefs that have been proven false, scientifically, because it will lead to discomfort and controversy.
...
Basically, the rest of the world sees intercultural exchanges as inevitable, and maybe even beneficial, and has some implicit codes for those interactions. Korea is hostile to intercultural exchanges because they perceive them with hostility, based on previous experiences of domination -- they don't see them as exchanges or interactions, but as a dialectic, with someone being the dominator and someone else being dominated. This has nothing to do with Confucianism, legitimate cultural relativity, etc...
Who's wrong? I say that Korea is.
Why? Because the planet is changing and throughout the world, people are being forced to interact with one another. Countries like Japan are very good at accepting global culture. Korea is bad at it. It's to Korea's detriment because they'll need to master it for their economic and social evolution... |
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bogey666
Joined: 17 Mar 2008
Location: Korea, the ass free zone
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:51 am Post subject: Re: Global Culture: Argument Against Cultural Relativity |
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| Cognorati wrote: |
It's politically correct to claim cultural sensitivity whenever non-Western cultures are discussed or analyzed, because it neatly diminshes peoples' fear that a conversation about culture well inevitably degenerate into a racist diatribe.
Some things are relative to culture, like aesthetics, religion or spiritual beliefs, language, facial expressions and body language, and even some conduct that doesn't radically infringe on the comfort of others (yes, even spitting, smacking your lips, and shoving to get a seat).
I don't care about those things that are culturally relative.
The issue with Korea seems to be that they just out of the loop when it comes to global culture and intercultural interaction.
Let me explain:
If you've been to any diverse place (and no, those places do not have to be Western), where people of different ethnicities have had extensive interactions (or are beginning to have interactions, usually based on economic imperatives, like Tokyo), there are some RULES that establish themselves organically, so that people can live with a degree of comfort and lessen overt hostility -- unfortunately, people establish these rules, sometimes, by trial and error.
The rest of the world is yielding to a global culture; Korea is not.
Some of the rules of global culture, IMHO, go something like this:
1. It is not acceptable to behave in a way that casts a negative light on another's culture and ethnicity; moreover, it may not even be appropriate to behave in a way that is not overtly negative, but may lead to discomfort. Some of these behavior would be pointing out another's physical differences, or bringing up the most negative association one has of another's culture.
2. It is not always appropriate to adhere to what you believe to be your cultural imperatives, if it will lead to discomfort or hostility between yourself and others.
3. It is not appropriate force ones' cultural imperatives on others, primarily because there will be hostility.
4. It is not appropriate to be vocal about adhering to folk beliefs that have been proven false, scientifically, because it will lead to discomfort and controversy.
...
Basically, the rest of the world sees intercultural exchanges as inevitable, and maybe even beneficial, and has some implicit codes for those interactions. Korea is hostile to intercultural exchanges because they perceive them with hostility, based on previous experiences of domination -- they don't see them as exchanges or interactions, but as a dialectic, with someone being the dominator and someone else being dominated. This has nothing to do with Confucianism, legitimate cultural relativity, etc...
Who's wrong? I say that Korea is.
Why? Because the planet is changing and throughout the world, people are being forced to interact with one another. Countries like Japan are very good at accepting global culture. Korea is bad at it. It's to Korea's detriment because they'll need to master it for their economic and social evolution... |
sorry, but this is basically GOBBLEDYGOOK.
where have you traveled? or better yet lived abroad?
the overwhelming majority of the world remains quite homogenous, and keeps its "prejudices" (for lack of a better word) fairly close to its heart and it's not ready to change - or certainly not change at the rate you'd prefer.
I don't know what you mean by "acceptance of foreign/global culture".
and where?
how do you think Billy Joe Jim Bob and Ricky Bobby and Elmer think about "global culture" in the middle of Redneckville, USA?
if you think people might not comment on things you may do they find strange/weird if not "offensive" behind your back, you need to learn some languages.
This doesn't mean those people are "right", in fact they're often "wrong", but things are the way they are.
With your attitude you'll be Quixote fighting the windmills. Good luck.
p.s. I assume by your "location" you are black/African-American. You'll find you will be received differently in different places. If you wanted to get laid non stop and be treated like a celebrity you should have gone to Iceland or Scandinavia a while back (even today it's not bad). Japan's girls have also been having their "mandingo" phase. In other places, it works against you. Life's not fair... but it's never been.
Last edited by bogey666 on Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:23 am; edited 1 time in total |
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PRagic
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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OH, NO, MY CAPS LOCK KEY LOCKED UP.
ANYWAY, HAVE TO SIDE WITH BOGEY ON THIS ONE. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| It's my impression that Korea has changed a lot in the last decade or so. |
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justin moffatt
Joined: 29 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:29 pm Post subject: |
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Although I would agree that many cultures in the world DO NOT exhibit cultural sensitivities and intercultural exchanges, I would also concur that Korea is most definetly one of them.
Perhaps the apologists can provide some Korean government programs that cater to these issues. (I mean we do pay taxes here don't we?). The only organization I have located thus far is the Foreign Migrant Workers Association which is run by CATHOLICS (regarding employment concerns of course)
President Lee has promised to provide support and help to foreigner wives of Korean males (in rural areas) and other foreigner related programs. However, it remains to be seen if these promises will be come to fruition. Based on the history of past Korean presidents actions, and Lee's moral integrity (BKK scandal) it seems highly unlikely.
After reading numerous books on Confusciansim, Korean Culture, History, and Politics, combined with countless debates with seasoned expats in Korea, I UNDERSTAND some of the reasons behind Korean cultural actions, behaviors, and values. However, regardless of my pre-suppositions, ethnocentric values (e.g. equality), and deconstructive ideologies, one cannot excuse some actions (i.e. discrimination, xeonophobia, domestic violence towards women, etc.) and absence of action. It is like the sexual predator who blames their sexual abusive past for why they cannot change. We have the freedom of choice. |
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Justin Hale
Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:07 pm Post subject: Re: Global Culture: Argument Against Cultural Relativity |
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| Cognorati wrote: |
It's politically correct to claim cultural sensitivity whenever non-Western cultures are discussed or analyzed, because it neatly diminshes peoples' fear that a conversation about culture well inevitably degenerate into a racist diatribe.
Some things are relative to culture, like aesthetics, religion or spiritual beliefs, language, facial expressions and body language, and even some conduct that doesn't radically infringe on the comfort of others (yes, even spitting, smacking your lips, and shoving to get a seat).
I don't care about those things that are culturally relative.
The issue with Korea seems to be that they just out of the loop when it comes to global culture and intercultural interaction.
Let me explain:
If you've been to any diverse place (and no, those places do not have to be Western), where people of different ethnicities have had extensive interactions (or are beginning to have interactions, usually based on economic imperatives, like Tokyo), there are some RULES that establish themselves organically, so that people can live with a degree of comfort and lessen overt hostility -- unfortunately, people establish these rules, sometimes, by trial and error.
The rest of the world is yielding to a global culture; Korea is not.
Some of the rules of global culture, IMHO, go something like this:
1. It is not acceptable to behave in a way that casts a negative light on another's culture and ethnicity; moreover, it may not even be appropriate to behave in a way that is not overtly negative, but may lead to discomfort. Some of these behavior would be pointing out another's physical differences, or bringing up the most negative association one has of another's culture.
2. It is not always appropriate to adhere to what you believe to be your cultural imperatives, if it will lead to discomfort or hostility between yourself and others.
3. It is not appropriate force ones' cultural imperatives on others, primarily because there will be hostility.
4. It is not appropriate to be vocal about adhering to folk beliefs that have been proven false, scientifically, because it will lead to discomfort and controversy.
...
Basically, the rest of the world sees intercultural exchanges as inevitable, and maybe even beneficial, and has some implicit codes for those interactions. Korea is hostile to intercultural exchanges because they perceive them with hostility, based on previous experiences of domination -- they don't see them as exchanges or interactions, but as a dialectic, with someone being the dominator and someone else being dominated. This has nothing to do with Confucianism, legitimate cultural relativity, etc...
Who's wrong? I say that Korea is.
Why? Because the planet is changing and throughout the world, people are being forced to interact with one another. Countries like Japan are very good at accepting global culture. Korea is bad at it. It's to Korea's detriment because they'll need to master it for their economic and social evolution... |
I'm not a relativist either, but the above is absolute hooey from start to finish.
Human societies should be organized in accordance with demonstrable truth, what is demonstrably natural, what is demonstrably sane. I agree Korea totally needs to work on xenophobia and that'll get much better because the Korean youth of today are largely very enthusiastic about the West and Japan in particular. It also needs to improve its attitude towards women and age.
But nowhere in Korea does one see:
* stoning of women for "honor" offences including for the "crime" of having been raped,
* beheadings for apostasy or blasphemy
* hand/foot amputations for lesser offences
* public hanging of homosexuals and outspoken women
* calls for incessant war against nonbelievers and Jews
* black slavery
* female sexual slavery
* FGM [female genital mutiliation]
* no democracy
* no human rights
* everyone down on their knees 5 times per day
* Mullahs as Gods
* no music except for drums
* no dancing
* public floggings for "sexual crimes" such as flirting or speaking with an unrelated person of the opposite sex
* all women under the veil
* prison rape-brothels run by senial theocrats
* the cruelest and most violent system of human life and social organization so far been invented
* spoilt Koreans spreading their vile doctrines all around the world
I think we can forgive Koreans their weaknesses in the context of global ethics |
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mnhnhyouh
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 3:05 pm Post subject: Re: Global Culture: Argument Against Cultural Relativity |
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| Justin Hale wrote: |
But nowhere in Korea does one see:
* stoning of women for "honor" offences including for the "crime" of having been raped,
* beheadings for apostasy or blasphemy
* hand/foot amputations for lesser offences
* public hanging of homosexuals and outspoken women
* calls for incessant war against nonbelievers and Jews
* black slavery
* female sexual slavery
* FGM [female genital mutiliation]
* no democracy
* no human rights
* everyone down on their knees 5 times per day
* Mullahs as Gods
* no music except for drums
* no dancing
* public floggings for "sexual crimes" such as flirting or speaking with an unrelated person of the opposite sex
* all women under the veil
* prison rape-brothels run by senial theocrats
* the cruelest and most violent system of human life and social organization so far been invented
* spoilt Koreans spreading their vile doctrines all around the world
I think we can forgive Koreans their weaknesses in the context of global ethics |
I would add to this:
No execution of prisoners who commited their crime as a minor.
h |
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Unposter
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:07 pm Post subject: Re: Global Culture: Argument Against Cultural Relativity
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cognorati wrote:
It's politically correct to claim cultural sensitivity whenever non-Western cultures are discussed or analyzed, because it neatly diminshes peoples' fear that a conversation about culture well inevitably degenerate into a racist diatribe.
Some things are relative to culture, like aesthetics, religion or spiritual beliefs, language, facial expressions and body language, and even some conduct that doesn't radically infringe on the comfort of others (yes, even spitting, smacking your lips, and shoving to get a seat).
I don't care about those things that are culturally relative.
The issue with Korea seems to be that they just out of the loop when it comes to global culture and intercultural interaction.
Let me explain:
If you've been to any diverse place (and no, those places do not have to be Western), where people of different ethnicities have had extensive interactions (or are beginning to have interactions, usually based on economic imperatives, like Tokyo), there are some RULES that establish themselves organically, so that people can live with a degree of comfort and lessen overt hostility -- unfortunately, people establish these rules, sometimes, by trial and error.
The rest of the world is yielding to a global culture; Korea is not.
Some of the rules of global culture, IMHO, go something like this:
1. It is not acceptable to behave in a way that casts a negative light on another's culture and ethnicity; moreover, it may not even be appropriate to behave in a way that is not overtly negative, but may lead to discomfort. Some of these behavior would be pointing out another's physical differences, or bringing up the most negative association one has of another's culture.
2. It is not always appropriate to adhere to what you believe to be your cultural imperatives, if it will lead to discomfort or hostility between yourself and others.
3. It is not appropriate force ones' cultural imperatives on others, primarily because there will be hostility.
4. It is not appropriate to be vocal about adhering to folk beliefs that have been proven false, scientifically, because it will lead to discomfort and controversy.
...
Basically, the rest of the world sees intercultural exchanges as inevitable, and maybe even beneficial, and has some implicit codes for those interactions. Korea is hostile to intercultural exchanges because they perceive them with hostility, based on previous experiences of domination -- they don't see them as exchanges or interactions, but as a dialectic, with someone being the dominator and someone else being dominated. This has nothing to do with Confucianism, legitimate cultural relativity, etc...
Who's wrong? I say that Korea is.
Why? Because the planet is changing and throughout the world, people are being forced to interact with one another. Countries like Japan are very good at accepting global culture. Korea is bad at it. It's to Korea's detriment because they'll need to master it for their economic and social evolution...
I'm not a relativist either, but the above is absolute hooey from start to finish.
Human societies should be organized in accordance with demonstrable truth, what is demonstrably natural, what is demonstrably sane. I agree Korea totally needs to work on xenophobia and that'll get much better because the Korean youth of today are largely very enthusiastic about the West and Japan in particular. It also needs to improve its attitude towards women and age.
But nowhere in Korea does one see:
* stoning of women for "honor" offences including for the "crime" of having been raped,
* beheadings for apostasy or blasphemy
* hand/foot amputations for lesser offences
* public hanging of homosexuals and outspoken women
* calls for incessant war against nonbelievers and Jews
* black slavery
* female sexual slavery
* FGM [female genital mutiliation]
* no democracy
* no human rights
* everyone down on their knees 5 times per day
* Mullahs as Gods
* no music except for drums
* no dancing
* public floggings for "sexual crimes" such as flirting or speaking with an unrelated person of the opposite sex
* all women under the veil
* prison rape-brothels run by senial theocrats
* the cruelest and most violent system of human life and social organization so far been invented
* spoilt Koreans spreading their vile doctrines all around the world
I think we can forgive Koreans their weaknesses in the context of global ethics
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Good Point!
Cultural Relativism was started by American Anthropologists as sort of a "prime directive" to prevent one from making unnecessary value judgements in trying to understand a culture.
It should not be made into an ethical principle that any cultural behavior is okay. It may have an intrinsic logical reason but it should not be used to justify dangerous behavior or behavior that limits others human rights.
There is still something called right and wrong and we can label behavior within a culture thusly. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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If you ask someone why they do something, and the first (or only) reason they give you is because it's always been done like that, then it should be terminated  |
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mnhnhyouh
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: The Middle Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Unposter wrote: |
There is still something called right and wrong and we can label behavior within a culture thusly. |
Care to give me a source for this ultimate guide of right and wrong?
h |
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citizen erased
Joined: 06 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:18 pm Post subject: Re: Global Culture: Argument Against Cultural Relativity |
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| Cognorati wrote: |
It's politically correct to claim cultural sensitivity whenever non-Western cultures are discussed or analyzed, because it neatly diminshes peoples' fear that a conversation about culture well inevitably degenerate into a racist diatribe.
Some things are relative to culture, like aesthetics, religion or spiritual beliefs, language, facial expressions and body language, and even some conduct that doesn't radically infringe on the comfort of others (yes, even spitting, smacking your lips, and shoving to get a seat).
I don't care about those things that are culturally relative.
The issue with Korea seems to be that they just out of the loop when it comes to global culture and intercultural interaction.
Let me explain:
If you've been to any diverse place (and no, those places do not have to be Western), where people of different ethnicities have had extensive interactions (or are beginning to have interactions, usually based on economic imperatives, like Tokyo), there are some RULES that establish themselves organically, so that people can live with a degree of comfort and lessen overt hostility -- unfortunately, people establish these rules, sometimes, by trial and error.
The rest of the world is yielding to a global culture; Korea is not.
Some of the rules of global culture, IMHO, go something like this:
1. It is not acceptable to behave in a way that casts a negative light on another's culture and ethnicity; moreover, it may not even be appropriate to behave in a way that is not overtly negative, but may lead to discomfort. Some of these behavior would be pointing out another's physical differences, or bringing up the most negative association one has of another's culture.
2. It is not always appropriate to adhere to what you believe to be your cultural imperatives, if it will lead to discomfort or hostility between yourself and others.
3. It is not appropriate force ones' cultural imperatives on others, primarily because there will be hostility.
4. It is not appropriate to be vocal about adhering to folk beliefs that have been proven false, scientifically, because it will lead to discomfort and controversy.
...
Basically, the rest of the world sees intercultural exchanges as inevitable, and maybe even beneficial, and has some implicit codes for those interactions. Korea is hostile to intercultural exchanges because they perceive them with hostility, based on previous experiences of domination -- they don't see them as exchanges or interactions, but as a dialectic, with someone being the dominator and someone else being dominated. This has nothing to do with Confucianism, legitimate cultural relativity, etc...
Who's wrong? I say that Korea is.
Why? Because the planet is changing and throughout the world, people are being forced to interact with one another. Countries like Japan are very good at accepting global culture. Korea is bad at it. It's to Korea's detriment because they'll need to master it for their economic and social evolution... |
fair enough |
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excitinghead
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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I highly recommend the New York Times article "When one culture's custom is another's taboo" for the final word on cultural relativism. I read it way back in 1999, but digging it out of my papers and rereading it just now has reminded me of how relevant its points remain today.
For those of you who want to read it here instead:
| Quote: |
March 6, 1999
When One Culture's Custom Is Another's Taboo
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
In Maine, a refugee from Afghanistan was seen kissing the *beep* of his baby boy, a traditional expression of love by this father. To his neighbors and the police, it was child abuse, and his son was taken away.
In Seattle, a hospital tried to invent a harmless female circumcision procedure to satisfy conservative Somali parents wanting to keep an African practice alive in their community. The idea got buried in criticism from an outraged public.
How do democratic, pluralistic societies like the United States, based on religious and cultural tolerance, respond to customs and rituals that may be repellent to the majority? As new groups of immigrants from Asia and Africa are added to the demographic mix in the United States, Canada and Europe, balancing cultural variety with mainstream values is becoming more and more tricky.
Many American citizens now confront the issue of whether any branch of government should have the power to intervene in the most intimate details of family life.
"I think we are torn," said Richard Shweder, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago and a leading advocate of the broadest tolerance for cultural differences. "It's a great dilemma right now that's coming up again about how we're going to deal with diversity in the United States and what it means to be an American."
Anthropologists have waded deeply into this debate, which is increasingly engaging scholars across academia, as well as social workers, lawyers and judges who deal with new cultural dimensions in immigration and asylum. Some, like Shweder, argue for fundamental changes in American laws, if necessary, to accommodate almost any practice accepted as valid in a radically different society if it can be demonstrated to have some social or cultural good.
For example, although Shweder and others would strongly oppose importing such practices as India's immolation of widows, they defend other controversial practices, including the common African ritual that opponents call female genital mutilation, which usually involves removing the clitoris, at a minimum. They say that it is no more harmful than male circumcision, and should be accommodated, not deemed criminal, as it is now in the United States and several European countries.
At the Harvard Law School, Martha Minow, a professor who specializes in family and school issues, said that intolerance often arises when the behavior of immigrants seems to be "nonmodern, nonscientific and nonrational." She cites as an example the practice of "coining" among Cambodians, where hot objects may be pressed on a child's forehead or back as cures for various maladies, leaving alarming welts that for teachers and social workers set off warnings of child abuse.
Americans are more than happy to accept new immigrants when their traditions seem to reinforce mainstream ideals. There are few cultural critics of the family values, work ethic or dedication to education found among many East Asians, for example.
But going more than half way to tolerate what look like disturbing cultural practices unsettles some historians, aid experts, economists and others with experience in developing societies. Such relativism, they say, undermines the very notion of progress. What's more, it raises the question of how far acceptance can go before there is no core American culture, no shared values left.
Many years of living in a variety of cultures, said Urban Jonsson, a Swede who directs the U.N. children's fund, UNICEF, in sub-Saharan Africa, has led him to conclude that there is "a global moral minimum," which he has heard articulated by Asian Buddhists and African thinkers as well as by Western human rights advocates.
"There is a nonethnocentric global morality," he said, and scholars would be better occupied looking for it rather than denying it. "I am upset by the anthropological interest in mystifying what we have already demystified. All cultures have their bad and good things."
Murder was a legitimate form of expression in Europe centuries ago when honor was involved, Jonsson points out. Those days may be gone in most places, but in Afghanistan, a wronged family may demand the death penalty and carry it out themselves with official blessing. Does that restore it to respectability in the 21st century?
Scholars like Shweder are wary of attempts to catalog "good" and "bad" societies or practices. Working with the Social Science Research Council in New York and supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, he helped formed a group of about 15 legal and cultural experts to investigate how American law affects ethnic customs among African, Asian, Caribbean and Latin American immigrants.
A statement of purpose written by the working group, headed by Shweder and Ms. Minow, says that it intends to explore how to react to "official attempts to force compliance with the cultural and legal norms of American middle-class life.
"Despite our pluralistic ideals, something very much like a cultural un-American activities list seems to have begun circulating among powerful representatives and enforcers of mainstream culture," the group says in its statement. "Among the ethnic minority activities at risk of being dubbed 'un-American' are the use of disciplinary techniques such as shaming and physical punishment, parent/child co-sleeping arrangements, rituals of group identity and ceremonies of initiation involving scarification, piercing and genital alterations, arranged marriage, polygamy, the segregation of gender roles, bilingualism and foreign language use and many more."
Some sociologists and anthropologists on this behavioral frontier argue that American laws and welfare services have often left immigrants terrified of the intrusive power of government. The Afghan father in Maine who lost his son to the well-meaning social services, backed by a lower court, did not prevail until the matter reached the state Supreme Court, which researched the family's cultural heritage and decided in its favor -- while making clear that this was an exceptional case, not a precedent.
Spanking, puberty rites, animal sacrifices, enforced dress codes, leaving children unattended at home and sometimes the use of narcotics have all been portrayed as acceptable cultural practices. But who can claim to be culturally beyond the prevailing laws and why?
Ms. Minow said that issues of cultural practice were appearing in more law school curriculums as Americans experience the largest wave of immigration since the 1880-1920 era. "Immigration is now becoming a mainstream subject," she said. "There is also definitely a revival of interest in law schools in religion," including a study of the relation of beliefs to social practices and legal constraints.
Some of the leading thinkers in this debate will discuss the issue at a conference at Harvard in April on the relationship between culture and progress.
"If you believe that there is such a thing as a successful society and an unsuccessful society," said Lawrence Harrison, a conference panelist, "then you have to draw some conclusions about what makes for a better society."
Mr. Harrison, who wrote "Underdevelopment as a State of Mind" (Harvard) and "Who Prospers?" (Basic Books), said he believed there were universal yearnings for "progress" and that to refrain from judging every practice out there ignored those aspirations.
Paradoxically, while some Americans want judgment-free considerations of immigrants' practices and traditional rituals in the countries they come from, asylum seekers from those same countries are turning up at American airports begging to escape from tribal rites in the name of human rights. Immigration lawyers and judges are thus drawn into a debate that is less and less theoretical.
Mr. Jonsson of Unicef, whose wife is from Tanzania, says he has had to confront cultural relativism every day for years in the third world. He is outraged by suggestions that the industrial nations should be asked to bend their laws and social norms, especially on the genital cutting of girls, which Unicef opposes.
He labels those who would condemn many in the third world to practices they may desperately want to avoid as "immoral and unscientific." In their academic towers, Mr. Jonsson said, cultural relativists become "partners of the tormentors."
Jessica Neuwirth, an international lawyer who is director of Equality Now, a New York-based organization aiding women's groups in the developing world and immigrant women in this country, asks why the practices that cultural relativists want to condone so often involve women: how they dress, what they own, where they go, how their bodies can be used.
"Culture is male-patrolled in the way that it is created and transmitted," she said. "People who control culture tend to be the people in power, and who constitutes that group is important. Until we can break through that, we can't take the measure of what is really representative."
Other voices are often not being heard or are silenced. "People forget that inside every culture, there is a whole spectrum of ideas and values," she said. "There may be women in another culture who defend the practice of female genital mutilation, but in the same culture there will be women who oppose the practice. And men, too."
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An irreverent look at Korean social issues:
http://thegrandnarrative.wordpress.com/ |
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citizen erased
Joined: 06 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 1:37 am Post subject: |
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| interesting article, thanks |
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crash bang
Joined: 11 Jul 2007
Location: gwangju
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| Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 3:37 am Post subject: |
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if you want to immigrate to or be a resident of another country, you are subject to it's laws, period.
as a citizen of the u.s. and a resident of korea, i am bound by the laws of korea. i dont expect anything else
social customs and mores are a bit more fluid, however. just dont park your yak in my yard
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 3:56 am Post subject: |
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I suspect that cultural relativism is a sour grapes plea:
"We can't change what other cultures do, so we will have to accept what they do."
The reason I say this is because whenever a shocking custom in a foreign country is mentioned, someone always says, "It's just part of their culture," but I never hear anyone say the same thing about a small minority surrounded by millions of other people.
How about the Lepcha tribe in India, where underage girls are forced into marriage?
Wouldn't a cultural relativist defend that?
Then where are all those cultural relativists, now that the United States raided a Mormon Fundamentalist commune for the same reason? |
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