From: blamb@hri.com (Bill Lambert)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: What is culture? (was: Brainwashied
Date: 6 Jan 93 23:28:50 GMT
Organization: Horizon Research, Inc.


=> In article <7568@bigbird.hri.com.hri.com> blamb@hri.com 
=> (Bill Lambert) writes:
=> >There's a lot to compare about cultures,
=> >but whether one is better or worse is rarely one of them.

In article <2591@usna.NAVY.MIL>, wdw@math2.sma.usna.navy.MIL 
(Wm. Douglas Withers -- math  FACULTY <wdw@sma.usna.navy.mil>) writes:
=> Making an overall evaluation of one culture as better or worse than another
=> is generally (a) very difficult and (b) or little or no benefit.  However,
=> it is possible and useful to judge particular  e l e m e n t s  of various
=> cultures.
=>
=> For example I have no problem saying that female circumcision, which is
=> a widespread and important element of some cultures, is a BAD IDEA.  I do
=> not see it as simply a creative "attempt to reconcile and deal with the
=> basic human condition."  But even those cultures in which female circumcision
=> is important may have something to teach us in other areas of life.

As I understand it, there are two forms of female circumcision that
have been practiced among various cultures. One is the removal of
the external skin covering the clitoris, which enhances female
sexual arousal and orgasm. The second type consists of an excision
of the clitoris altogether, which of course may negatively affect
the sexual arousal of many women. Both were attempts, I believe
to reconcile and deal with the basic human condition by adjusting
the sexual arousal level in women to that of men - either by speeding
up the female orgasm, or ignoring it altogether as an issue.
Both are bad ideas, surely, but it would be difficult to convince
members of the cultures in which these practices are prevelent
that it is a bad idea by using our own cultural references of
'naturalness' or taboos against bodily mutilation as reasons,
when the answers you get might be "woman must come" or "woman
shouldn't come". There is little or no common frame of reference
to properly express either side's cultural biases. This is my
point.

=> >It is difficult to point to different cultural aspects and make
=> >definitive judgements as to which are better or worse than others.
=> >If a culture achieves stability and harmony within itself, and
=> >meets many of the goals set above for its members, then it is truly
=> >difficult to judge any disadvantage over another culture, and one
=> >begins to express preferences for their own set of symbols or
=> >their own manner of coping in an attempt to quantify various
=> >approaches that have solved the same problem for different sets of
=> >people.

=> I would say sometimes difficult and sometimes not.  See the example above.

Still... it seems to be your personal preferences to a female
circumcisor, and the definition of an absolute morality to support
your contention is still wanting.

=> There as a (all too seldom explored) middle ground between Eurocentrism
=> (by which I mean asserting that our culture is superior to all others without
=> qualification) and cultural relativism (by which I mean asserting that it
=> is impossible to make moral comparisons between cultures).  This middle
=> ground is the belief that any culture may contain some superior aspects
=> and some inferior, and that any society is free to learn and adopt better
=> solutions to life's problems from others.

I agree, even though it may seem that I don't :-) I have been playing
Devil's advocate  in this and other posts whenever someone has
pointed out a cultural quirk that they deem to be bad or immoral,
etc. When such obviously cruel practices are clumsily argued
through lack of common reference, it's easy to see how the more
subtle aspects of culture defy common understanding.

=> >That we point fingers
=> >at other cultures and define them as racist or xenophobic is
=> >a fairly shortsighted thing to do. We (in America) have 200
=> >years as a nation, and only the last two generations have we seen
=> >a viewpoint where the common good for the culture has been seen
=> >to be overall acceptance and equality for other than the caucasian
=> >race, and for those other than the people born on our soil.

=> I often describe the situation as some other society being `behind'
=> the USA in combatting racism.  This description conveys simultaneously
=> the fact that the level of racism in the other society may be the same
=> or lower than in the USA of the (perhaps recent) past, as well as the
=> fact that the other society may not have begun to confront the racial
=> issues that we in the USA are struggling with now.

I understand this, but as you said, the operative word is "struggling".
Expecting another culture to somehow skip this struggle phase and
automatically accept some frame of reference just because we might
think it's right is perhaps too much to expect without having a
background including some similar struggle. 

=> >I guess I wouldn't be so quick to put down a people wholesale,
=> >even if many members display basically the same attitudes 
=> >as my parents or grandparents did.

=> I keep seeing a particular viewpoint expressed about racism in Japan.
=> The comments run something like this:
=> 
=> Premise:
=> 
=> "Japanese people assume that I wasn't brought up in Japan just because I have
=> blue eyes and blond hair."
=> 
=> or
=> 
=> "Japanese people always tell me how cute my gaijin kids are."
=> 
=> or
=> 
=> "My Japanese textbook had as an example sentence `Foreigners can't use
=> chopsticks.'"
=> 
=> Conclusion:
=> 
=> "This just shows how viciously racist and bigoted the Japanese are."

{How about these:

"Japanese baseball is inferior to american baseball because Japanese
players are smaller and lack big power."

"Japanese people can't be Olympic class sprinters because their legs
are too short."

"Japanese people can't make a decision by themselves."

"American women are more beautiful because they have better figures
and more interesting hair color."

"We don't like cheese."

"Americans are more creative."

"Japanese engineers can't write good software."

All from Japanese people, unfortunately.}

=> There sure are some grumpy people out there.  The cited behaviors are
=> racism, technically speaking, since they involve judging people on the
=> basis of race.  But they are not the moral equivalent of lynchings and
=> concentration camps.  It's probably a good idea to try to correct these
=> types of behavior.  But it's unnecessary and counterproductive to be
=> nasty about it.  I am arguing here (believe it or not) for the concept of
=> a `kinder and gentler racism.'

Count me along side in your argument. Japanese people are sometimes
peculiar in the attention they give to race, but there are other
cultural and historical reasons for this. Attention and absorbtion
with detail is one, but lo! it is racist for me to say that isn't
it? 

=> I am convinced that almost all Japanese people I meet hold a mental image
=> of me in which the fact that I am a gaijin plays an important role.  However,
=> they also try their absolute utmost to treat me warmly and kindly.  I have
=> better things to do with my time than to get offended by that.

Yeah... at one time I was quite upset at the fact of being "killed
with kindness" or differentiated in strange ways. I admit I was
often suspicious of motive, because we automatically become
suspicious in this culture... unfortunately. Now, I too have
better things to do than become offended by that, and in
fact try to return the kindness whenever I can do so, even
if my good friends are sometimes stupid racists :-)

We all do what we can.

- Bill Lambert
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan