From: dcroz@twics.co.jp
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Brainwashed
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:26:04 GMT
Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan

 
 
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.
 
     Moving from "never" to "rarely" looks like progress to me.
 
=}The beginning of any reasonable discussion about cultural comparisons is the
=}human condition and psyche, and how cultures were constructed or evolved at
=}different times, places and with different backgrounds as attempts to
=}explain, orient, adapt, or whatever, to each culture's perception of that
=}human condition.
 
     That's the beginning, then we move to a comparison of "each culture's
perception of that human condition" and its adaptation thereto, with what *we*
know of the human condition and the most successful adaptations, from the
standpoint of disinterested historical perspective.  
 
     Unless we're radical relativists, in which case we just stop thinking and
proclaim all cultures equal--by implication saying that the immolation of
living human infants by Carthaginian priests was in no way "wrong," or "worse"
than any other "aspects" of any other society.
 
=}But they are all attempts to reconcile and deal with the basic human
=}condition.
 
     This is hardly an argument that all such attempts meet with equal success.
 
 
=}Whether you shake hands, bow, or wave your spear when you meet is really not
=}so important as the symbol of that gesture, and the meaning of that symbol
=}within that culture.
 
     So there's nothing the least bit undesirable about a society that kills
and eats strangers to show its deep respect for them?
 
=}one could begin to compare parallel phenomena in different cultures, and
=}actually find many symbolic similarities when looking past the artifacts of
=}physical implementations of those symbols.
 
     This almost sounds like you're arguing for the existence of things that
are universally true for all humans across cultures.  Which would imply that
certain social forms would work better for all humans across cultures than
would other structures.  Which, at least by any practical standard, would make
some forms of society "better" than others.
 
=}That we are unable to find or realize the commonality in this basis for
=}culture - such as the seven points listed above, for example - is the failure
=}of humanity
 
     No, it's the failure of the educational system.  I take it that you are
using the academic "we," there, to mean "all persons of good will and
intelligence," but I assure you that there are *many* people of good will 
and intelligence to whom these cross-cultural constants are not only
discoverable, but blatantly obvious.
 
=}human leadership, which has always put aside global human issues at the
=}expense of local economics or in mongering the power inherent in the status
=}quo.
 
     "Always?"  Getting a little carried away there, aren't we?  Or do you
really wish to say that "every human leader who ever lived was morally
corrupt."
 
=}It is difficult to point to different cultural aspects and make definitive
=}judgements as to which are better or worse than others.
 
     If we've moved from "impossible" to "difficult," I'm satisfied.
 
=}then it is truly difficult to judge any disadvantage over another culture
 
     Not necessarily.  One could be modern Japan and the other a stable,
harmonious, goal-meeting, slave-holding, human-sacrificing, war-mongering,
racist, widow-burning, infanticidal, cannibal society.
 
=}Unfortunately, racism and xenophobia have almost been universally a part of
=}most cultures. . .only the last two generations have we seen a viewpoint
=}where the common good for the culture has been seen to be. . .internal
=}harmony and peace - one of the common cultural goals of any people. . .We are
=}lucky for it in the long run... you'd better believe it.  
 
     This whole block looks to me like one long admission that the good is
knowable.
 
=}The point is, "You can't make pickles overnight." 
 
     Nobody said you could.  The argument was about whether they could be made
at all.  You initially said they couldn't, but now appear to be saying only
that it's difficult--which point was never in contention.
 
=}I guess I wouldn't be so quick to put down a people wholesale
 
     Why do you presume that it's "so quick?"  Why do you take as a given that
your opposition has not given the matter as much thought as you have, or more? 
 
     Would you concede that it might be appropriate to put down a *belief
system* (which is what is at issue here and not, as you write, a "people")
wholesale if it were done after due reflection?
 
=}even if many members display basically the same attitudes as my parents or
=}grandparents did.
 
     So you're saying that, for having made progress in race relations, our
culture is "better" now than in your parents' or grandparents' day?
 
=}It seems to be important to our overall well-being as a culture to have that
=}consensus. Don't you think so?
 
     Absolutely.  This is what Allan Bloom called, "a common vision of the
good," and I don't see how we can get along without it.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan