From: dcroz@twics.co.jp
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Brainwashied
Date: 1 Jan 93 14:28:26 GMT
Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan


 
 
=}>It took Alan Bloom, a professor of political philosophy, an entire book to 
=}>deal with that subject.  But deal with it he did.  
 
=}So what did he have to say? Summarize in 200 words or less :-) 
 
     From his obituary:  "Allan Bloom, whose 1987 best seller "The Closing of
the American Mind" attacked academic faddism on American college campuses and
shaped the debate over political correctness in the classroom. . ."
 
     Aside from that, he answered the question, "How can you say that one
culture is 'better' than another?"
 
=}IMHO there's at least 3 problems with this. First is the definition of human
=}nature.  Even if we agree that human nature should dictate culture, the
=}argument will merely be shifted from culture to that on nature of human
=}being. 
 
     This is a problem that would arise only if we did so agree, and not an
argument against the proposition itself.  And if we agreed that human nature
should dictate culture, that shift would be from the irrelevant to the
relevant.
 
     Besides, I don't think a shift from "everything is relative" to "the good
is sometimes discoverable" should be called "mere."  It gets us away from the
radical nihilism currently in vogue and revalidates the attempt to find the
good.
 
=}Second, how do you define "work better"?  Is being efficient and competitive 
=}the only factor?  Or are there some factors (eg individual rights) which 
=}cannot be transgressed even at a cost of greater "good" for the society?  
 
     Well, at least we're talking about the definition of "better," instead of
throwing up our hands and declaring that no such thing can exist.
 
     Sure, there are difficult questions.  But difficult does not necessarily
mean insoluble.
 
=}Third, individual rights, for example, might be something that cannot be 
=}addressed from just human nature.
 
     Then again, perhaps they can.  Or, at least, perhaps human nature should
be a factor in these considerations.  It might well be that human nature plays
a limiting role in some circumstances.  
 
     Should we add to the UN charter on human rights a codicil proclaiming the
right of men to get abortions when they get pregnant?
 
=}At present, wWhatever criteria people might have to rate cultures, I think,
=}is mosty biased toward their own.
 
     It would seem that you have a rather low opinion of other people's
intellectual capacities.
 
=}I agree, it doesn't rule out the possibility. But it doesn't mean what people
=}purport to be "the rule" has progressed beyound cultural bias, either.
 
     Considering that my remarks were an argument against the proposition that
it is impossible ever to progress beyond cultural bias, I'm satisfied with
that.
 
=}According to your "rule" above, what works best in each society is the best.
 
     No, according to "my" rule above, what works best for the largest numbers
of human beings (with tolerance for exceptions) is the best.
 
=}This would mean what's best for hunter-gatherer is different from, say, an
=}industrialized society.
 
     There is some validity to this argument, in that there are cultural
artifacts that work better in one or the other of these societies.  There
wouldn't have been a lot of purpose in teaching Dickins' London street urchins
the ins and outs of tracking mastodon.  However, that's not what I'm arguing.
 
     I am arguing that there are some things, such as a prohibition on violent
crime and antibiotics, that make like better for human beings in an absolute
sense.  Humans living in a society that has these things have a better chance
of surviving and being "happy," and also of having the leisure to achieve
further advances.  Not long ago, *most* of humanity spent *most* of their time
getting food.  In the U.S., three percent of the population now feed everyone. 
 
     Do you really think you'd like to trade everything you have for a slot in
a pleistocene tribe with no medicine and a 30-year life expectancy?
 
=}So which culture is better?
 
     If you are asking me to distinguish between historical hunter-gatherer
societies and the industrialized societies of the modern world, clearly, the
industrialized societies are "better" in every sense of the word.
 
=}The point, I believe, was how can one culture judge another?  No one was
=}questioning the right for one to choose ones own culture.
 
     A question of sovereignty, eh?  But our definitions of "sovereign rights"
have been changing.  It used to be that every man had sovereignty over his
wife, children, and slaves.  These "rights" have been assumed by the state.  It
used to be that every state had absolute sovereignty within its borders, but
now an argument is emerging to the effect that atrocities or crimes against
humanity give other states standing to interfere.
 
     Looks to me like a long-term trend taking us from small tribes to a global
society.  You cannot, in a nation-state, hide slavery or child prostitution
behind regional sovereignty.  South Africa has discovered that it could not hid
apartheid behind its national borders.  Did you disapprove of the international
pressure to make them change?  Clearly this joint effort implies a consensus
that a culture can be worse than others.
 
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