From: dcroz@twics.co.jp
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Brainwashed   
Date: 6 Jan 93 17:38:39 GMT
Organization: TWICS, Tokyo, Japan

Bill Lambert writes:
 
=}however, I wish that in this discussion, the participants might be more
=}careful so as to separate what are truly cultural elements from other aspects
=}of society that are economic or perhaps technological when making such
=}comparisons. Advances in medicine, and such, for example, are societal... not
=}cultural.
 
     Sorry, but this looks to me like the sort of sophistry that renders any
debate an exercise in futility.
 
     Things that are societal are subsumed under the category of "the culture,"
as are things economical and its level of medicine.  Technology has profound
effects on culture.  
 
     You propose a false distinction.
 
=}Removing these types of comparisons from your discussion may. . .
 
     . . .make it impossible to discuss anything of significance. . .
 
=}lead you to the conclusion that indeed no one culture is inherently superior
=}to another. . .
 
     . . .lead us by default to the conclusion you want, since we have a priori
excluded every reasonable and meaningful basis for comparison. . .
 
=}because the infrastructure of that culture works best for the largest number
=}of people within that culture. . .
 
     . . .which totally begs the question of which infrastructure would work
the best for the largest number of *humans*, irrespective of culture.
 
=}and that in doing so, neither is superior. . .
 
     You have tried to rebut the proposition that it is possible to discover
whether A is superior to B (or vice versa) by comparing A to A and B to B, then
declaring them equal by fiat.
 
     You demand that we exclude from consideration all bona fide grounds for
comparison.  Why should we do that?
 
=}The bridge between the two points is the fact that those educated within a
=}particular culture find it amenable to accept the assumptions of that culture
=}because they see it work for other people around them.
 
     You are doing nothing more than asserting the same argument all the other
relativists have made:  "It is impossible for people to transcend cultural
bias."
 
     Well, I say, "Prove it."  
 
     Looking at history, one can find example after example of individuals
(exceptional, perhaps, but human) who *did* in fact transcend the biases of
their eras and cultures; who *did* see further, to a. . .dare I say it. . .yes,
yes, a *better* way of doing something, of organizing a society, of running a
country, of looking at the question of religious tolerance, of racism, of
imperialism.
 
     History is, to quote one of those individuals, "jist a'poppin'" with
evidence that at least some humans *can* transcend cultural bias.  So where do
we ordinary mortals get off coming along and declaring their achievements
impossible?
 
     I say the burden of proof is on the relativists to rebut this overwhelming
evidence; and I say they can't do it.  I say relativism is just a religion, or
perhaps only a superstition, with no basis in fact or reason.
 
     And if some humans *can* transcend cultural bias, then it is discoverable
whether one culture is better than another or not.  It is most likely that all
cultures have aspects that are at least defensible, and others that are corrupt
to the core.  But this radical nihilistic solipsism puts us totally at the
mercy of the sophists, artificially and dogmatically unable to discover
anything of reality, or even whether reality exists.  
 
      (There are even products of the American university system who are
      awarded diplomas despite their conviction--get ready--their
      conviction that *there is no such thing* as objective reality.  And
      this despite the exhaustive treatments of the solipsistic fallacy
      available in the library of every major university in the country. 
      Amazing.)
 
=}The aspects of living in a given society, and conforming to its already
=}existing conventions is "culture".
 
     Do what?  This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to any definition of
"culture" I've ever heard before.  Sounds much too narrow to me, although it is
also unclear.  The "aspects?"  What do you mean by that?  And what about all
the other things that are commonly included in the concept of culture?  What
are your grounds for excluding, for instance, cultural attitudes concerning
individual freedom or religion from the definition of "culture?"
 
=}Nor is culture a fixedly definable commodity, as most cultures evolve due to
=}both outside influences and internal upheavals.
 
     Nobody said it was fixed, but this doesn't make us incapable of
discovering some true things about some cultures.
 
     And we can, therefore, have a meaningful discussion about whether some
aspects of American culture, or, since this is soc.culture.japan, Japanese
culture, are better or worse than other approaches to the same functions.
 
     If anybody wants to.  If people are not too weary of being flamed every
time they say something about Japan that doesn't sound like one of
Shakespeare's sonnets.
 
     Hey, it just occurred to me. . .I haven't been around very long, but I
haven't seen anyone on the "Japan-bashing" side flame anybody for being too
pro-Japanese.  Is this just an aberration?  Does it even out in the long term? 
If not, what does that mean?