Are ethical values culturally relative?

[Danielle La Belle]

Hi Girls:

The following is an excerpt from "The Teaching Company." They provide recorded media in the form of college level courses for those that wish to continue with their education in an informal manner. No credit assigned. The best of the best Professors are invited to record their lessons and "The Teaching Company", sells them as an end result.

http://www.teach12.com

A link to the web site offering a plethora of courses that are designed for any mature adult.

The excerpt provided is from such a course of material. My intention is to demonstrate that as a community, we may at one time have been more accepted by others. With change comes change in the cultural biases that appear throughout history. This is demonstrated by Prof. Grim in various comparisons of cultural behavior.

Professor Grim:

Questions of Value
Lecture 10 Excerpt: Ethical Relativism
by Professor Patrick Grim

Are ethical values culturally relative? An affirmative answer to that question is Ethical Relativism, the claim that ethical values are indeed relative to culture. But as long as the phrase "relative to" goes unclarified, what this gives us is not a clear, single claim, but a vague family of claims, hidden in a fog of ambiguity.

When we penetrate the conceptual fog and carefully separate the questions, we find a great deal of insight and truth in Relativism. We also find some of the most dangerous ethical mistakes that it is possible to make.

Let me begin with a form of Relativism that is both interesting and has the best shot at being true: An action that is right in one culture may be wrong in another. This is not merely the claim that cultures disagree in their beliefs about what is right and wrong; this is the claim that what is really right in one culture may really be wrong in another. The reason why this is true is because some issues of right and wrong hinge on culturally and historically contingent factors.

The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre suggests the example of usury. If you search among medieval manuscripts for the most heinous of medieval sins, you will find murder, adultery, blasphemy, and usury. Medieval canon law reserves some of its strongest prohibitions and condemnations toward this horrible crime. Amongst the small number of offenses for which the Spanish Inquisition used torture to force confessions were heresy, witchcraft, bigamy, and usury. What is this horrible sin? Usury is simply lending money at interest. Not exorbitant interest in the sense of loan sharking, but lending money at any interest at all. What MacIntyre suggests is that this was not merely a medieval moral mistake. It was not that the people of the Middle Ages were simply in error, thinking money lending to be evil in ways that it was not. What MacIntyre suggests is that in the medieval context, usury was not merely thought to be a vice, usury was a genuine vice.

Seigniorialism, the economic system of feudal society, was an economy based entirely on land-ownership and a hierarchy of protection and reciprocal allegiance. At the head was the king, beneath him a hierarchy of nobles and lesser nobles, beneath them the seigniors in their manor houses, and their serfs. The serfs were granted the use of the land and the seigniors' protection in return for the economical support of the manor house and of the hierarchy above it. The ideal of that seigniorial system is a self-contained and enclosed economy, an economy that is stable and unchanging. In the ideal of Seigniorialism, there are no imports and exports, no sales. Seigniorialism knows no notion of economic growth.

In a context of that kind of economy, MacIntyre suggests, lending money at interest was a genuine threat to social stability. If a manor or a noble borrows money at interest, there will be no way to pay it back. In that kind of economy, usury, then, is a genuine vice. In contrast, a capitalistic economy like ours is by definition based on the idea of return interest on money, so we do not view usury as a vice at all. It is because of different cultural circumstances, in this case a different economic culture, where something that really is a vice in one context is not in another.

Simple cases like this show that the first form of Relativism is true. There are indeed some actions, the ethical status of which depends on cultural and historical factors. There are some things that are genuinely right in one cultural or historical context and genuinely wrong in another.

Unfortunately, this true and guarded claim is not the form in which Relativism is usually introduced. Relativism is generally put forward as if we were speaking not merely of some values but as if we were speaking of all values. This is the claim of Universal Relativism, that all values are culturally relative: that there is no value that isn't merely a matter of one's culture. In this absolute and universal form, Relativism does not bring insight and truth, but rather a blizzard of conceptual confusions which we need to disentangle.

There are three very different positions that tend to get tangled. The first position is Descriptive Relativism: This is the claim that different cultures differ in their fundamental ethical beliefs. It is the claim that what is believed to be right and wrong varies from culture to culture.

The second position is Ethical Relativism proper: the claim that an action is morally right in one culture may be wrong in another. This claim goes beyond mere matters of belief. It is the philosophical claim that what is right in one culture is not only believed to be wrong in another but really is wrong in another.

Everyone knows the distinction between belief and reality; for example, between whether it is believed that the Earth is flat and whether it really is. The question of whether there were historical periods in which it was believed the Earth was flat is a very different matter from whether there were historical periods in which the Earth really was flat. The analogy here is this: Descriptive Relativism is like the position that there were historical periods in which it was believed that the world was flat. Ethical Relativism is like the position that there were historical periods in which it really was flat, except, of course, we are talking about ethics.

The third position in the tangle is Prescriptive Relativism. Prescriptive Relativism is the claim in which it is wrong to condemn or pass judgment on those with different cultural values. In universal form, it is the claim that it is always wrong to pass judgment on another culture.

So what we are dealing with are three importantly different positions that sound alike. They also tend to travel together as parts of a single bad argument, and it is philosophically important to diffuse it. The argument is often given as if it were a proof, a series of logical steps that prove a conclusion. It runs something like this:
• Step 1: Different cultures differ in their fundamental ethical beliefs.
• Step 2: An action right in one culture may therefore be wrong in another culture. There are no universal moral truths; what is right and wrong varies from culture to culture.
• Step 3: It is therefore wrong to condemn or pass judgment on those with different ethical values.

Note that the first step is Descriptive Relativism: a statement about beliefs. Different cultures differ in their fundamental ethical beliefs. The second step is presented as if it were derived from step 1: an action right in one culture may be therefore wrong in another culture. That is Ethical Relativism presented in its full universal form. There are no universal moral truths; what is right and wrong varies from culture to culture. The third step is treated as a deduction from the second and it is Prescriptive Relativism: It is therefore wrong to condemn or pass judgment on those with different ethical values.

This argument is, in the end, a fallacious argument. It is presented as if it was a proof, but the steps do not really follow. It is, however, an argument with a long intellectual history. Something like that standard argument can be found as far back the work of Sextus Empiricus writing about 200 A.D. Sextus Empiricus is a Skeptic. Skepticism was revived in the Renaissance, most notably in the mid-1500s in the essays of Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne, like Sextus before him, starts with a catalogue, a blizzard, of listed cultural differences. That is the first step, the Descriptive Relativism step, a listing of cultural differences. Many of those seem funny today because Montaigne took them uncritically from everywhere: from classical sources, from legends, and from travelers' tall tales. So with a straight face, Montaigne tells us of people in the New Indies (he means America) who raise fattened spiders for food: "They cook them and prepare them with various sauces." He tells of other nations in which our meats and foods are fatally poisonous. He says:

There are countries where, except for his wife and children, no one speaks to the king except through a tube... where people greet one another by putting their finger into the ground and then raising it to heaven. Where the men carry their burdens on their heads, and women on their shoulders, and where women piss standing, men squatting. Where they cook the body of the deceased and then crush it until a sort of pulp is formed, which they mix with their wine, and drink it.

From this litany of cultural differences, taken uncritically from sources solid and unsolid, real and imagined, Montaigne draws the Ethical Relativism conclusion, that custom has no rational or ethical basis. He says: "In short, to my way of thinking, there is nothing that custom will not or cannot do." Indeed, we should be wary of the dictates of our own conscience because that is as much shaped by our culture as anything else. Montaigne says: "The laws of conscience, which we say are born of nature, are born of custom."

The move from Descriptive Relativism to Ethical Relativism is also central to the work of the Marquis de Sade. De Sade's Justine alternates chapters of increasingly violent pornography with chapters in which figures of authority outline how different cultures hold different beliefs, so nothing is really wrong. So it is perfectly acceptable to inflict pain onto someone else in order to heighten one's sexual pleasure, to find pleasure while watching people burned to death. It is from de Sade of course that our term "sadism" comes.

Of course the argument from Descriptive Relativism to Ethical Relativism doesn't just appear in historical sources. It appears in philosophical conversations every day. There is an important point in which one becomes aware of different ways of living. One becomes aware that the pattern to which one is acculturated is not universally accepted and probably should not be. That crucial realization is often expressed, rightly or wrongly, in a move like this from Descriptive Relativism to Ethical Relativism. From "different cultures have different values" to "no set of values is any better or worse than any other" and perhaps from there to "would it be wrong to judge?"

Now when examined carefully, it is clear this argument is a bad one. It is simply not the proof it purports to be. There are three ways in which the argument fails.

The first problem. Step 1 is: Different cultures differ in their fundamental and ethical beliefs. Step 2 concludes that there are therefore no universal moral truths. In order for the argument to get even as far as that second step—the claim that there are no universal moral truths—it is not enough that there are some differences in fundamental ethical beliefs. In order to get to a conclusion that there are no moral truths across cultures, we would at least need a premise that there is no ethical agreement that holds across cultures.

All of the classical sources—Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne, and the Marquis de Sade—offer a string of intriguing anecdotal stories about surprising cultural disagreements. But in order to establish an unqualified Descriptive Relativism, one would have to show that absolutely every ethical claim made in one culture is contradicted in some other culture.

Are things that different? Is there really a culture that believes, for example, that the ethical thing to do is to kill children for sport? Is there a culture that takes it as an ethical truth than one ought always to try to harm oneself? Or one where we have an obligation to lie to each other whenever possible? Is there a culture that prohibits the passing on of cultural traditions? No. There are no cultures that hold any of those things. Indeed it is not clear that any culture could hold such beliefs. The cultures that we find across the globe are cultures that have had to survive and perpetuate themselves. Any culture that killed its own children couldn't self-perpetuate. Any culture that had no presumption of truth-telling could not pass on information. Any culture that had an injunction against passing on cultural knowledge would be a culture that is bent on its own destruction.

There is a sense, then, in which the argument doesn't even get off the ground. We do not have reason to believe the unqualified Descriptive Relativism that would be necessary to give us the unqualified Ethical Relativism that appears in step 2. That's one problem.

The second problem is that the argument would be still fallacious anyway because the move from the first step, where different cultures differ in fundamental ethical beliefs, to the conclusion in the second step, that there are therefore no universal moral truths, is a move from belief to truth. The transition from the first step to the second is still a transition from supposed facts about differences in ethical beliefs to the ethical claim that nothing is universally right or wrong across cultures. The move from the first step to the second, then, is a move from facts about cultural beliefs to a claim about ethics—about what really is right or wrong.

But it doesn't follow from the fact that different cultures disagree about whether the Earth is flat that there is no geological fact of the matter; it doesn't follow from the fact that different cultures disagree about whether infants inherit characteristics from both parents that there are no biological facts regarding genetic inheritance. In precisely the same way, it doesn't follow that because there are cultural disagreements regarding ethics that there is no ethical truth applicable across cultures. The move from disagreement in belief to claims regarding reality independent of belief is as fallacious in the ethical case as it is in the others.

A third problem is in the move from the second step to the third: from Ethical Relativism to Prescriptive Relativism. The claim in step 2 is that there are no universal moral truths, that nothing is universally right or wrong. The claim in step 3 is that there is something that is always wrong: the act of passing judgment on those with different cultural values. So far from step 2 leading to step 3, those two claims cannot possibly be true together. Far from supporting Prescriptive Relativism, Ethical Relativism contradicts it. If it is always wrong to pass judgment on others, then there is something that is always wrong. On the other hand if nothing is universally right or wrong, it cannot be universally wrong to pass judgment on another culture.

The argument about usury is a qualified, rather than a universal, form of Ethical Relativism. It is a defensible claim because there are some things the ethical status of which genuinely differs with cultural contexts. If a qualified claim can be right, a qualified form of Prescriptive Relativism can also be right. It is problematic to pass quick or precipitate judgments on those who have different values or to peremptorily try to make them conform to one's own. Given different cultural contexts, different values may be as valid as one's own. The idea is: Be careful.

The whole topic of Relativism can be seen as a case in which people's standard motivations are usually right. But their explicit formulations, the unqualified claims they actually make, are almost always wrong. In unqualified or universal form, both Ethical and Prescriptive Relativism turn out to be deeply contestable, and the standard argument used to support them is a tissue of fallacious reasoning. On the other hand, in their qualified forms, Ethical Relativism and Prescriptive Relativism amount to a plea for cultural sensitivity and a warning against precipitated judgments.

End.....................

Hugs

Danielle Marie

[Virginia]

How do you transfer Usury to modern day credit cards with interest rates upward to 30% and now these "payday stores" with interest rates to what 130% to 150% and they are legal!

As for Europe's participation in all this it may all be relative with the growing Muslim population and the interjection of "Sharia Law" into or to replace current forms of law. Most of the "unacceptable" forms of behavior sited are subject to fairly cut and dried reciprocity! Cut of your hand! Poke out an eye! Stoning! So this lecture may have its place in history, but then again, dare I say, WHEN these extremist take over in Europe and eventually here in the USA guys like this professor will be the first to have their head placed in a basket!

I do not wish to coop your thread but all these purported "do-gooders" running around saying we need to "understand" their hostility and we should sit and talk with them so we may better understand what they want and how their poor childhood experiences brought them to the point of strapping bombs to their wife and their children, if we will just sit and listen to them - yeah all that is going to work!!!! What is our position of strength at the negotiating table when the person on the other side of the argument is wearing 10 pounds of C-4 and their position in the argument is simply "you are an infidel and I intend to kill you!"

All the platitudes in the world ain't gonna save our sorry asses!

Sorry, guess I have issues.

Virginia

[CJ]

Hi all,

Virginia,

I understand where you're coming from but I'm not sure it's fair to Muslims worldwide to take the radical and extremist elements within Islam as if they were representative of the religion as a whole. They aren't. I know many Muslims and they're just as horrified and appaled by "C4 theology" as are the rest of us. Still, I understand your point of view; it's shared by many people in Europe and North America.

The clash of cultures is very well exemplified right here, in Canada and in Quebec. Last year, in Ontario (Quebec's neighbour province), the Supreme Court struck down a move by Muslim groups to constitute tribunals that would apply sharia (Muslim religious law) to Ontarian Muslims. These courts would've dealt mostly with marriage and civil status issues but the public outcries (and fears) were just too great for the Court to let it pass.

Which brings me to what's going on, right here, in my own province, these last couple of years. There have been numerous "scandals" that all relate to what's become known here as "reasonable accommodation" (or, in the minds of most people, "unreasonable accommodation"). A few examples:

- The Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec, the equivalent to the U.S. DMV, has accepted to bar female driving test examiners for orthodox Jews who request that they not be tested by women.

- A Jewish orthodox school has asked that the nearby YMCA have its ground floor windows frosted, so that the women working out in the gyms not distract or "tempt" students on the way to school. The Y accepted and has since done so.

- A young Muslim girl, playing for a local soccer team, has stirred up international controversy by refusing to remove her hijab (traditional Muslim women's headdress) while playing.

- To the consternation of many of its immigrants, the little village of Hérouxville, northeast of Montreal, recently amended its charter to include provisions for the safekeeping and respect of traditional Quebecois values and practices (such as equality of the sexes, common law courts, secular education, and the like).

- Our recent provincial elections were plagued with controversy regarding the refusal by some burka-wearing Muslim women to show their faces at the polls for purposes of voter identification.

- Etc., etc.

Reasonable accommodation is the notion that a government or public agency must, to a resonable degree, do what it can to accommodate the cultural values and practices of immigrants. Currently, the entire debate hinges on the definition of the word "reasonable." Most people (who are not said immigrants) believe that, inasmuch as we are a "terre d'accueil" (a "host culture"), it behooves immigrants to adapt to our values, not the other way around. Many, like myself, believe that there must be a way to find (or create) some common ground. Together. Especially in a land that was originally built and founded by immigrants (as was the U.S., too, by the way).

What complicates matters is that both the Canadian and the Quebec Charters of Rights and Freedoms forbid discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnicity. So it's very difficult to navigate the current terrain without some tempers flaring up.

I live in a culture that prides itself on being multicultural and on the forefront of cosmopolitan communities and yet culture clash abounds. This clash used to occur just between the French and the English (the two founding "peoples"--if you abstract the Native populations that were living here millenia before the first European ever set foot on North American soil) but now, with the increasing immigration of the past half-century or so, it's become almost universal. It just goes to show that it's easy to be proud of the fact that you're multicutural when you want to order Chinese food or buy your lobster from the local Portuguese fish market but a hell of a lot tougher to admit that you're multicultural when the orthodox Jewish woman strolling her kids down the sidewalk literally won't give you the time of day or when a group of Haitian cab drivers are literally screaming in a friendly debate.

Having said this, l'Office des droits de la personne, the agency in charge of hearing complaints of discrimination recently published its stats for last year and, as it turns out, most complaints come not from immigrant communities, but from standard and well-established religious groups trying to expand their foothold in Quebec society (chief among them, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, and Mormons).

As a whole, Quebec society is a very tolerant and welcoming one. We enjoy our cultural diversity and our access to much of what's beautiful and edifying in other cultures. Although racism is present, to some extent, it is far less so than in many other parts of the country (or of the U.S. and Europe). But, as immigrants slowly organize themselves into coherent communities of their own within the greater community that is Quebec, culture clash is inevitable.

I consider myself an Ethical Relativist ("qualified," in the sense that Pr. Grim talks about it in Danielle's post above). But there are things that the cultural values I inherited (and, to some extent, chose) prevent me from accepting. One example is the clandestine clitoridectomy house that was shut down, here in Montreal, a few years ago. Now, I understand that the removal of a woman's clitoris (and the sewing shut of her labia) is a common practice in Ethiopia but this is one instance where I have to say, "Sorry, but you're not in Ethiopia anymore; you cannot do that." Of course, I might say that it's inhuman and immoral to do so even if I were in Ethiopia, but I'd be standing on much shakier ground for the expression of my outrage.

This is an interesting topic for discussion, these ethics. Danielle suggests that we can infer that our community (presumably, the TG community) may have once been more accepted than it currently is. I'm not sure if this is true or even how we could go about determining the truth of this claim outside the existing historical records, but I find the notion still isn't as appealing as the notion that we may one day be more accepted than we are today.

Thanks for the post, Danielle.

Love,
CJ

[Lydia]

Hi all,

Fascinating thread, and worth reading carefully. I am struck by the difference in attitude between different generations and times. Back in the 1920's, the immigrant generation of my parents, the attitude of most immigrants was a genuine effort to join the "melting pot." Here they have come to the land of freedom and wealth, so efforts were made to become "American" as quickly as possible. Witness the strong tendency of immigrant parents to see that their children speak only English - even in the home. A fine example of this attitude is to be found in the classic "Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N". Not that some clannishmess didn't exist. Enclaves in New York City arose of Irish, Jews, Italians, etc. But these were temporary and diffuse, and even cooperative. In my case, I was brought up in a highly diverse neighborhood, and it wasn't until my teens that I realized that some of my good grade school buddies were black.

The current attitude is the antithesis of the "melting pot", it is fragmentation, and what is even more fragmenting is the push by each group to ghetto-ize itself, and at the same time insist that all other groups conform to its particular cultural, indeed, tribal customs. Sad to say, this is more evident in muslim populations, and this, of course promotes resentment and furthers fragmentation.

I don't really understand why this generational change occurred, perhaps someone can explain it to me. I sure don't know what to do about it. I think that the melting pot approach is superior, but maybe my generation gap is showing.

My $.02. Go ahead, tear me to shreds CJ and Danielle.

Hugs,

Lydia

[Danielle La Belle]

Hi Girls:

Let me tell you a simple story.

During my stay in Army boot camp, I was 17 years of age at the time, one night without much thought, I made a remark. I was raised Roman Catholic. Immediately, a young man rose up on his upper birth (bunk), raised as a Southern Baptist and began to berate me over my comment.

Bottom line. From that day on, I have been both observing and extremely careful about what I say out loud.

I have learned that you can take a statement or a document or lesson plan as I have done here, post it and watch the feathers fly! For me there are justifiable reasons for doing this. Primarily, to see what shakes loose from the rafters. To stimulate interest among those that find it interesting. To improve on my social education.

I profess that I am not the brightest light bulb in the pack, only that I perhaps at times, try to observe more than express myself. I fear my own opinions at times as I am seeing this once open minded individual become older and more opinionated than I care to believe.

I observe here that respondents managed to find a variety of aspects related and unrelated to the Prof.’s paper and premise. Some seem “relative,” other aspects, well, I simply am not sure. I am not suited to make such a judgment at this time with my current educational experience.

My remark, “My intention is to demonstrate that as a community, we may at one time have been more accepted by others. With change comes change in the cultural biases that appear throughout history. This is demonstrated by Prof. Grim in various comparisons of cultural behavior,” was just a comparison to what Prof. Grim had talked about with reference to other subjects that have changed over time.

There may be previous cultures now extinct or radically changed that accepted the TG personality. As CJ pointed out, “This is an interesting topic for discussion, these ethics. Danielle suggests that we can infer that our community (presumably, the TG community) may have once been more accepted than it currently is. I'm not sure if this is true or even how we could go about determining the truth of this claim outside the existing historical records, but I find the notion still isn't as appealing as the notion that we may one day be more accepted than we are today.” I hope so as well CJ.

Can 10 people with different experiences read the same printed matter and arrive at the very same conclusion? I think not. Not like mathematics as a language among mathematicians. Concise and controlled by formulae, mathematics unlike the social sciences has an accepted process that works around the world.

Statements of a social nature, cannot not live up to such formulary process. They are packed with emotion, social perception, history, community, location (geography) etc. A very complex combination that is less like DNA and more like a sudden outburst of personal opinion.

Hugs

Danielle Marie

[Virginia]

CJ, thanks for your follow-up, I hope I did not read too much into your post. The fact is that I did not condemn the Muslim population/religion as a whole! I did mention, as did you the, radical zealots who "have tried or have in some cases successfully stolen the religion!"

I have however seen it in all too many cases that these "do-gooders" who want appeasement with these religious zealots, then have some member or their family, a close friend, someone they have a personal relationship with, get dissected by one of these "morons" with that C-4 strapped to themselves and on their way to their "72 virgins." It is amazing how they do a 180 and incur the old Marine adage of "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out!"

I do not have any problem with these folks pulling out their prayer rug and offering Allah their alms four or five times a day. Does not bother me in the least, but when those radical zealots just want to kill me and anyone else that they consider an infidel because we do not subscribe to their religious beliefs --------- totally unacceptable!!!

I think we are pretty much of the same opinion, except for perhaps how we go about negotiation with these extremists!

Love ya, and keep your head down!

Virginia

[CJ]

Hi all,

Danielle,

I love that you post material like this to "see what shakes loose from the rafters." Of course, I also realize that your doing so is, probably, a way of expressing your own opinions in an indirect manner regarding this or that thread you see on the forum. I think this is a fine thing.

I also think it's a good thing that discourses and debates that have social science issues as their object are not mathematical in nature. I say this, even as I recall the symbolic logic courses I've had sit through in my philosophy classes. If p, then q; not p, therefore not q. Ugh!

Lydia,

There's no shredding to be found here. You're absolutely right, I think. I read a book, some twelve years ago now, called Selling Illusions, by Canadian author Neil Bissoondath, in which he lambasted the federal government's official policy of multiculturalism--for pretty much the same reasons you stated above.

Regardless of where it may originate, the political push to highlight difference rather than similarity has some (possibly unintended) negative consequences, the ghettoization of a given culture often being the least of these. The existence of cultural enclaves inevitably gives rise to cultural clash. Cultural clash leads to social conflict such as we're witnessing right here, in Quebec, these days.

When, under pressure from Muslim groups, the YMCA (the very same facility as mentioned in my post above) decides to reduce even further its free general access hours to the swimming pool in order to reattribute those hours to Muslim women so that they not have to share the pool with men, local non-Muslim people--both men and women--get angry and start dropping their memberships to the Y. When scandal erupts (and the press and the politicians are good at making this happen), Muslims cry foul and accuse Quebecois of being racist. It seems like a never-ending wheel of intolerance then begins to turn. Who can stop it? I don't know.

My own personal feelings, as hinted at in my previous post, are that new arrivals to our culture ought to make some effort to adapt and adjust to their new circumstances while we, as a host culture, ought to make some room for understanding the often difficult context that leads many of these new arrivals to abandon their homelands. Even in our pool of clients at work, there are at least a good half-dozen who are immigrants that suffer from severe post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of torture and the death of their loved ones in their own war-torn countries. I understand it may be difficult for immigrants to adapt and adjust--some do not make it, preferring instead to either return to their homelands or to end their lives--but adjustment is necessary and it shouldn't be equated, as many immigrants believe, with assimilition. There's a huge difference between cultural assimilation and cultural integration. For integration to happen, there must be a move, on the part of a host culture, to welcome difference and diversity while simultaneously holding fast to those cultural specifics that make the identity of a host nation or culture what it is. This requires a hell of a lot of work, the smoothing of many ruffled feathers. On both sides. It's an art and a noble work. In my case, it's made a little easier by my always keeping in mind that, regardless of the colour of their skin or of their religious beliefs or even of their politics, human beings, everywhere on earth, have very similar drives and needs. And we all bleed red when wounded.

Having said this, I think there is no possibility of negotiating with murderous fanaticism, whatever its ilk. Whether it be politically or religiously motivated, fanaticism is the expression of a state of mind where individuals have abandoned the power to think for themselves and to properly evaluate both the context and the consequences of their actions. My plea is this: that we remain vigilant in recognizing fanaticism, whatever its origins--Eastern or Western.

Anyway, Lydia, to return to your original point, yes, I also believe there was much that was positive in the "melting pot" approach to cultural integration. However, it appears that many people don't like the taste of that particular soup and are prepared to fight the inclusion of too much beef and not enough chicken or to throw the spice rack out the kitchen window. Their loss, I say. Sadly, it also becomes ours.

Love,
CJ

[Absaroka]

THis is certainly a subject that can get complicated real fast. We seem to have moved from pure cultural relativism of morality to international policitcs pretty quickly.

I'm going to use the example of Nazi Germany as a great example of cultural relativism and politics gone astray.

I'm in total agreement that at some point self defense becomes paramount. At which point understanding your enemy and what motivates them is essential in that it enables you to kill them more efrectively. Hitler and his true believers being examples of people who needed killing.

But when we get to the example of asking why do they hate us (a great many Muslims in some countries who are not strapping bombs to themselves but who do cheer on the folks who do) It really is worth asking why. The parralel is all the decent Germans who voted for Hitler. A better understanding of what was going on in Germany might have lead to a situation where Hitler would have been less appealing to the same Germans who after the war were horrified at what their country had done.

Onto to cultural relativism. There have been a great many deep thinkers who have discussed this. Personally I think we have to discuss large principals and smaller ones. A large principal is one such as treat others the way you would want to be treated. A major moral principal in most religions and one which as a whole humanity has shown a remarkable inability to adhere to. I don't think this sort of principal is subject to relativism.

Then we get to application. In many cultures a mother playing with a babies genitals is considered a good and perfectly appropriate way to calm a baby. There is no shame, no secrecy, and probably no harm. It is probably not immoral. In our culture it is considered sexual abuse. The motives are all wrong and it becomes immoral. Yet for a father to clean a baby girls genitals while changing a diaper is considered proper, indeed a failure to do so would be abuse. Not immoral. In some cultures the man even changing the diaper might be tantamount to rape. So here we have loads of relativism, mostly due in my opinion to failure to adhere to the larger principal of do unto others......

I have in mind an example of one of my neighbors experiences. She was a Pakistani woman. She was by no means that conservative-she wore Western clothes and she and I had many pleasant conversations even though I was not a relative. The Taliban would have killed her for being a whore, and that type of thinking was why she came to America in the first place. But somewhere along the way she had to draw a line or so she thought.

Her daughter wanted to attend the high school prom. She said okay but that her daughter must be home by 9 p.m. I told her I thought this was unreasonably early and she asked did I know that Amercan boys often bought condoms prior to the prom. I decided that now was probably not the time to say this was good because we wanted them to practice safe sex.

The prom had been some time prior to our convesation. She then went on to say that her relationship with her daughter deteriorated and the daughter ran away from home and went to stay at the boyfriends house. Her son (no husband around, she was quite pleased actually with the American law that allowed women to divorce their husbands for beating them) went to the boyfriends house and demanded his sister return home and threatened to kill the boyfriend if he despoiled his sister. A theme found in many, many cultures by the way. The police intervened and told him he could not do this. The mother was indignant. What kind of culture would penalize a boy for protecting his sister, she asked indigniantly. We talked and it was clear that she would agree that no one should actually be killed. BUt didn't I relaize the seriousness of the situation? Before we get all judgemental about the false value of virginity lets remember just how many shotgun weddings we had here not long ago, and not always because the girl was pregnant.

Personally I think the whole valuation of virginity is preposterous, although I would have to agree the prudishness is prefereable to teenagers having babies they can't care for. So where is the moral absolute here? I think it can be found in the golden rule again but I don't expect people to come to agreement anytime soon about this.

Absaroka

[Danielle La Belle]

Hi Girls:

Absaroka.....


Marketing groups and psychology studies employ a "demographic" study, most often including individuals that fit certain criteria under study. These "focus groups" are employed in small numbers to replicate what is thought to be the specific target group only they be much larger numbers. Coke vs. Pepsi, etc.

Europe is not "One Country," rather a composite of several Countries made up of human beings that for the most part, believe that they "are their Country" of origin. The bond that is formed is similar on a local level to street gangs etc. So, "target groups," street gangs, members of a particular Country all have something in common. They share ideals that are expressed and unexpressed at times.

Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, etc..... share views in a similar fashion. I must wonder, just how much of this is in the "Mental Programming" that can be attributed to what makes humans human. That is, as one might put it if in religious terms, has much to do with God's (creator) design?

Perhaps all of the differences are designed to be here to "make life interesting or at least challenging. Something always happening, never boring to those that pay attention. While we wish change in one area of social relations, for every action their can be an equal and opposing reaction. How to balance the scales of social interest? When one group gets what they want, another suffers by perception until that group decides that the change is acceptable or they are redirected away from the issue by something else considered more pressing and worthy of their attention.


????????????

Hugs

Danielle Marie

[Anita]

Hi Danielle--
I got something out of that--you wrote it in a sequence that was easy to follow. I instantly saw how much work would be required for me personally to fully comprehend just what's written here. I certainly have a general understanding, but to be able to draw intelligent conclusions from it takes study. My hat is off to you for continuing to pursue such avenues.

I can see why what you are defining here as Prescriptive Relativism is an ideal that seems attractive to many, including myself. There is a simple reason for this, in my case. I have found over the years that what we call judgment takes energy, and I’m an old gal with less energy as I get even older. Hence, the less judgment I hold, the more energy I have for other things.

This means that I go out of my way to reach understanding about things in the world around me, because the more I understand and experience, the less I find myself judging. And, in my worldview: less judgment=more energy.

I also know that our society values judgment highly, and we consider the ability to judge a sign of intelligence and good reasoning ability. This ability certainly has its place, but there’s a price to pay for it. I’ve just found that the older I get, the less I want to pay that price.

I don't have to look too far for examples. There are many, many people in the world who believe that our gender explorations are morally wrong. They can be very sincere in believing that what we do is a decline in all civilization, at the least. At the worst, people can consider us evil for doing this. Some of us may have believed these things about ourselves at one time, too.

We can see for ourselves how limiting judgment is in this case, and what kind of rewards can come with acceptance. We also have experienced how much more energy is available to us when we have accepted this part of ourselves, and stopped fighting it. I'm saying that the people who judge us also pay a price for holding that judgment, although they might not be aware of the tax. Like sales tax, it may seem small--but it does add up.

I still find it necessary to retain judgment on issues like terrorism. I am also aware of people in the world who are attempting to give up those judgments, too—taking my argument to the extreme. I will not argue about that here; I will note that it takes a radical 'shift of view' to allow this to happen.

But giving up judgment is very much related to opening up to a femme self; once you've experienced that freedom, to any degree, it is very hard to go back to the limits you lived with before.

[Lydia]

Hi all,

I have no problem with living in the same country, state, city, area, block, house, with people who have cultural, religious, tribal behavior and requirements different from mine. This is an integral part of what makes this country flourish. However, I object to those who insist that I change my behavior, beliefs, to conform to theirs. This is what some evangelical christians, some muslims, and others try to do. If you want to eat in a certain way, pray in a special way, or wear particular clothes, I have no objections and you should have the freedom to follow your cultural mores, but don't foist those things on me.

So there.

Lydia

[Elizabeth]

Hi Girls:
...
The second problem is that the argument would be still fallacious anyway because the move from the first step, where different cultures differ in fundamental ethical beliefs, to the conclusion in the second step, that there are therefore no universal moral truths, is a move from belief to truth. The transition from the first step to the second is still a transition from supposed facts about differences in ethical beliefs to the ethical claim that nothing is universally right or wrong across cultures. The move from the first step to the second, then, is a move from facts about cultural beliefs to a claim about ethics—about what really is right or wrong.
...

Danielle Marie

From my existentialist point of view, this is also a generalization. These are philosophical questions that can really have no truth. He presumes it must be one or the other. That either there are cultural truths about what really is right or wrong or there is not. I believe it is both.

Because I believe that it's up to each to make their own truths, some may find there are absolute truths, and for them, there are absolute truths. Others who find there can be no absolute truths will find there are no universal truths.

I think there is a problem here with mistaking instincts, survival strategies and cultural relativism as all being the same thing. There are contradictions. We have an instinct to kill, yet we have a morality within us that tells us killing for no reason is bad. This protects our species and is a necessary biological function for our survival. Do people still murder others? Yes, but overall we don't do it enough to endanger our survival as a species.

What works in one society as a time tested means of survival, may not work in another. One can call this cultural relativism or one can call it natural selection based on external factors.

Basically I find any argument that says anything is for certain this or that, can not be correct because there is no way to know any of us experiences the universe in the same way. Too much of our experience is abstract. We have words to try to explain it, but there is no way to know we see things the same, ever.

That however, in and of itself does not mean we do not, as the good doctor would have us believe. It only means it's one possibility.

How much of our religion is something we learned and how much is a construction of our mind because of our need to survive? Can they exist without each other, much less mutually exclusive?

I continue to believe that our lives are ours to experience as we see fit. Cultural relativism presumes cultural norms are universally accepted within a given culture and I just can't buy into that notion. Mostly because I have never seen it.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Jeannie]

Hi Girls
All people are perfectly imperfect. We ladies will never be accepted and for the most part barely tolerated. So what! Religion? It will ultimately destroy the human race. We all have one very short life so make the best of it. Bigotry,predudice,killing and hatred our part of our makeup and will be our demise. We are the animals. Most haven't figured that out. If there is a Creator he has a great sense of humor.Humans give themselves way more credit than they're due. We make a Trannysaurous Rex look like a girl scout. Hugs ladies and have a great week.


Love
Jeannie

[Danielle La Belle]

Hi Girls:

Behind every dress on this forum, lies a "mind" waiting to come out and play!

Behind every dress on this forum, lies a "mind" waiting to express an opinion!

Behind every dress on this forum, lies a "mind" waiting to be recognized!

Hugs

Danielle Marie

[Lydia]

The current conflict is "truth" vs "truthiness" (= 'What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. See Wikipedia.)

Acceptance of the scientific truth of evolution is countered by the truthiness of "intelligent design". The truth of "pro-choice" is being swamped by the truthiness of "pro-life". The truth of our failure in Iraq is overcome by the truthiness of "stay the course". The truth of global warming is buried by the truthiness of economics. There is a plethora of examples, and, unfortunately, they all fortell the victory of truthiness.

Hugs anyway,

Lydia