I dislike culturally tolerant blindness nearly as much as extremism
If you look up the antonyms for "extremism" in the dictionary, you will find "moderation". I believe that moderation is not the other end of the scale - it is the middle point; the zero, from which you can count in both directions. At the other end of the scale is extremism with a "plus" sign. I would call it culturally tolerant blindness.
I can see the climbing eye-brows and I owe an explanation... Culturally tolerant blindness is the condition in which literally anything, any wrong-doing, injustice or plain stupidity, has to and will be excused with either cultural or religious background. This is the situation where nothing should be condemned if the excuse is either religion or culture. Moreover - nothing should be questioned or debated if you say the magic words - "that's how we do it in our ... (fill the blank)" I leave the possible scenarios for you to imagine - the 21st century is full of them.
No! Things should not be excused for either religious or cultural reasons! When I come across things I don't understand, I put them in a diagram where "equality" is on one axis, and "justice" is on the other. Not only that - I disagree with those philosophers who try to look at the most basic concepts from cultural point of view. The notion of justice has nothing to do with Western values and should never be flagged as such. Justice is one and universal, it is plain and straightforward with no detours or exceptions.
I feel sad when I see bright minds blinded by cultural tolerance beyond limit. I await the day when moderation in judgment will come back in fashion, when we start calling things by their own names, and injustice, bigotry and violence will be called what they are in fact.
I suddenly felt like writing this posting after going through some of the older discussions on this blog and thinking back of the seminars we used to have in my university in Edinburgh. It is not an academic paper though, so don't look for hard evidence and examples.
I can see the climbing eye-brows and I owe an explanation... Culturally tolerant blindness is the condition in which literally anything, any wrong-doing, injustice or plain stupidity, has to and will be excused with either cultural or religious background. This is the situation where nothing should be condemned if the excuse is either religion or culture. Moreover - nothing should be questioned or debated if you say the magic words - "that's how we do it in our ... (fill the blank)" I leave the possible scenarios for you to imagine - the 21st century is full of them.
No! Things should not be excused for either religious or cultural reasons! When I come across things I don't understand, I put them in a diagram where "equality" is on one axis, and "justice" is on the other. Not only that - I disagree with those philosophers who try to look at the most basic concepts from cultural point of view. The notion of justice has nothing to do with Western values and should never be flagged as such. Justice is one and universal, it is plain and straightforward with no detours or exceptions.
I feel sad when I see bright minds blinded by cultural tolerance beyond limit. I await the day when moderation in judgment will come back in fashion, when we start calling things by their own names, and injustice, bigotry and violence will be called what they are in fact.
I suddenly felt like writing this posting after going through some of the older discussions on this blog and thinking back of the seminars we used to have in my university in Edinburgh. It is not an academic paper though, so don't look for hard evidence and examples.
posted by Kristina at 11:57 AM
4 Comments:
Yay for beautiful, intelligent, socially-conscious Estonian women! ;)
I agree wholeheartedly, though I must add that you're speaking to the choir. The peril of 'justice' -and I'll tackle equality in a moment!- is that it's nearly always filtered through the eyes of one's own beliefs. For instance, I once had a discussion with someone who felt that murdering doctors who perform abortions might actually be just fine and dandy because, well, in their point of view, there is a net savings in lives. Arguing with this person was a bit like banging my head against the wall - painful, and accomplished nothing. I'd love any brilliant ideas you have on how to get someone to see a point which they steadfastly refuse to even contemplate!
... And, equality - yet another troublesome thing. I'll tackle this one later. Hehe, I know I still owe you an e-mail, too... it's coming, I swear! I've just returned from Hawaii, and now I'm moving into my new flat, slowly but surely. Soon I'll have wireless, and then I'll be an e-mail demigod, writing day and night to atone for my lack of correspondence lately. That said, it's wonderful to see you writing! I hope you're doing well? My best, as always, to you and your family!
Love,
- Brian
Welcome to the cult of relativism brought to us by the 'posties' (meaning postmodern, postcolonial, whatever you want to add after post) - and you're right, at the end of the day it's complete garbage. That doesn't mean that there aren't issues with objectivity, or issues with power relations in definitions and judgement; however, if you get to the point where you're saying that there you can have no competing truth claims, then you've gone a step too far.
Is it impossible for me as a white, Western male to understand the plight of a Asian woman? Can only Asian women analyze each other? Somehow in this frame of reference subjugation somehow gets turned into 'authenticity.' The outsider can't understand, let alone judge, the insider. But does than mean being a Canadian, I really can't study Scotland, because I'm not Scottish? Can I have nothing to say about the 'binge drink culture'? Do I just have to accept it?
At the end of the day, the problem is that they confuse one issue, the power for all people to compete in global discourses about themselves, with the idea that subjugation = authenticity. But if you were really a postmodernist, you could never argue that anyone had a privileged position, as there is no real way to contrast between different discourses. Is local research and understanding of culture, ideas, etc important? Sure. But so is external research and understanding, and ultimately, critique. To say that another culture should not be criticized because you don't belong to them gives up on rationality - there are some things you can legitimately say are good or bad, there are some things that are more fuzzy, and then there are some things that you can't make such a judgement. The problem with these people is that they automatically lump everything in the last category.
I find myself agreeing a lot today! Absolutely, Vincent, and yegods, much of the postmodernist agenda drives me absolutely batty... for those of you wishing a bit of a chuckle, there's a famous true story of the physicist Alan Sokal. Have you heard of this? In essence, he decided to see if a peer-reviewed postmodern journal would publish any paper which "flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions". To this end, he wrote a nonsense paper that sounded, superficially, insightful and brilliant and submitted it. And it was accepted. Read more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair
On an even more amusing note, and one which I think I may have shared with you, Kristina, I hereby give you the "Postmodernism Essay Generator". This doozy randomly creates a brand-new postmodernist essay everytime you click reload. All complete nonsense, but believe it or not, a friend showed it to his wife (taking away the header, of course) and she started reading the paper and told him it sounded 'full of interesting ideas so far'. Enjoy!
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo
With best wishes,
- Brian
And now I must follow-up my own thought with an afterthought, and one which I'd certainly enjoy any feedback whatsoever on. I'm seizing upon Vincent's hierarchy (things that are clear, things that are fuzzy and things which we can't judge), and applying it to the two main areas in which I'm told quite often that I simply can't understand: race and sex.
To keep things simple, actually, how about I just stick with race? I've been told quite often that I simply can't understand the plight of being a minority in the USA because I'm not one. This is usually told to me whenever I try to give my proverbial two cents to some discussion on race. Now what odes this mean? Sure, on the one hand, I may have less direct experience with racism. But compared to whom? Do I, as a white male with adopted sisters of other races (not to mention tons of friends as well!) have less of an understanding of race issues than, say, a five-year old black kid growing up in a tough neighborhood? I think that's a REALLY tough statement to make! Yet people make it all the time.
If I then changed the aforementioned five-year old to a 63-year old black men who studies race relations and is a professor on the subject at a local university, what happens to the comparison of our understanding then? Presumably he would know much more than I! But now, for the sake of argument, let's say that instead of being a black man, he's white. Now we have a person who isn't in the minority but has spent a lifetime studying it, where does that leave him? To say he has nothing to contribute to the matter is certainly false by all accounts!
I'd very much appreciate any counterpoints to the above, but I think the holy grail of personal experience is far too hallowed and instead of keeping discussions of subjects such as racial experiences 'pure' merely limits the discussion and, consequently, diminishes it. And to put it very non-eloquently: that sucks. :)
Anyways, go enjoy the fun links I posted before!
- Brian
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