February 16, 2010
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In defense of ethnocentrism
First of all, let me admit that I am
using the common rhetorical technique of starting with a claim that
sounds preposterous, and then backing down to something much more
mundane. It would be fair to say that the ideology I am defending is
not really “ethnocentrism”, but instead something like “moral
objectivism”, since I certainly am not saying that my culture is
better because it is my culture, but
rather than my culture is better because it has certain
objectively beneficial features most other cultures lack.Yet,
what I am defending would be called “ethnocentrism” by many
cultural anthropologists, because I am in fact saying that my culture
is better than most other cultures. Yes, I am saying that atheism is
better than Christianity which is in turn better than Islam; that
liberal democracy is better than aristocracy which is better than
fascism; that mixed socialism is better than laissez-faire capitalism
which is better than Communism. I am asserting an objective
superiority to these cultural features.On
the other hand, I am not saying that my culture is the best
culture; in fact I must give
that title to someone else, probably Norway or perhaps Australia. In
these places democracy is taken more seriously, secularism is much
more rigidly enforced, and military aggression is unheardof; also,
truly absurd ideas like Creationism and global-warming denial are far
less prevalent there than here. Even these are not perfect, and in
some cases have flaws that the US has to a lesser degree. (The US is
after all the first White-majority state to elect a non-White head of
state; it is also the site of the majority of the world’s best
universities.) When I say that a society is better, I do not mean to
say that it itself cannot be bettered, for any real society has flaws
worth amending.What
I am reacting against is the notion that there are no objective
valuations to be made between cultures. Few actual policymakers would
ever take such an idea seriously, but the majority of cultural
anthropologists seem committed to this line of thinking. The Inuit
commonly kill their female children? We mustn’t judge them. Ancient
Mayan society captured foreigners and used them in human sacrifice?
It’s just part of their culture. Muslim nations have nonexistent
freedom of speech and treat women like we treat cattle? It’s an
important feature of their identity.In
fact, as a moral principle this ideology is self-defeating. It is an
empirical fact that the West is characterized (perhaps even defined;
I’m not sure “the West” is a
meaningful entity, but insofar as it is, this is part of that
meaning) by colonialism and imperialism; part of what it means to be
Western is to be part of a system of governance which uses advanced
military technology to forcefully subjugate those who oppose it. If
“cultures will be cultures”, and we have no right to judge any
culture’s norms higher than any other’s, then imperialism must be
perfectly acceptable, for it is an integral part of our cultural
identity. What kind of Americans would we be if we didn’t devastate
cities in foreign lands? Our grandfathers did it, and so did their
grandfathers before them! This is a cultural tradition we must
preserve!In
fact, I agree that colonialism and imperialism are harmful. I agree
that they are a flaw in Western cultures that ought to be eradicated,
preferably posthaste. In fact, part of what I value about Norway and
Australia is that they are not nearly as aggressive as the United
States in which I live. (On the other hand, this can be attributed as
much to their lack of military capability as to any moral
superiority. It’s conceivable that Australia would bomb
foreign countries if they had half as many bombs as the US does.)But
in order to say this, in order to claim that imperialism is
bad in any deep objective sense,
I must first commit myself to the principle that cultural norms can
be good or bad (or more or less good and bad) in objective terms. In
order to say that bombing Baghdad was a crime and bombing Dresden was
an atrocity, I must commit myself to a worldview in which culture is
not the final arbiter of moral truth.And
once I have done so, why should I stop at criticizing my
own culture, when many other
cultures have just as much to criticize? If we agree that it is good
that women can vote in the US and Europe, then doesn’t it make sense
to say that women ought to
be able to vote in Iran and Pakistan? If we agree that it was wrong
for the US Air Force to bomb Dresden, does it not follow that it was
similarly wrong for Al Qaeda to destroy the World Trade Center? If we
value the freedom to be Muslim in America, shouldn’t we also value
the freedom to be atheist in Saudi Arabia?Indeed,
once we admit that an objective assessment is possible, we must in
turn admit that it is probable, if not inevitable, that some cultures
will fare better than others. Just as Russia is better at chess and
South Korea is better at Starcraft, should we not expect that Norway
is better at democracy and Switzerland is better at peace? Is it
really surprising that we should find some cultures to be politically
corrupt and morally unjust to greater degrees than others? Is it
really problematic to suggest that cultures of hatred, misogyny, and
tyranny are worse than
cultures of peace, justice, and democracy?Admittedly,
problems arise in defining a suitable metric for evaluation. Much ink
has been spilled over the difference between deontological and
consequentialist ethics, and similarly different schools of economics
and political science disagree as to which structures of governance
are ethically and pragmatically optimal. This is something we must
surely acknowledge; it really isn’t clear what
the best financial regulation scheme, the best legislative system, or
the best education program would look like. It isn’t clear
when abortion should be allowed,
or what should be done with genetic engineering, or how to best
manage intellectual property law. Reasonable people disagree on these
questions, and it could be decades before we find compelling
solutions.But
the fact that we do not yet have a perfect answer
does not prevent us from rejecting answers that are obviously
wrong. Indeed, it does not even
prevent us from obtaining answers that are mostly correct
or almost certainly correct.
Mathematicians are not yet sure what to make of P=NP or the Riemann
Hypothesis, but we know that 2+2=5 is wrong and that there is no such
thing as a square triangle. Scientists are still trying to resolve
the inconsistencies in quantum gravity and devise a unified theory of
human consciousness, but we know that the Earth is not flat and that
consciousness is not created by invisible men living inside our
heads.It
seems quite analogous to me that while we cannot be sure whether
proportional representation is better than federalism, or how to
manage interest rates in a financial crisis, we do know that a
hereditary monarchy imposed through the control of oil profits (like
that of Saudi Arabia) is a bad system and ought to be eliminated. We
may not know how best to regulate abortion or manage intellectual
property, but we do know that homosexuals and atheists deserve equal
rights (which they do not have in Pakistan). Indeed, we know enough
to say that laissez-faire capitalism is unstable and Communism is too
easily hijacked by tyranny. We know enough to say that bombing
innocent people based upon opaque intelligence is wrong. We know
enough to say that abject poverty is a crime against humanity and
ought to be eradicated by any means necessary. We know enough to make
this world a much better place, if only we can get people to accept
and apply this knowledge.One
step in this process will be getting people to admit that some
cultures are better than others.
Comments (15)
It sounds like you’re defending the notion of “Culture A is better than B in terms of X, Y and Z but not Q, R and S” rather than saying that outright, Culture A is objectively “better” than B.
@QuantumStorm -
More like “Certain parts of culture A are better than culture B, but culture B also has better parts than culture A.” It’s basically an RTS game. You have several factions that have certain advantages and disadvantages. In Starcraft, the Zerg have cheaper, faster, more agile units, but their weak armor and HP balance out with the Protoss’s powerful, more expensive, and slower units. You can’t really definitively say that one race is better than another.
@aznspartan94 -
Epic win for the Starcraft analogy.
@QuantumStorm -
Absolutely. But for most cultural anthropologists, that’s enough to constitute “ethnocentrism”.
@QuantumStorm -
Also, I am in fact saying that overall, some cultures are better than others. Not better in every respect, but enough better in enough respects to be better overall.
@pnrj -
I guess it would depend on how you weight the different aspects.
@QuantumStorm -
Yes, but once again, some weightings are clearly more plausible than others.
“really good at chess” is clearly not as relevant to the value of a culture as “less likely to start aggressive wars”. “has really nice architecture” is clearly not as important as “has a lower rate of severe poverty”.
This is enough to say that Europe is better than the US, which is better than China, which is better than Saudi Arabia.
@pnrj -
“Clearly” in what sense though? Certainly not objective. You’d have to be a bit more general, methinks, before assigning objective qualities to such things.
@QuantumStorm -
I don’t know what you mean by “objective”, but the way I use the word, yes, I think it is an objectively true fact that poverty is more important than architecture. I think this is a fact in much the same way that “2+2=4″ is a fact, “The Earth is round” is a fact, and “Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy” is a fact.
If you don’t agree with this, then that is where our disagreement lies—at the most fundamental level of meta-ethics. I am a moral realist; it would seem that you are not.
Not terribly relevant, but we just made a big breakthrough in quantum gravity: we have verified the general relativity prediction of gravitational redshift for individual photons to very high precision.
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2010/02/17_gravitational_redshift.shtml
@pnrj -
It does demonstrate my point that imperfect answers are much more useful than pretending all answers are equivalent.
@aznspartan94 -
Also, I think it’s interesting that part of what makes Starcraft such a classic is that its races really are so elegantly balanced. This turns out to be a difficult and unstable achievement. Many other games have failed at it (even Blizzard: Warcraft III has a clear imbalance in the management of lumber resources for the Night Elves). In fact, I think even Starcraft is weighted towards the Protoss on small maps with a lot of mineral resources. It’s extremely difficult to stop a well-executed Zealot rush. (It seems to be that circumstances matter, but the game is balanced overall on an average over all maps and setups.)
What this shows is that in a state of multi-dimensional variation, having an overall balance in some weighted-sum outcome (in Starcraft, battle victories; in real societies, moral justice) is an extremely unstable equilbrium, very unlikely to arise by accident. Since there are no game-testers ensuring that the real world is fair, the most likely result is that it isn’t fair, and in fact some places are a lot better than others.
@pnrj -
Well it’s more of a case of “have you defined the problem sufficiently?” than it is an actual issue of meta-ethics as you’re suggesting. But then I digress.
And personally, Zealot rushes ftw.
“The US is after all the first White-majority state to elect a non-White head of state“
The US shot the first Catholic and I wouldn’t be surprised if some nutjob tries the same thing with Barry.
In passing, the UK had it’s first Jewish Prime Minister in the 19th century, so don’t go baning your nationalistic drum too much.
You appear to be talking entirely about your culture, and although ethnocentrism can be used to define a culture, the very name implies one is referring to one’s race. You do not give the impression of racism so I politely suggest you choose another moniker.
Are you referring to “your” culture as American per se, White middle class American, Redneck hillbilly? What? Are you leaving out the various other ethnic groups? Maybe you are referring to your culture as Western European or Christendom? I could buy that.
I’m not sure if South and central American countries are all majority Indian but I assume they are. Not sure of Canada but the US is just about the only white majority nation to have an extremely large non-white selection of ethnic groups. It is therefore, on the cards that you would be first to have a head of state from a minority ethnic group. I remember the hoohah in America from certain quarters over Kennedy, the first Catholic head puppet I believe. If you consider The Soviet Union, most people were European Russians and other white ethnic groups and Stalin was a Georgian. A white of sorts but barbarians in the eyes of traditional Russians. As said in my previous comment, the UK had a Jewish head of government under Victoria and anti-Semitism was rife, so Obama isn’t that unique.
Where did you get the idea that American has most of the best universities in the world? I suppose that could be true, seeing that America is rich and large and can afford many. America does offer a great education, that is accepted, if you can pay for it. American public education for the hoi polloi appears to outsiders to be a disgrace in the Western world.
I think you will find that Canadian law comes down heavily on infanticide for whatever reason, cultural or otherwise. The Inuit are a small ethnic group and do not represent the whole nation. I doubt if they still do such things, seeing as most of them go to church these days and watch comedy reruns on the Idiot box like everyone else.
You should not use examples of ancient cultures. That opens the door to pointing out that the favourite pass time of many whites in America up to the sixties was decorating trees with black men. Blacks had to start burning down your cities to get anyone to be serious about their voting rights. America looks to outsiders to be full of violent, ignorant racists who equate civil rights with communism, which in their eyes appears to be what everyone else calls Stalinism. Has it changed much since the sixties?
As I think you will agree, America is the only advanced western “European” nation to still be trying overt imperialism, under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy of course. It is only America who now has as “part of (its) system of governance … advanced military technology to forcefully subjugate those who oppose it.” Most other Europeans have learnt their lesson about empires. Now the game is to lend ‘em loadsa money that they can’t pay back. Beats sending in the Royal regiments.
Regarding treatment of women, New Zealand near the end of Victoria’s reign was the first western state to give women the vote, so we are only talking of just over a century ago, and it took decades for others to follow. Switzerland for example, did not grant women the right to vote in federal elections until 1971. So comparing European treatment of women’s rights to the Arab nations is a mite rich.
Actually, the first raids on Dresden were by the Royal Air Force, the Americans came in later.
What do you mean the world is not flat? Why was I not informed? It looks flat to me. Call out the guard immediately.
Are you implying that Gays and religious sceptics are treated equally in America? It was Bush the First who said that Atheists cannot be good citizens, something like that, and he said it I believe when he was Chief Puppet.
I criticised your post because your implication is that despite its glaring faults, America is the superior culture that others should emulate. Am I correct in that assessment?
I think most if not all people accept that some cultures are better than others. The problem is that they tend to think that the best is theirs. I go for Holland and Scandinavia myself.
It is my wont to focus on things I disagree with. However, I agree with the general direction your post takes. We should always be prepared to discuss how to improve the lot of Man.