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Precious Ideas

UCSD - Trees.
UCSD - Library.

I'm writing this from the library pictured above. I'm visiting San Diego to check out UCSD and its school of International Relations and Pacific Studies where I'll start a master's program in the fall. I'm feeling very good about my decision to come out here, but you'll hear more about that starting in September.

I really enjoyed this discussion sparked by last week's post.

Someone posing as Molly McUsic made the following statement:

Indigenous communities are special for the very fact that their underlying assumptions are different than ours. We should not force them to accept our assumptions. They do not force us.

Another friend of mine, in a different discussion said this:

I like to think of global cultural homogenization in terms of biodiversity. Just as a diversity of genes increases the possibility of evolution (and with it survival), diverse cultures keep our intellectual and societal gene (or maybe I should say meme) pools deep. But that does mean that sometimes we may be protecting good ideas with the bad. When I was reading up on Islam a couple years back, this idea came to life for me. There are interpretations of Islamic law that subjugate women and allow what most Americans would call cruel and unusual punishments for crime. If someone was to say "We need Islamic rule of law in the U.S.," most of us would probably recoil, thinking of Iran or Taliban-era Afghanistan. But there are a lot of great traditions in Islamic law as well, like restrictions on usury that are meant to keep the rich from exploiting the poor, and, at least in its original incarnation, tolerance of other faiths and introductions of rights to women that were very progressive at the time. So when you're looking at other cultures, how do you separate baby from bath water, so to speak? Or better yet, how many "flawed" or "bad" cultural ideas or practices should be allowed to continue to preserve the good?

Continuing with last week's discussion, I don't agree with much of what Ms. McUsic says. Indigenous communities are special in their own right, no matter how different they are from us. I don't think American culture should be a reference point against which other cultures' specialness is measured. They are useful to us because their perceptions are different than ours. As far as not forcing them to accept our assumptions, I'd agree with her on the grounds that it's usually counterproductive to force assumptions upon anyone. But I believe that we should encourage some cultures to refrain from systematically executing homosexuals, stoning adulterous women, or _insert egregious human rights violation_. She's also right that they don't force us to accept their assumptions. They don't have to. There are plenty of 1st worlders eager to spend fortunes in efforts to soak up foreign cultures in search of something "authentic." I discussed this back in February.

As far was what my friend said, I think it's the most cogent globalization-weary argument I've ever heard. Well, I guess it's not even that weary. I think the rich mixture of cultures that modern increases in transportation and communications have allowed has the potential to make everyone's lives more interesting (I don't feel threatened by homogenization at all, maybe I should write about this next week). Anyhow, I think my buddy's questions are poignant and well articulated. Do Muslim cultures recoil at the sight of Baywatch as we recoil at the idea of burkas? In the interest of time (which I don't have, I have to go to the BEACH!!), I'm cutting this short. I hope this sparks some kind of discussion like unto last week's.