June 4, 2008
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Cross-Cultural Norms
Cross-cultural norms in philosophy are relatively difficult to discover. It is much easier to find ways in which one population’s beliefs differ from another’s. The ancient Greek philosophers had their “universal values” of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. While one would be unlikely to find any population where those concepts are not valued, the ways in which each of them is defined vary from one culture to another. Mountain People believe that truth is what one knows within one’s heart and soul, while Valley People believe that Truth is what is written in their Great Scroll. Both communities revere their truths with equal fervor.
Mountain People and Valley People are imaginary, hypothetical communities, used by teachers of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and multi-cultural studies, to illustrate their lessons. I think this is a splendid invention, most conducive to productive discourse in class. If a teacher were to illustrate his points with, for example, Israelis and Palestinians, students might be more inclined to take sides, and a class discussion could degenerate into rancorous controversy while the prof’s point got lost in the melee.
Before Europe’s “Age of Enlightenment” in the eighteenth century, works of philosophy were generally culture bound, presenting only the perspective of the philosopher’s own community. The anti-imperialists of the Enlightenment, notably Jeremy Bentham, the Marquis de Condorcet, Denis Diderot, Johann Gottfried Herder, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, broke out of that mold, endeavoring to present philosophies that at least compared and contrasted cultures on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
We can find agreement between Mountain People, Valley People, Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and people in Mexico, Japan, Peru, Lesotho, Nigeria, China and numerous other cultures, on the idea that alcohol use and drunkenness are less acceptable for a woman than for a man. This is a cross-cultural norm. (source) It is widely accepted in many cultures that children are a special population, deserving of more privilege and greater protection than adults. (source) This, too, is a cross-cultural norm.
Normal people in the culture in which I grew up, and in many other cultures all over the planet, tend to believe that the values, beliefs and practices that are normal to their own culture are right, while cultural values, beliefs and practices that are unlike their own are wrong. That is another cross-cultural norm.
Philosophical clashes between cultures have impelled scholars of numerous disciplines, in the interest of peace and mutual understanding, to seek out our common ground. The polyglot population of the United States has brought the importance of cross-cultural understanding and acceptance into the social spotlight. The need for understanding and acceptance has produced much of the progress that has been made in the discovery of cross-cultural norms.
Interests of justice and fairness have impelled a search for cross-cultural norms in fields such as education and psychiatry. Cultural bias in intelligence testing and personality assessment were huge issues during the latter half of the twentieth century. The search for testing protocols which are not culturally biased has produced tests with more meaningful results, and as a side-effect has led to greater understanding of “human nature” — the characteristics that are universally human, not “human nature” in its most commonly understood sense. Most people use that term to excuse the traits found in themselves that they consider to be weaknesses or faults.
Much of current progress in discovering cross-cultural norms is coming from research in the field of evolutionary psychology. This discipline has less in common with conventional psychology than it has with the fields of biology and anthropology. It takes a hard science approach to issues that have heretofore been the domain of the soft sciences. Popular writers whose works involve or mention evolutionary psychology include Desmond Morris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker.
Other cross-cultural reading:
Evolutionary Psychology in Wikipedia
Enlightenment Anti-Imperialism by Sankar Muthu
The Emergence of Ethical Norms in Human Systems by Mark Graves
A Framework for the Psychology of Norms (draft) by Chandra Sekhar Sripada & Stephen Stich
Women and Work — the capabilities approach by Martha Nussbaum
Conservatives as Revolutionaries by Scott Kirwin- The RazorThanks are due to sarahsD for asking the question that elicited this essay for the June, 2008 Featured Grownups challenge.
Comments (12)
We are all basically the same thing, and that is “human”. Obviously a great deal of variation exists, but we share a common humanity. I believe that is a foundation on which we can base certain, limited ”universal” values and norms. Thus I reject the position that each cultural group has the “right” to do as it pleases on the basis that something is “their way”. For examples there are groups in Africa (not this part of Africa) that mutilate the genitals of female children. When the international community protests they claim “it is their culture” and nobody else has the right to interfere. Since the process is painful, humiliating and extreme, I believe we can unequivocally call it wrong, regardless of what you culture or religion says is right.
I have formulated (well I have, but I don’t claim to be the first) the following two principles on the above: Firstly the respect for human life, and secondly the respect for human dignity. Obviously the right of any person to life and dignity must be weighed against the right’s of other people to the same. Hence putting somebody in prison is alright, if the alternative is to let a murderer continue murdering people. These principles are of course not perfect which is why I reccomend applying Aristotle’s principle of “kata ton orthon logon”- “in accordance with the correct rational standard”.
So,my theory of “universal” values, is to act in accordance with reason, in such a way that respects human life and dignity.
I know what you’re going to ask now…what is reason? And what is dignity? Also I haven’t presented the basis of my arguments (Why preserve life? What’s wrong with killing? This is why…) except for stating our common humanity, but this isn’t a thesis! I’m going to bed.
Makes one wonder what it is inside the human psyche that leads to certain “universal” ideas. I guess it all goes back to the social constructions necessary for survival.
@loveandpolitics - You would probably be interested in that Razor article I linked.
Fascinating. I learn so much from reading your blog. Thank you.
I am enjoying the continuation!
Outstanding post! Hope you have a restful night!
Thank you so much for delving into this a little further. I am hardly surprised that we are ‘all’ (universal all) far more fascinated in our differences rather than our similarities.
@loveandpolitics - I think your comment is very interesting. The only thing I wonder about is if ‘reasonable’ changes cross culturally, then ‘whose measure do you use’? Obviously with in the cultures that mutilate the genitals of girls, ‘someone’ thinks that is a ‘reasonable’ thing to do.
I am not saying ‘I’ think it is, I am just questioning HOW we come up with what is ‘reasonable’?
@sarahsD - In my opinion, this is one of the major social issues we face on a global scale. Cathy Bateson says that her parents, anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, had a lifelong disagreement, she believing that “good Christians” have a duty to bring other cultures into line, and he arguing that we have no right to interfere in other cultures, and that there are too many possible unforeseen consequences.
Mountain & Valley… reminds me of a song…
Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago
‘Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folk below
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath a stone
And the valley people swore
They’d have it for their very own… etc. & so forth.
@SuSu - funnily enough, despite wearing a ‘Christian label’ I would side with the latter.
It is something that I experienced a little of growing up in Indigenous communities.
Forgive me; this isn’t simply a semantic question: is it still “normal” to believe that there are cultural norms? Is this hermeneutic system of definitions more helpful than it is divisive and assumptive?
@BoureeMusique - Good grief! Do you really think it’s necessary to ask forgiveness? Should I be offended that you’d expect me to take offense?
I can’t answer your non-semantic question without making semantic
distinctions. What it is “still normal” to believe — what a
significant majority of a given population believes — depends on which
population you survey. In this case, the answer to that question also
depends on which sense of the word, “norms,” you meant in, “cultural
norms.”
Responses to my series of essays on “normal” have surprised me. I have
always known that dictionary reading wasn’t a normal activity, but it
amazes me how many people say that norms don’t exist or that norms are
subject to the person’s own perception or state of mind.
I would guess from context that by, “cultural norms” you are referring to “rules for appropriate behavior.” If that’s what you mean, I wouldn’t be able to say how normal it is to believe in them until I saw results of a recent poll of a representative sample of whatever culture you’re asking about. Among the members of some churches, it’s probably still normal to believe in them. In some demographics, I’m sure the idea would be considered laughable.
To what noun does the “this” preceding “hermeneutic system of definitions” refer? By “assumptive,” do you mean presumptuous or taken for granted? If you’re looking for an answer from me, rephrase the question.