Re: [xmca] Taking culture into account/Doing harm?

[Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>]

Martin,
yes, a little adrift, but I think that we are still on the main point.

My take is that Michael sees inter-cultural critique as a perfectly
reasonable thing to do (as long as it is reasonable), and, following
Shweder, I'm raising some questions about it. That much, I think, we can
agree upon.

I'd add that I think Shweder sees a place for inter-cultural critique, but
he would caution that you need to be extremely super-duper intensely
cautious before doing so (and ideally one should take the care of an
anthropologist in learning about the practices to be critiqued - these
aren't decisions to be made prima facie).

And yes, as David Ki points out, even the very definition of who is in and
who is out is a question that is bounded by culture.

Okay, one more thing to add, also following Shweder, I like the project of
imagining a kind of "meta-culture" of universal principles (not unlike the
UN's principles of human rights), but I also would like us to recognize
that this has to involve more than just a bunch of people sitting in a room
together and deciding what sounds like universal human rights. All the
worse if these people are all Westerners and/or Western-educated.

Shweder actually has proposed a set of universal principles. It's just
that, to my mind, these tend to be rather tautological and therefore seem a
bit empty (can't recall exactly, but one of these was something like "don't
do bad things to good people").

Thorny questions indeed. (and I feel a little more like James' squirrel
chasing round the tree than Alice heading down a rabbit hole into an
alternate universe...).

Back to AERA submissions.
-greg

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:

> Can I say that I think you guys drifted off topic? Within a culture,
> surely, there are institutions, practices, within which to raise these
> kinds of issue and try to resolve them. That's not to say the debate is
> easy, but everyone knows that it happens, and knows roughly how to do it
> (courts, government, etc.)
>
> What I thought you began with was the question of on what basis evaluation
> can be made of one culture from another. Suppose we all agree, here in
> 'our' culture, that circumcision is bad. Do we then have a basis from which
> to criticize another culture that practices circumcision; where perhaps it
> is considered good?
>
> As Greg pointed out, Greg is one cultural psychologist (or psychological
> anthropologist) who says we do not have that basis. I don't completely
> agree with him. (But I can see the contradiction of critiquing a culture
> that practices one kind of circumcision, when I live in a culture that
> practices another kind of circumcision.)
>
> Martin
>
>
> On Jul 23, 2012, at 3:28 PM, Michael Glassman wrote:
>
> > Hi Greg,
> >
> > We seem to be going down the rabbit hole here.  I guess I'll end by
> saying I think settled science (broadly defined) and human rights should
> play at least some role in most decisions.  In some cases it may be best to
> dispense with these, but only after first examining them.  I think maybe
> this is one of the reasons Vygotsky stresses the importance of scientific
> concepts while still maintaining the role of everyday concepts in our lives
> is because he saw both as playing important roles.  I think one of his more
> interesting ideas is that you needed schools for scientific concepts,
> perhaps because the main goal of many cultures is to recreate themselves
> over generations.  Science can certainly be dangerous to tradtions, and
> through it we lose the illusion of stability.  A lot of people don't like
> this very much (see Global warming)  Every person should have access to
> different types of information, but this can be destabilizing for cultures,
> so there can be a tension.  I don't know if this is what Vygotsky meant,
> but this is how I see him right now.  Sometimes culture wills out,
> sometimes science and human rights wills out, but it should always be an
> open contest.  To give primacy to culture strikes me as an inherently
> conservative position.  And as my students pointed out about the Haidt
> book, it is very often the person privileged by culture who takes that
> position - which makes sense when you think about it.
> >
> > The question I am struggling with, and what has caused me to go back and
> read cultural psychology readings with a new eye, is what does all this
> mean in the information age.  What happens when the thirteen year old girl
> goes online and decided she wants to remain intact, or two, or three.  Who
> decides then?  And who protect the decision makers?
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Greg Thompson
> > Sent: Mon 7/23/2012 3:20 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Taking culture into account/Doing harm?
> >
> >
> >
> > sorry, didn't catch what the "it" (male circumcision?) was in the phrase
> > "giving my parents a pass on it".
> >
> > RE: male circumcision, there is lots and lots and lots of debate:
> > I just pulled this up:
> >
> http://artofmanliness.com/2009/02/22/clip-the-tip-pointcounterpoint-on-male-circumcision/
> > but there is lots more debate out there, and a strong suggestion that it
> is
> > much more than "cosmetic." (and are you suggesting that "cosmetic"
> surgery
> > is an okay thing for doctors to practice).
> >
> > And if you read Fuambai's article, there is also debate about how serious
> > female circumcision is (and Rick Shweder has often suggested that even a
> > nick on the clitoris might be able to count as an effective practice of
> > "circumcision").
> >
> > But the question isn't about male and female circumcision. The question
> is:
> > who gets to decide what is right and good and true when it comes to
> > people's (whether a child's or adult's) lives?
> >
> > Do you really want to leave those decisions up to the doctors?
> > I don't.
> >
> > -greg
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Michael Glassman <
> MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Hi Gregg,
> >>
> >> One more thing,  to tell you the truth I wouldn't be so thrilled with a
> >> bunch of academics giving my parents a pass on it because it was their
> >> cultural belief systems.  How about you?
> >>
> >> Michael
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >>
> >> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Michael Glassman
> >> Sent: Mon 7/23/2012 2:27 PM
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: RE: [xmca] Taking culture into account/Doing harm?
> >>
> >>
> >> Greg,
> >>
> >> Obviously there are different levels of decision making.  Male
> >> circumcision is basically cosmetic surgery while female circumcision
> (and
> >> perhaps it shouldn't be called that) has lifelong implications.  I don't
> >> think it is a good comparison.  If male circumcision had the same
> lifelong
> >> implications I would say no, and be phenomenally angry at my parents -
> and
> >> believe they did not have the right in any way to do what they did, I am
> >> sure of that.  So why would you think many females wouldn't feel the
> same
> >> way.  I think it is always better to make decisions based on as much
> >> knowledge of people as possible rather than on opaque systems.
> >>
> >> Michael
> >> mca@weber.ucsd.e <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.e>
> >>
> >> __________________________________________
> >> _____
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> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
> > Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
> > Department of Communication
> > University of California, San Diego
> > http://ucsd.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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> >
> >
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-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
http://ucsd.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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