I believe that we have no ground to stand on when judging the moralities of other cultures. Am I against the stoning of women? Yes, of course. But that arises from my own world, my own beliefs and my own culture. Judging the stoning of women in other cultures from this point of view does nothing but reassure my sense of personal "goodness". If, say, I wanted to eradicate the stoning of women from a certain culture, I'd have to learn the how and why and for what. I'd have to learn the desire to stone or the acceptance of such a fate in order to eradicate the action. To do any less would simply be attacking a symptom, and just like a disease, you must kill its heart in order to stop it from spreading. The issue is that if you immediately label anything as morally wrong, you hinder your ability to create a space where you could conceive how it would be the right course of action. It is in this space that you learn the truth of what needs to be eradicated. And from where I'm standing, to say I am against the stoning of women is inconsequential and does nothing but close my mind and bolster my sense of moral righteousness. So I do believe that, when appraising the moral standards of other cultures, I have no ground upon which to stand. I cannot pick and choose what is right and wrong in the lives of those I know nothing about. I will help to bring less suffering and more joy to anyone, always, if a path to do so ever becomes apparent. But I will not lay my own moral framework upon another's culture and use it to build myself up. The trouble with, maybe everyone, but I can say, for sure, the educated westerners, is we think we've got it figured out. We still view ourselves as enlightened even when our own culture is flummoxed at itself. Perhaps we can still view ourselves this way because we're so good at pointing our fingers at some other group of us, saying, "it's not us that's fucked up, we know better. We know the way, but it's them who are stopping us and fucking everything up. The trumps, the Clintons, the racists, the NRA, the Christians, the conservatives... They're the fuckups" Or the opposite quote from a different camp, "... the liberals, the atheists, the Sanders..."
We love to prescribe pity, moral frameworks, and heroic guidance to cultures that we view as more troubled than our own. We believe we're doing a favor in these acts, but the simple notion of any of these prescriptions proves our self-aggrandizing stance. We believe it is our education that gives us this ability to see the true lines drawn between right and wrong. But it isn't. It's our nation's power and money that keeps us from falling into the pit with the rest, as many may see it. It is our western culture's history of domination that today gives us the ability to believe in a universal morality to judge the faltering nations of those we abuse(d). You may feel in your human heart the connection to the suffering in other cultures because suffering crosses through borders unchanged. Human suffering is universal. But the motives to cause suffering are bred by very particular environments and sequences of events. The motives are not universal. And just as a child of abuse is more likely to grow up to abuse, our dominion of control and greed raised and bred a world fraught with hatred. How asinine an abusive father would look calling his abusive son out for his heinous actions. Sure, I'd agree with him that the abuse is wrong, but my hope and respect for the abuser who judges his abusive son would plummet to a depth I do not wish to fathom. Hypocrisy adds a layer of evil to anyone. So in an effort to save face and soul, just rid yourself of your moral high ground. It does little but make you look a fool.
What is your stance? In your universal morality is it right for us to speak for the systematically oppressed?
I have been told that for further reading on the topic: "Can the Subaltern Speak?"–Gayatri Spivak
The issue with Relativistic morality is in it's tolerance of other cultures. it creates a difficulty in judging any moral stance at all. If you believe that it is groundless to evaluate the actions of people in other cultures, because you think their morality is contextually driven and therefore inaccessible to judgment, then you also cannot judge even the people in your own culture. your own neighbor, crosses the yard naked to get the mail, or another beats their dog in public. Neither, under this relativistic philosophy, can justify any action on your part; whether to bring the naked man a robe, or to stop the woman from beating her dog. The function of judgement, outside of the gossipy connotation of the word, is meant to decide on which of our actions are correct. Without the ability to judge others actions, we consign ourselves to paralysis.
ReplyDeleteJudgement must be grounded for actions to have meaning. A good point of your stance is that we do not understand the motives of others actions, and thus any action we take towards what we view as bad behavior is commonly mistaken. I think proper analysis of any person's actions, especially in cultures so alien to our own will ultimately show a common desire, a mutually desired end. The differences lie in what means we see as leading toward that end. For instance, some middle east countries view the stoning of a woman as necessary for keeping social peace. and this social peace is necessary for happiness. In our own culture, happiness is seen as needing equality rather than hierarchy to be achieved. Means to an end. I think it is therefore prudent to identify what ends each of us is united in, and through discussion, decide the best means to that end. We cannot productively contribute to our society if we do not recognize the value of our own judgments, even as it criticizes the autonomous decisions of others.
-Keitan