"Western Culture" and Non-Western Cultures

[Debater Slayer]

I have encountered the argument that "Western culture," whatever one understands that term to include, is generally better than non-Western cultures. I personally find this to be an oversimplified and potentially harmful view for multiple reasons, but I'm interested to know what others here think.

 

[John53]

I clicked other because I've only experienced western culture so it would be a little unfair to choose one without having experienced the other first hand.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I have encountered the argument that "Western culture," whatever one understands that term to include, is generally beter than non-Western cultures. I personally find this to be an oversimplified and potentially harmful view for multiple reasons, but I'm interested to know what others here think.

I agree with you.

 

[danieldemol]

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say "western culture".
If you mean our ability to question authority i believe generally better, but if you are referring to other aspects of Western culture I'd probably say just different, all though it would be helpful to specify what those aspects are exactly.
In my opinion.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say "western culture".
If you mean our ability to question authority i believe generally better, but if you are referring to other aspects of Western culture I'd probably say just different, all though it would be helpful to specify what those aspects are exactly.
In my opinion.

I personally don't believe there is a meaningful and firm distinction between "Western" culture and other cultures, since the term is quite encompassing and overgeneralized. For instance, are American and Bulgarian cultures both "Western"? They are markedly different. Are Japanese and Yemeni cultures both "Eastern"? Again, they are significantly different.

Then one might also wish to note that intermingling between cultures throughout history has meant that multiple facets of each can't be clearly and exclusively traced to only one of them. Egypt, for example, has a lot of cultural practices borrowed from periods of Ottoman, French, and British reign. Some of these practices have influenced and also been influenced by each other and by Arab cultural practices, so again, meaningful demarcation is difficult at best.

For the purposes of this thread, the term is left open to the interpretation or personal views of the members responding to the poll.

 

[Viker]

I don't know enough about Eastern culture to make any kind of valid assessment. What I can get from news, music and movies is not exact/fair enough. I do know that there is both really good and terrible from my own culture. And in the US there is a myriad of culture.

People arguing their culture's supremacy are generally chauvinists incapable of critical thought or open to consideration. Ya never know what splendor awaits over that horizon or just how much in common you may have with it in your own nest.

 

[sun rise]

Being careful about the word "culture", I found this: Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society." As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, art. norms of behavior, such as law and morality, and systems of belief.

So: manners: I attribute that more to nation than West.
Dress: I prefer the West's looser rules but the flexibility of what men wear in India
Language: No winner
Religion: An Edge to the Hindu conception of the universe, time etc.
Rituals: no winner
Law: West
Art: No winner
Norms ((morality): No winner. Some are more hospitable and so forth.

I'll add:
Food: Totally no winner. I like most cultures foods.

 

[Valjean]

I'll echo other's in this thread. What aspects of "Eastern" and "Western" cultures are we talking about? What do we mean by culture?

I think we need to get more specific about what features are better or worse, and what makes a feature good or bad.

 

[Stevicus]

I remember hearing it said that the world is not really "East" and "West," but "North" and "South."

 

[Rival]

I remember hearing it said that the world is not really "East" and "West," but "North" and "South."

Why can't we have North, South, East and West..? Isn't that how it goes?

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Why can't we have North, South, East and West..? Isn't that how it goes?

Because we might catch @JustGeorge when she's sporting that Patrick Star avatar, and she might say, "Oh, East. I thought you said Weast."

 

[JustGeorge]

Because we might catch @JustGeorge when she's sporting that Patrick Star avatar, and she might say, "Oh, East. I thought you said Weast."

Its an easy mistake to make.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

It's certainly a blurry and abstract term that I've found myself using, but I tend to seek out blurry and abstract terms of all kinds. I think it may make no sense, because direction is totally relative. West of what? Anywhere could be west of something, and anywhere could be east of it. I think maybe it refers to those nations who tended to a western-moving motion in their settling movements, though other than it can get vague. Specific forms of law, abrahamic religion, and atheism might play into it, but I really don't know about that either.

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

I clicked other because I've only experienced western culture so it would be a little unfair to choose one without having experienced the other first hand.

Same reason why I copied your cue and chose "Other" as well. I thought that was a good reason.

 

[Vouthon]

I have encountered the argument that "Western culture," whatever one understands that term to include, is generally better than non-Western cultures. I personally find this to be an oversimplified and potentially harmful view for multiple reasons, but I'm interested to know what others here think.

A book suggestion:

The WEIRDest People in the World - Wikipedia

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous is a 2020 book by Harvard professor Joseph Henrich that aims to explain history and psychological variation with approaches from cultural evolution and evolutionary psychology. In the book, Henrich explores how institutions and psychology jointly influence each other over time. More specifically, he argues that a series of Catholic Church edicts on marriage that began in the 4th century undermined the foundations of kin-based society and created the more analytical, individualistic thinking prevalent in western societies.​

 

[Debater Slayer]

A book suggestion:

The WEIRDest People in the World - Wikipedia

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous is a 2020 book by Harvard professor Joseph Henrich that aims to explain history and psychological variation with approaches from cultural evolution and evolutionary psychology. In the book, Henrich explores how institutions and psychology jointly influence each other over time. More specifically, he argues that a series of Catholic Church edicts on marriage that began in the 4th century undermined the foundations of kin-based society and created the more analytical, individualistic thinking prevalent in western societies.​

Thanks for the suggestion. I have read a few things about that book before, both supportive and critical.

Generally, I'm skeptical of any narrative that proceeds from an assumption that cultures can be neatly divided into "East" and "West." I have read criticism of the abovementioned book along these lines as well, although I'm not sure whether the author argues that "Western culture" is superior or just different from other cultures, as they all are.

 

[Vouthon]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have read a few things about that book before, both supportive and critical.

Generally, I'm skeptical of any narrative that proceeds from an assumption that cultures can be neatly divided into "East" and "West." I have read criticism of the abovementioned book along these lines as well, although I'm not sure whether the author argues that "Western culture" is superior or just different from other cultures, as they all are.

He manifestly does not argue for 'superiority' or 'betterness', which is a value judgment (not objective).

I mean, he is calling our societies "WEIRD" (acronym and literal pun) - highly individualistic, self-obsessed, guilt-ridden and analytical in thinking style versus kin-based societies that evidence greater conformity, less individualism, more holistic thinking, fewer guilty experiences.

As a human evolutionary biologist, he is concerned with understanding why this psychological variation appears to exist and in addition (a) Western societies have tended to be more "educated, industrialized, rich, democratic" and (b) account for the West's rapid intellectual, technological, economic and political progress from 1500.

It's not about one being 'superior' to another. The crux is actually his finding that the structure of our family networks play a central role in explaining global psychological diversity.

See:

‘The WEIRDest People in the World’: How cultural evolution changes the brain

The WEIRDest People in the World is not a book for neuroscientists or anthropologists. Its target audience is educated readers of all types. There is no doctrine or dogma, simply arguments based on sound research, including the author’s own. Henrich takes the reader by the hand through a complex reality – our species is complex – showing how a scientific approach led to his conclusions, however shocking they may be. It’s a refreshing approach in a nonfiction landscape littered with baseless opinions​

A New Theory of Western Civilization

Henrich’s most consequential—and startling—claim is that WEIRD and non-WEIRD people possess opposing cognitive styles. They think differently. Standing apart from the community, primed to break wholes into parts and classify them, Westerners are more analytical. People from kinship-intensive cultures, by comparison, tend to think more holistically. They focus on relationships rather than categories. Henrich defends this sweeping thesis with several studies, including a test known as the Triad Task. Subjects are shown three images—say, a rabbit, a carrot, and a cat. The goal is to match a “target object”—the rabbit—with a second object. A person who matches the rabbit with the cat classifies: The rabbit and the cat are animals. A person who matches the rabbit with the carrot looks for relationships between the objects: The rabbit eats the carrot....

Henrich’s macro-cultural relativism has its virtues. It widens our field of vision as we assess Western values—such as objectivity, free speech, democracy, and the scientific method—that have come under sharp attack. The big-picture approach soars above the reigning paradigms in the study of European history, which have a way of collapsing into narratives of villains and victims. He refutes genetic theories of European superiority and makes a good case against economic determinism. His quarry are the “enlightened” Westerners—would-be democratizers, globalizers, well-intended purveyors of humanitarian aid—who impose impersonal institutions and abstract political principles on societies rooted in familial networks, and don’t seem to notice the trouble that follows.

... Who would have imagined that the Catholic Church would have spawned so many self-involved nonconformists? What else might our curious history yield? Henrich’s social-scientist stance of neutrality may also relieve Westerners of some (one hopes not all) of their burden of guilt. “By highlighting the peculiarities of WEIRD people, I’m not denigrating these populations or any others,” he writes. WEIRDos aren’t all bad; they’re provincial. Henrich offers a capacious new perspective that could facilitate the necessary work of sorting out what’s irredeemable and what’s invaluable in the singular, impressive, and wildly problematic legacy of Western domination.
​

 

[Debater Slayer]

He manifestly does not argue for 'superiority' or 'betterness', which is a value judgment (not objective).

I mean, he is calling our societies "WEIRD" (acronym and literal pun) - highly individualistic, self-obsessed, guilt-ridden and analytical in thinking style versus kin-based societies that evidence greater conformity, less individualism, more holistic thinking, fewer guilty experiences.

As a human evolutionary biologist, he is concerned with understanding why this psychological variation appears to exist and in addition (a) Western societies have tended to be more "educated, industrialized, rich, democratic" with and (b) account for the West's rapid intellectual, technological, economic and political progress from 1500.

It's not about one being 'superior' to another. The crux is actually his finding that the structure of our family networks play a central role in explaining global psychological diversity.

See:

‘The WEIRDest People in the World’: How cultural evolution changes the brain

The WEIRDest People in the World is not a book for neuroscientists or anthropologists. Its target audience is educated readers of all types. There is no doctrine or dogma, simply arguments based on sound research, including the author’s own. Henrich takes the reader by the hand through a complex reality – our species is complex – showing how a scientific approach led to his conclusions, however shocking they may be. It’s a refreshing approach in a nonfiction landscape littered with baseless opinions​

A New Theory of Western Civilization

Henrich’s most consequential—and startling—claim is that WEIRD and non-WEIRD people possess opposing cognitive styles. They think differently. Standing apart from the community, primed to break wholes into parts and classify them, Westerners are more analytical. People from kinship-intensive cultures, by comparison, tend to think more holistically. They focus on relationships rather than categories. Henrich defends this sweeping thesis with several studies, including a test known as the Triad Task. Subjects are shown three images—say, a rabbit, a carrot, and a cat. The goal is to match a “target object”—the rabbit—with a second object. A person who matches the rabbit with the cat classifies: The rabbit and the cat are animals. A person who matches the rabbit with the carrot looks for relationships between the objects: The rabbit eats the carrot....

Henrich’s macro-cultural relativism has its virtues. It widens our field of vision as we assess Western values—such as objectivity, free speech, democracy, and the scientific method—that have come under sharp attack. The big-picture approach soars above the reigning paradigms in the study of European history, which have a way of collapsing into narratives of villains and victims. He refutes genetic theories of European superiority and makes a good case against economic determinism. His quarry are the “enlightened” Westerners—would-be democratizers, globalizers, well-intended purveyors of humanitarian aid—who impose impersonal institutions and abstract political principles on societies rooted in familial networks, and don’t seem to notice the trouble that follows.

... Who would have imagined that the Catholic Church would have spawned so many self-involved nonconformists? What else might our curious history yield? Henrich’s social-scientist stance of neutrality may also relieve Westerners of some (one hopes not all) of their burden of guilt. “By highlighting the peculiarities of WEIRD people, I’m not denigrating these populations or any others,” he writes. WEIRDos aren’t all bad; they’re provincial. Henrich offers a capacious new perspective that could facilitate the necessary work of sorting out what’s irredeemable and what’s invaluable in the singular, impressive, and wildly problematic legacy of Western domination.
​

There seem to be some issues with parts of this, a few of which, again, have also been pointed out in criticism of the book.

The first and most obvious problem is the notion that industrialization, wealth, and education originated from specific modes of thinking rather than a multitude of factors including but not limited to said modes of thinking. The latter is more akin to Marxist analyses that indeed place economic class and material conditions at the heart of explaining a society's status quo. A significant portion of academics adopt the latter view, and I don't think that's a coincidence: it is among the most nuanced and consistent explanations of societies' overarching circumstances.

Far from merely owing to "analytical, individualistic thinking," Western industrialization has also been inseparable from colonization, exploitation of resources, and military hegemony. Even then, these factors don't fully explain the complex, varied reasons that the Western world has been dominant for the last two centuries. Access to education is also often directly tied to the wealth of a country, which in turn is directly tied to industrialization and, again, its concomitant factors (such as military aggression). This is especially evident when we examine the economic prosperity of a highly collectivist country like China that vastly differs from the cultures of Western countries, which demonstrates that many factors are at play in such success.

There is no doubt that Catholicism has heavily contributed to shaping European and other prosperous cultures, just as the prevalent religions in any other culture also heavily play a part in shaping it. But trying to trace prosperity to just one variable in this manner is simply bound to be fraught with overgeneralizations and lack of nuance—both of which are criticisms that have been raised about Henrich's proposition.

Also, to carry over a point from another thread about companionate marriage being a Western concept, I think multiple historical sources from at least Arabic writing directly contradict this. For centuries, numerous Islamic scholars have emphasized the companionate aspect of marriage directly in line with the Qur'an:

Sahih International
And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquillity in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.

Surat Ar-Rum - The Noble Qur'an - القرآن الكريم

I tend to agree with academics who adopt the view that cultures are so complex as to render any one factor or even just a few factors insufficient to explain their status quo. In my opinion, dialectical materialism is a much more holistic and nuanced approach to cultural analysis than theses that propose a few specific elements as the reasons for progress or stagnation of an entire culture—such as Sam Harris' view that Islam is the core reason for the Muslim world's current relative stagnation or the view espoused by multiple Islamic scholars that Islam was the main reason for prosperity during the Islamic Golden Age.

 

[Heyo]

I have encountered the argument that "Western culture," whatever one understands that term to include, is generally better than non-Western cultures. I personally find this to be an oversimplified and potentially harmful view for multiple reasons, but I'm interested to know what others here think.

[x] All of the above.

"Western" culture has one big advantage over other cultures that is having had the period of Enlightenment. Valuing reason and free thought is a thing I count under "better" for all useful purposes.
But we also lost our respect for nature and, in some ways, of other people.
So, a mixed bag with a slight advantage for Enlightenment thinking.
But today there is no hard difference any more as cultures have influenced each other and are doing more so every day.

 

[Quagmire]

I'm against culture of any kind.

It's just easier that way.