Is our culture better than others? Yes. Should we be glad and proud to be American rather than Farsi or Saudi or Congolese? Yes. The United States of America really is one of the best countries on Earth, politically, ethically, economically, culturally.
First of all, let me admit that I am using the common rhetorical technique of starting with a claim that sounds preposterous, and then backing down to something much more mundane. It would be fair to say that the ideology I am defending is not really “ethnocentrism”, but instead something like “moral objectivism”, since I certainly am not saying that my culture is better because it is my culture, but rather than my culture is better because it has certain objectively beneficial features most other cultures lack.
Yet, what I am defending would be called “ethnocentrism” by many
cultural anthropologists, because I am in fact saying that my culture is
better than most other cultures. Yes, I am saying that atheism is
better than Christianity which is in turn better than Islam; that
liberal democracy is better than aristocracy which is better than
fascism; that mixed socialism is better than laissez-faire capitalism
which is better than Communism. I am asserting an objective superiority
to these cultural features.
On the other hand, I am not saying that my culture is the best culture;
in fact I must give that title to someone else, probably Norway or
perhaps Australia. In these places democracy is taken more seriously,
secularism is much more rigidly enforced, and military aggression is
unheardof; also, truly absurd ideas like Creationism and global-warming
denial are far less prevalent there than here. Even these are not
perfect, and in some cases have flaws that the US has to a lesser
degree. (The US is after all the first White-majority state to elect a
non-White head of state; it is also the site of the majority of the
world's best universities.) When I say that a society is better, I do
not mean to say that it itself cannot be bettered, for any real society
has flaws worth amending.
What I am reacting against is the notion that there are no objective
valuations to be made between cultures. Few actual policymakers would
ever take such an idea seriously, but the majority of cultural
anthropologists seem committed to this line of thinking. The Inuit
commonly kill their female children? We mustn't judge them. Ancient
Mayan society captured foreigners and used them in human sacrifice? It's
just part of their culture. Muslim nations have nonexistent freedom of
speech and treat women like we treat cattle? It's an important feature
of their identity.
In fact, as a moral principle this ideology is self-defeating. It is an
empirical fact that the West is characterized (perhaps even defined; I'm
not sure “the West” is a meaningful entity, but insofar as it is, this
is part of that meaning) by colonialism and imperialism; part of what it
means to be Western is to be part of a system of governance which uses
advanced military technology to forcefully subjugate those who oppose
it. If “cultures will be cultures”, and we have no right to judge any
culture's norms higher than any other's, then imperialism must be
perfectly acceptable, for it is an integral part of our cultural
identity. What kind of Americans would we be if we didn't devastate
cities in foreign lands? Our grandfathers did it, and so did their
grandfathers before them! This is a cultural tradition we must preserve!
In fact, I agree that colonialism and imperialism are harmful. I agree
that they are a flaw in Western cultures that ought to be eradicated,
preferably posthaste. In fact, part of what I value about Norway and
Australia is that they are not nearly as aggressive as the United States
in which I live. (On the other hand, this can be attributed as much to
their lack of military capability as to any moral superiority. It's
conceivable that Australia would bomb foreign countries if they had half as many bombs as the US does.)
But in order to say this, in order to claim that imperialism is bad in
any deep objective sense, I must first commit myself to the principle
that cultural norms can be good or bad (or more or less good and bad) in
objective terms. In order to say that bombing Baghdad was a crime and
bombing Dresden was an atrocity, I must commit myself to a worldview in
which culture is not the final arbiter of moral truth.
And once I have done so, why should I stop at criticizing my own
culture, when many other cultures have just as much to criticize? If we
agree that it is good that women can vote in the US and Europe, then
doesn't it make sense to say that women ought to
be able to vote in Iran and Pakistan? If we agree that it was wrong for
the US Air Force to bomb Dresden, does it not follow that it was
similarly wrong for Al Qaeda to destroy the World Trade Center? If we
value the freedom to be Muslim in America, shouldn't we also value the
freedom to be atheist in Saudi Arabia?
Indeed, once we admit that an objective assessment is possible, we must
in turn admit that it is probable, if not inevitable, that some
cultures will fare better than others. Just as Russia is better at chess
and South Korea is better at Starcraft, should we not expect that
Norway is better at democracy and Switzerland is better at peace? Is it
really surprising that we should find some cultures to be politically
corrupt and morally unjust to greater degrees than others? Is it really
problematic to suggest that cultures of hatred, misogyny, and tyranny
are worse than cultures of peace, justice, and democracy?
Admittedly,
problems arise in defining a suitable metric for evaluation. Much ink
has been spilled over the difference between deontological and
consequentialist ethics, and similarly different schools of economics
and political science disagree as to which structures of governance are
ethically and pragmatically optimal. This is something we must surely
acknowledge; it really isn't clear what the best financial regulation scheme, the best legislative system, or the best education program would look like. It isn't clear when
abortion should be allowed, or what should be done with genetic
engineering, or how to best manage intellectual property law. Reasonable
people disagree on these questions, and it could be decades before we
find compelling solutions.
But the fact that we do not yet have a perfect answer does not prevent us from rejecting answers that are obviously wrong. Indeed, it does not even prevent us from obtaining answers that are mostly correct or almost certainly correct.
Mathematicians are not yet sure what to make of P=NP or the Riemann
Hypothesis, but we know that 2+2=5 is wrong and that there is no such
thing as a square triangle. Scientists are still trying to resolve the
inconsistencies in quantum gravity and devise a unified theory of human
consciousness, but we know that the Earth is not flat and that
consciousness is not created by invisible men living inside our heads.
It seems quite analogous to me that while we cannot be sure whether
proportional representation is better than federalism, or how to manage
interest rates in a financial crisis, we do know that a hereditary
monarchy imposed through the control of oil profits (like that of Saudi
Arabia) is a bad system and ought to be eliminated. We may not know how
best to regulate abortion or manage intellectual property, but we do
know that homosexuals and atheists deserve equal rights (which they do
not have in Pakistan). Indeed, we know enough to say that laissez-faire
capitalism is unstable and Communism is too easily hijacked by tyranny.
We know enough to say that bombing innocent people based upon opaque
intelligence is wrong. We know enough to say that abject poverty is a
crime against humanity and ought to be eradicated by any means
necessary. We know enough to make this world a much better place, if
only we can get people to accept and apply this knowledge.
One step in this process will be getting people to admit that some cultures are better than others.
No comments:
Post a Comment