Understanding other culture
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE THROUGH LANGUAGE
That there are a huge number of cultures in the world is an indisputable fact. Equally, that there might be a great variety of meanings attached to the word ‘culture’ does not in any way undermine this fact. This, however, has not always been a matter of common conviction. Let us take the very extreme case of 16th century European cosmography. Here, the non-European ‘other’ (e.g. the American Indian) was either not the ‘other’ at all, because he was, at least as yet, part of nature, devoid of subjectivity, or he was part of the Devil’s realm – a realm, reference to which is indispensable in characterizing European culture.
The central preoccupation with reference to the possible other for the 16th century European is whether he was within the threshold of salvation, conversion, or whether he was irretrievably established in the domain of the Devil. If the former, then in essence, he was the same as the European although the road to realizing this essence could indeed be hard and arduous; if the latter, then he was beyond hope just like his counterpart in Europe. ‘In the cosmographical discourse of the 16th century, the non-European other cannot be related to nor understood apart from the Christian devil.’ And this, of course, united him with the European. He was, as it were, the same as the dark side of Europe. If, on the other hand, he is not to be so understood, then the only way in which to make sense of his presence is to think of him as, as yet, beyond the pale of humanity.
Thus think of Robinson Crusoe’s Friday. Prior to being named, Friday does not exist; he has no name of his own. Similarly he has no language. Crusoe teaches him how to speak European. He is both nameless and languageless – a prime, and perhaps necessary, illustration of the (now somewhat discredited) epistemological concept of human beginning, of the beginning to be human, of threshold to the human.
The symbolic journey towards and across this threshold is fascinatingly revealing. ‘The next day after I came home to my hutch with him, I began to consider where I should lodge him, and that I might do well for him, and yet be perfectly easy myself. I made a little tent for him in the vacant place between my two fortifications, in the inside of the last and the outside of the first.’ In Crusoe’s double-walled castle, Friday shall have his place not wholly inside the centre with Crusoe nor wholly outside the centre with nature and other beasts and cannibals, but inside the outside and outside the inside. Thus non-European culture was either not culture at all – because it occupied the twilight zone between the human and the non-human – or it was the same as the evil countervailing the good of European culture.
The idea of unity or rejection of difference might not have been a global European idea, but it constituted a powerful strand of European consciousness – powerful enough to survive in one form or another through till almost our own times. The ‘ignorance’ of the non-European, his ‘primitiveness’ – fossilization at an age through which he passed and evolved into his present civilized mode, his child-like magical practices which mature into the science of the European – these are but different expressions of basically the same idea.
But plurality of cultures is now an accepted fact. Indeed it has now become somewhat of a matter of celebration in the West. And given the track record of western intellectual tradition in its consideration of the place to be assigned to other such traditions, we would do well to take this development with a certain amount of scepticism. But whether we celebrate plurality or not, there is first the problem of understanding it.
Cultures tend to be regarded as fairly easily individuated. Take Simon Blackburn’s definition of culture in his new Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy: ‘A culture is a way of life of a people, including their attitudes, beliefs, values, arts, science, modes of perception and habits of thought and activity.’ Armed with this definition we might think nothing of going forth into the world individuating cultures and distinguishing them one from another. But it is not quite that easy. Each of the identifying marks mentioned in the definition is a potential source of problems. Apart from any specific problems that we might have in determining an entire people’s (and what, for that matter, is a people?) attitudes, there are two general problems which I would like to mention.
One of them is as follows: If concepts such as ‘attitudes’, ‘beliefs’, ‘values’, ‘arts’, and ‘science’ are to be cross-culturally available – which they must if they are to perform the function envisaged for them in the definition – then they must be independent of any particular culture, i.e. they must be capable of being wielded and understood independently of reference to any particular culture. This, of course, immediately brings up the question of a core – a decisive core – of human consciousness which must be culturally uncontaminated, which must be available in a culture-transcending, pristine form. And this question has not only been answered affirmatively in the modern West, but the answer and its ramifications are, as it were, the defining character of western modernity.
A major part of the West’s intellectual energy has been devoted to an ever more complex articulation of this culture-free pristine core of human consciousness. The primary motivation behind this is the conviction that only the clearest possible grasp of this core can afford a correct vision of the multiplicity of cultures in the world. This is the vision of Thomas Nagel’ s famous the ‘view-from-nowhere’ man. Armed with a resolute grasp of the all important core of human consciousness, the viewer ‘from nowhere’ stands outside the world of cultures, or culture-worlds and judges the respective worth and place of such worlds from an uncontaminated viewpoint.
There is, of course, great poignancy in this, but such is the fate of western modernity that having cast itself in the role of the supreme judge, it must inevitably deprive itself of the solace of belonging to a world. But the rewards of this sacrifice are enormous. The nowhere man not only knows the truth about himself; he knows – or at least is in a position to know – the truth about all others; he knows the true meaning of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, of ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’. He, therefore, occupies the unique vantage point from where he can tell the illusory from the real, the better from the worse, the more developed from the less, the beautiful from the ugly, and, in principle, can find the just place for each culture in the world in the community of cultures. No wonder, therefore, that the idea of the nowhere man is a compelling one.
Ironical as it may sound, such a privileged position replaces in western modernity the traditional idea of God. It is also a close cousin of the idea of the Cosmic Exile introduced by W.V. Quine. (Of course, Quine himself does not accept such an idea.) The cosmic exile, like the nowhere man, does not belong to any world, as he stands outside all worlds. But how does one attain such a position? Gellner’s statement on this is perhaps the best: ‘A most favoured recipe for attaining this is the following: clear your mind of all conceptions, or rather preconceptions, which your education, culture, background, what-have-you, have instilled in you and which evidently carry their bias with them. Instead, attend carefully only to that which is inescapably given, that which imposes itself on you whether you wish it or not, whether it fits in with your preconceptions or not. This purified residue, independently of your will, wishes, prejudices and training, constitutes the raw data of this world, as they would appear to a newly arrived Visitor from Outside. We were not born yesterday. We are not such new arrivals, but we can simulate such an innocent, conceptually original state of mind; and that which will be or remain before us when we have done so, is unstained by prejudice, and can be used to judge the rival, radically distinct and opposed visions.’
But neither the nowhere man nor the cosmic exile is a real possibility. To think otherwise is to be self-deceived. For the nowhere man, the common core of human consciousness which is his only resource, is too meagre for it to generate a vision for him. The candidates for culture-free concepts mentioned in the definition of culture are in fact saturated in culture and are, therefore, linked to a point of view, whatever the nature of this link may eventually turn out to be. Deprived of these concepts and other comparable concepts, the nowhere man fails to form any vision at all and, therefore, is incapable of making any judgments. About the cosmic exile, I quote Gellner again: ‘It is not possible for us to carry out a total conceptual strip-tease and face bare data in total nudity. We cannot, as Marx put it, divide society in two halves, endowing one with the capacity to judge the other. We can only exchange one set of assumptions for another.’
To turn to the second kind of difficulty about an adequate understanding of the idea of plurality. Take concepts such as ‘attitude’, ‘belief’ and ‘value’ which appear in the definition of culture we have used. Let us for the sake of argument grant that we have a culture-free understanding of these concepts. At least a powerful section of western thinkers thought that such concepts can be coherently and adequately understood only in ‘behavioural’ terms, and that once this is accepted there is no real difficulty in applying them ‘universally’ in individuating and distinguishing different cultures.
Summary
The idea of unity or rejection of difference might not have been a global European idea, but it constituted a powerful strand of European consciousness – powerful enough to survive in one form or another through till almost our own times. The ‘ignorance’ of the non-European, his ‘primitiveness’ – fossilization at an age through which he passed and evolved into his present civilized mode, his child-like magical practices which mature into the science of the European – these are but different expressions of basically the same idea.
But plurality of cultures is now an accepted fact. Indeed it has now become somewhat of a matter of celebration in the West. And given the track record of western intellectual tradition in its consideration of the place to be assigned to other such traditions, we would do well to take this development with a certain amount of scepticism. But whether we celebrate plurality or not, there is first the problem of understanding it.
There is, of course, great poignancy in this, but such is the fate of western modernity that having cast itself in the role of the supreme judge, it must inevitably deprive itself of the solace of belonging to a world. But the rewards of this sacrifice are enormous.
But neither the nowhere man nor the cosmic exile is a real possibility. To think otherwise is to be self-deceived. For the nowhere man, the common core of human consciousness which is his only resource, is too meagre for it to generate a vision for him.
References
1. A. Beardsley, Beyond Anthropology, New York, 1995, p. 15.
2. Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1994, p. 90.
3. E. Gellner, Culture, Identity and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 89.
4. B. Macgee, Religion and Spirituality, p. 127.
That there are a huge number of cultures in the world is an indisputable fact. Equally, that there might be a great variety of meanings attached to the word ‘culture’ does not in any way undermine this fact. This, however, has not always been a matter of common conviction. Let us take the very extreme case of 16th century European cosmography. Here, the non-European ‘other’ (e.g. the American Indian) was either not the ‘other’ at all, because he was, at least as yet, part of nature, devoid of subjectivity, or he was part of the Devil’s realm – a realm, reference to which is indispensable in characterizing European culture.
The central preoccupation with reference to the possible other for the 16th century European is whether he was within the threshold of salvation, conversion, or whether he was irretrievably established in the domain of the Devil. If the former, then in essence, he was the same as the European although the road to realizing this essence could indeed be hard and arduous; if the latter, then he was beyond hope just like his counterpart in Europe. ‘In the cosmographical discourse of the 16th century, the non-European other cannot be related to nor understood apart from the Christian devil.’ And this, of course, united him with the European. He was, as it were, the same as the dark side of Europe. If, on the other hand, he is not to be so understood, then the only way in which to make sense of his presence is to think of him as, as yet, beyond the pale of humanity.
Thus think of Robinson Crusoe’s Friday. Prior to being named, Friday does not exist; he has no name of his own. Similarly he has no language. Crusoe teaches him how to speak European. He is both nameless and languageless – a prime, and perhaps necessary, illustration of the (now somewhat discredited) epistemological concept of human beginning, of the beginning to be human, of threshold to the human.
The symbolic journey towards and across this threshold is fascinatingly revealing. ‘The next day after I came home to my hutch with him, I began to consider where I should lodge him, and that I might do well for him, and yet be perfectly easy myself. I made a little tent for him in the vacant place between my two fortifications, in the inside of the last and the outside of the first.’ In Crusoe’s double-walled castle, Friday shall have his place not wholly inside the centre with Crusoe nor wholly outside the centre with nature and other beasts and cannibals, but inside the outside and outside the inside. Thus non-European culture was either not culture at all – because it occupied the twilight zone between the human and the non-human – or it was the same as the evil countervailing the good of European culture.
The idea of unity or rejection of difference might not have been a global European idea, but it constituted a powerful strand of European consciousness – powerful enough to survive in one form or another through till almost our own times. The ‘ignorance’ of the non-European, his ‘primitiveness’ – fossilization at an age through which he passed and evolved into his present civilized mode, his child-like magical practices which mature into the science of the European – these are but different expressions of basically the same idea.
But plurality of cultures is now an accepted fact. Indeed it has now become somewhat of a matter of celebration in the West. And given the track record of western intellectual tradition in its consideration of the place to be assigned to other such traditions, we would do well to take this development with a certain amount of scepticism. But whether we celebrate plurality or not, there is first the problem of understanding it.
Cultures tend to be regarded as fairly easily individuated. Take Simon Blackburn’s definition of culture in his new Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy: ‘A culture is a way of life of a people, including their attitudes, beliefs, values, arts, science, modes of perception and habits of thought and activity.’ Armed with this definition we might think nothing of going forth into the world individuating cultures and distinguishing them one from another. But it is not quite that easy. Each of the identifying marks mentioned in the definition is a potential source of problems. Apart from any specific problems that we might have in determining an entire people’s (and what, for that matter, is a people?) attitudes, there are two general problems which I would like to mention.
One of them is as follows: If concepts such as ‘attitudes’, ‘beliefs’, ‘values’, ‘arts’, and ‘science’ are to be cross-culturally available – which they must if they are to perform the function envisaged for them in the definition – then they must be independent of any particular culture, i.e. they must be capable of being wielded and understood independently of reference to any particular culture. This, of course, immediately brings up the question of a core – a decisive core – of human consciousness which must be culturally uncontaminated, which must be available in a culture-transcending, pristine form. And this question has not only been answered affirmatively in the modern West, but the answer and its ramifications are, as it were, the defining character of western modernity.
A major part of the West’s intellectual energy has been devoted to an ever more complex articulation of this culture-free pristine core of human consciousness. The primary motivation behind this is the conviction that only the clearest possible grasp of this core can afford a correct vision of the multiplicity of cultures in the world. This is the vision of Thomas Nagel’ s famous the ‘view-from-nowhere’ man. Armed with a resolute grasp of the all important core of human consciousness, the viewer ‘from nowhere’ stands outside the world of cultures, or culture-worlds and judges the respective worth and place of such worlds from an uncontaminated viewpoint.
There is, of course, great poignancy in this, but such is the fate of western modernity that having cast itself in the role of the supreme judge, it must inevitably deprive itself of the solace of belonging to a world. But the rewards of this sacrifice are enormous. The nowhere man not only knows the truth about himself; he knows – or at least is in a position to know – the truth about all others; he knows the true meaning of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, of ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’. He, therefore, occupies the unique vantage point from where he can tell the illusory from the real, the better from the worse, the more developed from the less, the beautiful from the ugly, and, in principle, can find the just place for each culture in the world in the community of cultures. No wonder, therefore, that the idea of the nowhere man is a compelling one.
Ironical as it may sound, such a privileged position replaces in western modernity the traditional idea of God. It is also a close cousin of the idea of the Cosmic Exile introduced by W.V. Quine. (Of course, Quine himself does not accept such an idea.) The cosmic exile, like the nowhere man, does not belong to any world, as he stands outside all worlds. But how does one attain such a position? Gellner’s statement on this is perhaps the best: ‘A most favoured recipe for attaining this is the following: clear your mind of all conceptions, or rather preconceptions, which your education, culture, background, what-have-you, have instilled in you and which evidently carry their bias with them. Instead, attend carefully only to that which is inescapably given, that which imposes itself on you whether you wish it or not, whether it fits in with your preconceptions or not. This purified residue, independently of your will, wishes, prejudices and training, constitutes the raw data of this world, as they would appear to a newly arrived Visitor from Outside. We were not born yesterday. We are not such new arrivals, but we can simulate such an innocent, conceptually original state of mind; and that which will be or remain before us when we have done so, is unstained by prejudice, and can be used to judge the rival, radically distinct and opposed visions.’
But neither the nowhere man nor the cosmic exile is a real possibility. To think otherwise is to be self-deceived. For the nowhere man, the common core of human consciousness which is his only resource, is too meagre for it to generate a vision for him. The candidates for culture-free concepts mentioned in the definition of culture are in fact saturated in culture and are, therefore, linked to a point of view, whatever the nature of this link may eventually turn out to be. Deprived of these concepts and other comparable concepts, the nowhere man fails to form any vision at all and, therefore, is incapable of making any judgments. About the cosmic exile, I quote Gellner again: ‘It is not possible for us to carry out a total conceptual strip-tease and face bare data in total nudity. We cannot, as Marx put it, divide society in two halves, endowing one with the capacity to judge the other. We can only exchange one set of assumptions for another.’
To turn to the second kind of difficulty about an adequate understanding of the idea of plurality. Take concepts such as ‘attitude’, ‘belief’ and ‘value’ which appear in the definition of culture we have used. Let us for the sake of argument grant that we have a culture-free understanding of these concepts. At least a powerful section of western thinkers thought that such concepts can be coherently and adequately understood only in ‘behavioural’ terms, and that once this is accepted there is no real difficulty in applying them ‘universally’ in individuating and distinguishing different cultures.
Summary
The idea of unity or rejection of difference might not have been a global European idea, but it constituted a powerful strand of European consciousness – powerful enough to survive in one form or another through till almost our own times. The ‘ignorance’ of the non-European, his ‘primitiveness’ – fossilization at an age through which he passed and evolved into his present civilized mode, his child-like magical practices which mature into the science of the European – these are but different expressions of basically the same idea.
But plurality of cultures is now an accepted fact. Indeed it has now become somewhat of a matter of celebration in the West. And given the track record of western intellectual tradition in its consideration of the place to be assigned to other such traditions, we would do well to take this development with a certain amount of scepticism. But whether we celebrate plurality or not, there is first the problem of understanding it.
There is, of course, great poignancy in this, but such is the fate of western modernity that having cast itself in the role of the supreme judge, it must inevitably deprive itself of the solace of belonging to a world. But the rewards of this sacrifice are enormous.
But neither the nowhere man nor the cosmic exile is a real possibility. To think otherwise is to be self-deceived. For the nowhere man, the common core of human consciousness which is his only resource, is too meagre for it to generate a vision for him.
References
1. A. Beardsley, Beyond Anthropology, New York, 1995, p. 15.
2. Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1994, p. 90.
3. E. Gellner, Culture, Identity and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 89.
4. B. Macgee, Religion and Spirituality, p. 127.
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