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We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

nautil.us

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Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#31

Post by tremon »

kawa wrote: post #26
leereeves wrote: post #5

> What was the reason for all this carnage? Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than we'd like to admit. A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied only in fantasy. Yet thousands are murdered eve…

If someone tries to explain stuff based on the "human psyche", it's important to understand that people aren't the same. If someone talks about "we" or "humanity" as a whole, he/she doesn't takes this into consideration - which makes the whole argument questionable. An estimated 2-5% of all humans are so called "psychopaths", people without the ability to feel empathy for other peoples pain. Those people are at the s…

An estimated 2-5% of all humans are so called "psychopaths", people without the ability to feel empathy for other peoples pain

And another 90% have herd mentality, people that can easily mold their personality to match the dominant type in their in-group. There have been numerous studies that show that group mentality can override people's personal moral boundaries.

Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#32

Post by pipio21 »

VLM wrote: post #4

Carthage is much closer to western culture yet still earns its share of WTFs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Carthage#Child_sac...

Well, we abort children legally, so it is not like we have improved so much. In Spain and other countries it is legal to abort creatures that would live if taken out of the womb.

We rationalize it, because the mother will not be able to give a good life to her child or whatever.

What makes us think that people from Carthage could not also rationalize with more powerful reasons than us? It was way harder to live back them than today.

PS:Most of what we know of Carthage comes from their competing beliefs, like Jews, because Cartage was totally destroyed, in the same way the Jews portray a picture of Babel totally distorted.

Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#33

Post by throwaway7312 »

qntty wrote: post #10
leereeves wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy those games and movies myself. It's not my intention to suggest that enjoying those means that our socialization has failed or that we are dangerous (which I do not believe), but that those games and movies appeal to something in our nature that still exists in many of the most well socialized Americans.

There's a good case to be made that a significant factor is the association of masculinity with violence in American culture, which explains why men commit significantly more violence than women (and also explains some of the success of violent video games). From this perspective, much of our fascination with and performance of violence is far from inevitable.

If we're blaming culture for male violence, "animal culture" would seem the more fitting one, since violent males are a feature throughout the animal kingdom and exceptions are, well, the exception. American culture is not much different from iguana culture or toucan culture in this respect.

Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#34

Post by coldtea »

kawa wrote: post #26
leereeves wrote: post #5

> What was the reason for all this carnage? Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than we'd like to admit. A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied only in fantasy. Yet thousands are murdered eve…

If someone tries to explain stuff based on the "human psyche", it's important to understand that people aren't the same. If someone talks about "we" or "humanity" as a whole, he/she doesn't takes this into consideration - which makes the whole argument questionable. An estimated 2-5% of all humans are so called "psychopaths", people without the ability to feel empathy for other peoples pain. Those people are at the s…

>If someone tries to explain stuff based on the "human psyche", it's important to understand that people aren't the same.

It's also very important to understand that people are more alike than different.

The "not the same" thing I've found to be mostly based on superficial differences, whereas all the basic imperatives (sex drive, evolutionary instincts, core cultural values, etc are mostly the same wherever).

Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#35

Post by sparky1990 »

leereeves wrote: post #7
namaemuta wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies Yeah. it's called fiction and a more significant portion of people in the world consume all that without committing mass murder. So please, stop associating video games or movies with whatever crazy people do.

I enjoy those games and movies myself. It's not my intention to suggest that enjoying those means that our socialization has failed or that we are dangerous (which I do not believe), but that those games and movies appeal to something in our nature that still exists in many of the most well socialized Americans.

Some time ago I came across a quote from maybe Huxley or Orwell saying, in effect, that as modern society advances it will become necessary to find a nondestructive means to express the impulse to violence that is a fundamental part of human nature. Maybe I've got it wrong, but it seems that things like video games and paintball serve that function.

I've looked several times for that quote. Not sure who it was from, but there seems to be some wisdom in it.

Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#36

Post by leereeves »

kawa wrote: post #26
leereeves wrote: post #5

> What was the reason for all this carnage? Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than we'd like to admit. A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied only in fantasy. Yet thousands are murdered eve…

If someone tries to explain stuff based on the "human psyche", it's important to understand that people aren't the same. If someone talks about "we" or "humanity" as a whole, he/she doesn't takes this into consideration - which makes the whole argument questionable. An estimated 2-5% of all humans are so called "psychopaths", people without the ability to feel empathy for other peoples pain. Those people are at the s…

Psychopathy might be a factor but I don't think the instinct for violence is limited to psychopaths.

Non-psychopaths simply dehumanize their victims to suppress that empathy.

Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#37

Post by jackcosgrove »

I think there is a limit to cosmopolitan universalism, and that's a good thing. Whether separated by time or space, it's good that there are unknowable cultures. First because to expect that every culture is understandable from the perspective of another (usually wealthier, more sophisticated, and "civilized") culture (in the business of writing history books) limits other cultures' freedom to express themselves as they see fit. Where the rubber meets the road is when a culture foreign to the metropole flouts what the metropole considers universal values. Imperialism usually ensues.

Second, foreign cultures are fascinating because they are so different. Imagine Marco Polo traveling to China. It must have been like getting in a space ship and traveling to another planet. Nowadays all the airports look the same, all the center cities have the same types of restaurants, and global culture is depressingly uniform.

Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#39

Post by kawa »

coldtea wrote: post #34
kawa wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone tries to explain stuff based on the "human psyche", it's important to understand that people aren't the same. If someone talks about "we" or "humanity" as a whole, he/she doesn't takes this into consideration - which makes the whole argument questionable. An estimated 2-5% of all humans are so called "psychopaths", people without the ability to feel empathy for other peoples pain. Those people are at the s…

> If someone tries to explain stuff based on the "human psyche", it's important to understand that people aren't the same. It's also very important to understand that people are more alike than different. The "not the same" thing I've found to be mostly based on superficial differences, whereas all the basic imperatives (sex drive, evolutionary instincts, core cultural values, etc are mostly the same wherever).

While people are of course more alike to each other than, for example humans and cows, there are still a lot of differences between single persons. People tend to assume that other think as they do, but that's one of the most common sources for misunderstandings.

There are people who can torture a child to death without feeling the smallest amount of guild (maybe they even find it funny or satisfying), others who could do it with the right amount of indoctrination, others who would only do it if their life is in danger (and would feel horrible afterwards) and others who would rather die than doing it.

And it's not possible to shift a person people into all of those categories, it's mostly inborn (like sexual orientation, hair color, etc).

Sure, all those people have lots of other "basic imperatives" in common, but the small difference that some could inflict as much pain as possible to others without feeling even a little bit guilty is a difference with should have quite severe consequences for society as a whole.

So if we try to understand why there is so much violence in the world, it would be quite an oversight to not take those kind of differences into account.

Re: We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

#40

Post by qntty »

throwaway7312 wrote: post #33
qntty wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a good case to be made that a significant factor is the association of masculinity with violence in American culture, which explains why men commit significantly more violence than women (and also explains some of the success of violent video games). From this perspective, much of our fascination with and performance of violence is far from inevitable.

If we're blaming culture for male violence, "animal culture" would seem the more fitting one, since violent males are a feature throughout the animal kingdom and exceptions are, well, the exception. American culture is not much different from iguana culture or toucan culture in this respect.

Yeah, there are definitely a lot of similarities between humans and other animals in that respect, but that's the problem. It should worry us that humans, an animal capable of resolving conflicts in many different ways, chooses violence so often.

To put it another way, if throwing feces was common behavior among humans, you might say "this isn't a human problem, it's a primate problem." And you'd be right, in a sense. But the key point is that throwing feces (as well as violence) is more easily avoided behavior for humans than for chimps. A human might choose to yell to express a level of anger than chimps only express with feces throwing (I might be uninformed about the feces-throwing behaviors of chimps, but you get the point). When we fail to take advantage of opportunities to avoid violence, we should ask ourselves why.

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