After Ralph’s thought-provoking post below, I’d like to take another pot-shot at the multicultural elites who seem to value any other culture more than our own.

One of the things that persistently puzzles me about the multi-cultural crowd is that, at least when I was a TA, they shied away from intellectually rigorous activity such as studying a foreign language. One would think that actually learning to speak a non-Western tongue would do more for true inter-cultural understanding than any pastiche of factoids, half-truths and generalized misinformation about other cultures that is the general Introduction to Foreign Culture claptrap at most Universities.

That is because multiculturalism is not related to academically rigorous Cultural Anthropology (focusing on Kinship and other classic Anthropological topics), or Language, or Linguistics, or Psychology, or Philosophy (other than the Hegelian/Marxist kind). Multiculturalism is part of the communist-sponsored post-modernist (Pomo) movement that denies the meaning of things, that denies universal truths and acclaims subjectivity in everything, that claims that life is arbitrary and thus too hard to work hard at. It is a new tribalism leading to a caste structure as in India, with the most victimized of the victim groups at the top of the caste system and white men at the bottom, where the untouchables would be. Pomos would all die off, as they grasshopper-like do not want to go to the bother of having children or planning for the future, but since so many of them stay in and around the university they continually evangelize among innocent young men and women and create more like them.

I would not feel that I had completed this thought unless I had a solution in mind. Inoculate your children against pomo poison. Tell them how the pomos will talk to them, and what happens when you get to the endgame of a life with a pomo strategy. Loneliness. Despair. Self-loathing. Kind of like permanent adolescent angst.

I have suffered first-hand from the culture’s “logic deficit.”

I had the misfortune to find myself on the losing end of a court case in Japan. The appeals judge initially made no oral or written comment about why he ruled against my side–nothing. After much persuasion from me, my attorney agreed to ask the judge for a written statement of the reasons for his decision. He complied. It was three words (two in Japanese). “It was appropriate.” The initial judge was a little less terse, if no less inert. He wrote that he ruled against our side “Because I trust the other side’s version more.”
The courtroom presentations in the initial case were similarly illustrative of verbal-analytical deficits. My lawyer would make statements pointing to fatal logical flaws in the other side’s case. (All of which I had to highlight and explain to him, because he absolutely could or would not on his own, even though he was undeniably brilliant enough to memorize every detail of the complicated case.) In response, their lawyer would simply repeat the contradictory assertions verbatim, ignoring each and every contradiction pointed to by our side. The judge would stare poker-faced.
Trial by jury is scheduled to be phased in in Japan from 2009. No one I know of who knows the culture, be they Japanese or foreign observer, is unconcerned about the potential for disaster.

The Japanese put (past tense,obviously) an elevated value on conformity and unquestioning devotion to the emperor. I’m not saying any of this is wrong, but it isn’t conducive to flights of creative fantasy.

Indians are immeasurably more creative, plus they are better at business – as individuals.

If Japan “independently evolved” its mathematics and engineering prowess, why do you persist on labeling it an “aspect of Western culture”?

You’re repeating the tautology:
Only the West can manage tech.
Japan manages tech.
Japan must be Western.

Perhaps what you really mean is that there is a disconnect between the idea that Japanese do not rely on logic and evidence in discourse, yet go about inventing hybrid vehicle engines, flash memory and so on. Indeed there is such a contradiction. I can only say that after a very long, up-close look at Japanese culture, that gap in my understanding has yet to be satisfactorily closed.

As a cultural relativist and multiculturalist, I submit that you cannot fully understand Japanese culture without looking at what it produces from within a Japanese cultural framework.

That’s a tautology. You are defining western culture as one the only one that can manage high-tech etc

I do not think so. To create and manage technology one must accurately process certain types of information in specific ways. For example, one must be able to measure accurately and then use mathematics to manipulate those measurements to produce yet more accurate data. One must also be willing to base one’s decisions on the results of that process regardless or any sociological concerns. If one does not do this, the technology will fail.

Most world cultures cannot actually do this. Individuals of any culture can do it but very few cultures have created a social process that accomplishes it. In the culture of virtually every undeveloped region you will find that sociological factors trump measurement and math.

If I may say so, I think you have a firm grasp of how Japan differs from European descended cultures but I don’t think you have a grasp of how Japan differs from the cultures of the undeveloped world. When you start listing attributes, such as attitudes toward time, you will find that Japan looks far more like a Western country than it does anything else.

I think it is clear that Japan either copied or independently evolved key aspects of Western culture and that is why it has prospered when others have floundered.

To say that N Asian countries are more inventive and scientifically advanced than Germany and India is fanciful. You’ll be trying to persuade us next of that great myth of the Sahara, that the medieval Arabs – well, they’re still medieval Arabs, but we’ll let that pass – made brilliant scientific discoveries. Like zero. And invented “Arabic” (Indian)numerals.

At least the Chinese have a long history of inventiveness – from toilet paper to the compass to wheelbarrows to umbrellas to gunpowder and fireworks. All useful and in use today. Inventionwise, the Chinese were going like the clappers from early AD.

What did the Japanese ever invent before being introduced to Western technology almost 2,000 years later?

What? So Japan’s successes are in no way related to their copying, sometimes by force of arms, the fundamental technological, economic and political practices developed originally in the West.

Just a question Mr. Suess-Barnkey: do you read any history?

That’s a tautology. You are defining western culture as one the only one that can manage high-tech etc., then saying Japanese culture must be Western because it can do that. To that, you add a false dichotomy between Western culture and “mindlessly following rules.”
The Japanese culture is arguably superior to the West’s in managing high-tech infrastructure. This is an area where the culture excels, in fact, based on its affinity for rules, hierarchy, cooperation and sustainability. The culture famously fails to match the West at innovation for pretty much the same reasons.
Please don’t confuse Japanese culture’s diminution of facts, logic and evidence as “mindlessness.” It is far from that. It is simply a different pattern of thinking and, unsurprisingly yields different results, some better, some worse, than Western culture does.

David Foster:
“It was clear from the discussion that many of the students had never even considered that there might be an alternative to strong-form cultural relativism.”

If you have a beef with cultural relativism, you shouldn’t be taking it up with the people who teach it, not the people who obviously misunderstand it? Students come up with all manner of nonsense. Always have, always well. They are students, after all.

It is striking how quickly and defenselessly the “multiculti” straw man has collapsed here. Turns out, we’re all multiculturalists and cultural relativists as well. No one, it seems, can name anyone of any standing who advocates the positions John Jay and others have claimed are held by multiculturalists and/or cultural relativists.

The best some can do, so far, seems to be to absurdly attribute Japan’s obvious successes to the West.

I think the strongest argument that the Japanese have adopted an essentially reason and evidence based out look is the fact they can manage a complex, high tech infrastructure without killing themselves. A culture that overly defers to tradition or that mindlessly follows rules cannot create or manage sophisticated technology.

The biggest Western attribute that the Japanese have managed to duplicate which others, Asian or not, have failed to duplicate is the transference of loyalties beyond extended families to abstract institutions. The Japanese can create large scale institutions like corporations or national governments that work on a voluntary basis. Few other cultures have managed this trick, most notably the Chinese.

I didn’t mean to apply my criteria for an empirical test of cultural superiority to just Japan or Asia but to all cultures at all times. People migrate to. or adopt the ways of, cultures they perceive as superior to their own. We can in turn use those patterns to determine which cultures best fulfill peoples hopes and aspirations.

That’s fringe extremist nonsense that isn’t worthy of discussion.

Unfortunately, it isn’t as anyone who has spent time in college the last few can attest. The literal meaning of terms like “multiculturalism” and “cultural relativism” have little relation to the large body of corrupt and bigoted ideas that propegate under those harmless names. It is much the way that many say “racism” but when you query them they say that racism really means bigotry plus power to oppress. People holding this definition will then claim with a straight face that only white people can be racist because only they have the power to oppress. They have hijacked the word “racism” to mean something different than its plain or historic meaning. Ditto for “multiculturalism” and “cultural relativism.” They now mean something else than the transparent meanings you attach to them.

The issue isn’t behavioral patterns such as bowing or maintaining extended families. The issue is whether we should tolerate such things as female genital mutilation among the populations of western countries…or, for that matter, advanced eastern countries.

A country can support cultural diversity in many ways, but this only works if there exists a core set of behavioral expectations that apply across all the various cultures.

No, they don’t. You must be basing your assessment on discourse with a Japanese person who has chosen to learn English, live in the West and consciously adopt Western ways of thinking. I assure you, without any hesitation, that the average Japanese person does not use logic, reason or evidence in discourse. Should you learn to speak Japanese, that will become unmistakably clear to you.

The question “why” tends to perplex Japanese people. That’s because they are not taught and not practiced in logic, reason and evidence. Ask why the air conditioning in buildings isn’t turned on until June 21 or turned off until mid-September, regardless of the temperature. The answer won’t be, to save energy, to save time, because the computer is programmed that way and it’s too much work to change or anything. The answer will be, it’s the rule. If you ask, why is it a rule, the answer will be “because it was decided.” Keep going and with some effort, you may eventually get to “I don’t know why,” but what will be more apparent, is that they don’t care “why” since it is “the rule” it requires no rationale.

The Japanese language relies far more heavily than English does on passive constructions and famously generates more sentences with implied subjects. It is also far more directional than
English, as it draws meaning from a social heirarchy, separated from logic, that lacks cultural weight in English-speaking cultures.

Shannon writes:
“As to judging the superiority of a culture I would offer very pragmatic attributes: How to people vote with their feet?”

One of Japan’s biggest immigrant groups is from the Christian West, Brazil. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Japan’s cultural success. Brazilians who immigrate to Japan famously chafe under Japanese culture. Rather, they endure Japan’s culture to make money. The U.S. picture is similar. People do not immigrate from Czech or Argentina or Thailand because they love Western culture. They come to make money. Moreover, countries like Japan gets fewer immigrants than the U.S. because they simply don’t allow it as much.

Shannon writes:
“Do emigration patterns flow from non-Western to Western or the other way around?”
The clearest pattern is from south to north, not from the east to the west. Obviously, by far the biggest immigrants to America are Christian, Western Latin Americans. I would think that should be obvious. Likewise, immigration is far greater within Asia than from Asia to the West.

“How does cultural adoption flow? Do cultural elements, ideas and institutions flow primarily from Western countries to non-Western or the other way? As history changes do non-Western regions look more like Western regions of vice-versa?”

Yes, it is clear that eastern societies have adopted more Western cultural patterns than vice versa. And, in that sense, you could say western culture is superior–it is more adaptable. But that is only one measure, not the single, defining gauge.

On cultural relativism:

Surely we are all cultural relativists. Is bowing “worse” than shaking hands? Is it “worse” to live at with your parents through adulthood than to move out at age 18? Of course not. Behavior can only be understood within its own cultural framework. That is the basis of cultural relativism, not that behavior cannot be condemned from outside a given culture. That’s fringe extremist nonsense that isn’t worthy of discussion.