29 Donnelly on Misunderstanding Culture
Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Third Edition (Cornell University Press, 2013)
“Consider the common claim that Asian societies are communitarian and consensual whereas Western societies are individualistic and competitive. What exactly is this supposed to explain? . . . Culture does much less explanatory work than most relativists suggest–at least that the ‘culture’ in question is more local or national than regional or a matter of civilization” (97).
“Substantive cultural relativism risks reducing ‘right’ to ‘traditional.’ ‘Good’ to ‘old,’ and ‘obligatory’ to ‘habitual.’ Few societies or individuals, however, believe that their values are binding simply or even princiapply because they happen to be widely endorsed within their culture” (109).
“Cultural relativism is particularly problematic when it presents culture as coherent, homogeneous, consensual, and static. In fact, though, differences within cultures often are as striking and as important as those between them. “The Western tradition,” for example, includes both Caligula and Marcus Aurelius, Francis of Assisi and Torquemada, Leopold II of Belgium and Albert Schweitzer, Jesus and Hitler, Don Quixote and Donald Duck, the Arc de Triomphe and the Golden Arches,–and jut about everything in between. Thus, it is problematic even to determine what is to count as evidence for a claim of the form ‘culture A holds belief y” (109).
“Cultures are not merely diverse, but contested. In fact, contemporary anthropologists depict cultures not as things but as sites of contestation; less as ‘a domain of sharing and commonality’ than as ‘a site of difference and political practices’ (Gupta and Ferguson 1997 5). ‘Culture’ is a repository of deeply contested symbols, practices, and meanings over which, and with which, members of a society constantly struggle” (110).
“Culture’ is constructed through selective appropriations from a diverse and contested past and present. Those appropriations, however, are rarely neutral in process, intent, or consequences. Cultural relativist arguments regularly obscure troubling realities of power and politics. Arguments of cultural relativism are far too often made by (or on behalf of) economic and political elites that have long since left traditional culture behind. Even when this represents an admirable effort to retain or recapture cherished traditional values, it is at least ironic to see “Westernized” elites warning against the values and practices they have adopted. Th ere is also more than a hint of a troubling, even tragic, paternalism. For example, “villagization” in Tanzania in the 1970s, which was supposed to reflect traditional African conceptions, was accomplished only by force, against the strong opposition of much of the population. And even such troubling sincerity is rare. Government officials denounce the corrosive individualism of Western [111] values—while they line their pockets with the proceeds of massive corruption, drive imported luxury automobiles, and plan European or American vacations. Leaders sing the praises of traditional communities—while they wield arbitrary power antithetical to traditional values, pursue development policies that systematically undermine traditional communities, and replace traditional leaders with corrupt cronies and party hacks.
“Relativist arguments become particularly perverse when they support a small elite that has arrogated to itself the “right” to speak for “its” culture or civilization while imposing its own self-interested views and practices on the broader society, invoking cultural relativism abroad while ruthlessly trampling on local customs. In traditional cultures--at least the kinds of traditional cultures that might justify deviations from international human rights standards--people are not victims of the arbitrary decisions of rulers whose principal claim to power is their control of modern instruments of force and administration. Traditional customs and practices usually provide each person with a place in society and a certain amount of dignity and protection. Furthermore, rulers and ruled (and rich and poor) usually are linked by reciprocal bonds. Th e practices of systematically rights-abusive regimes are as antithetical to such cultural traditions as they are to “Western” human rights conceptions” (110-111)
D. Explaining the Persistence of Culturalist Arguments
If my arguments are even close to correct, how can we explain the persistence of foundational appeals to culture? At least six possibilities come to mind. First, it is surprisingly common for even otherwise sophisticated individuals to take the particular institutions associated with the realization of a right in their country or culture to be essential to that right. Americans, in particular, seem to have unusually great diffi culty in realizing that the way we do things here is not necessarily what international human rights norms require. Th is provokes reactive arguments of relativity. Second, narrow-minded and ham-handed Western (and especially American) international human rights policies and statements exacerbate these confusions. Consider Michael Fay, an American teenager who vandalized hundreds of thousands of dollars of property in Singapore. When he was sentenced to be publicly caned, there was a furor in the United States. President Clinton argued, with apparently genuine indignation, that it was abominable to cane someone but failed to fi nd it even notable that in his own country people were being fried in the electric chair. If this indeed is what universalism means—and I hasten to repeat that it is not—then of course relativism looks far more attractive” (110).
“Fourth, culturalist arguments may refl ect a misplaced notion of inclusiveness based on the idea that values or practices can be considered universal only if all major groups contributed to their formulation. For example, Asmarom Legesse argues that “any system of ideas that claims to be universal must contain critical elements in its fabric that are avowedly of African, Latin American or Asian derivation” (1980: 123). Such arguments, however, confuse the origins of a practice with its validity, an error that logicians call the genetic fallacy. Human rights are too important to be rejected--or accepted--on the basis of their origins” (112).
“Our moral precepts are our moral precepts. As such, they demand our obedience. To abandon them simply because others reject them is to fail to give proper weight to our own moral beliefs (at least where they involve central moral precepts such as the equality of all human beings and the protection of innocents)” (114).
??The problem of modern individuals. .... (115).
PREIS 2-3: “First, the case exemplifies what has already been signalled with regard to the San Bushmen, but here at a different level of analysis: there is no Botswana culture in the sense of a unitary whole, a bounded entity, to which human rights may be said to apply. This culture is itself being vehemently contested, negotiated, and debated. This suggests that the numerous disagreements and conflicts within this debate are not simply unpleasant, external disturbances to an otherwise stable and harmonious "Botswana culture," but rather, constitutive of it. Disagreement and conflict are culture, and in this particular case, the culture of human rights.”
Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Third Edition (Cornell University Press, 2013)
“Consider the common claim that Asian societies are communitarian and consensual whereas Western societies are individualistic and competitive. What exactly is this supposed to explain? . . . Culture does much less explanatory work than most relativists suggest–at least that the ‘culture’ in question is more local or national than regional or a matter of civilization” (97).
“Substantive cultural relativism risks reducing ‘right’ to ‘traditional.’ ‘Good’ to ‘old,’ and ‘obligatory’ to ‘habitual.’ Few societies or individuals, however, believe that their values are binding simply or even princiapply because they happen to be widely endorsed within their culture” (109).
“Cultural relativism is particularly problematic when it presents culture as coherent, homogeneous, consensual, and static. In fact, though, differences within cultures often are as striking and as important as those between them. “The Western tradition,” for example, includes both Caligula and Marcus Aurelius, Francis of Assisi and Torquemada, Leopold II of Belgium and Albert Schweitzer, Jesus and Hitler, Don Quixote and Donald Duck, the Arc de Triomphe and the Golden Arches,–and jut about everything in between. Thus, it is problematic even to determine what is to count as evidence for a claim of the form ‘culture A holds belief y” (109).
“Cultures are not merely diverse, but contested. In fact, contemporary anthropologists depict cultures not as things but as sites of contestation; less as ‘a domain of sharing and commonality’ than as ‘a site of difference and political practices’ (Gupta and Ferguson 1997 5). ‘Culture’ is a repository of deeply contested symbols, practices, and meanings over which, and with which, members of a society constantly struggle” (110).
“Culture’ is constructed through selective appropriations from a diverse and contested past and present. Those appropriations, however, are rarely neutral in process, intent, or consequences. Cultural relativist arguments regularly obscure troubling realities of power and politics. Arguments of cultural relativism are far too often made by (or on behalf of) economic and political elites that have long since left traditional culture behind. Even when this represents an admirable effort to retain or recapture cherished traditional values, it is at least ironic to see “Westernized” elites warning against the values and practices they have adopted. Th ere is also more than a hint of a troubling, even tragic, paternalism. For example, “villagization” in Tanzania in the 1970s, which was supposed to reflect traditional African conceptions, was accomplished only by force, against the strong opposition of much of the population. And even such troubling sincerity is rare. Government officials denounce the corrosive individualism of Western [111] values—while they line their pockets with the proceeds of massive corruption, drive imported luxury automobiles, and plan European or American vacations. Leaders sing the praises of traditional communities—while they wield arbitrary power antithetical to traditional values, pursue development policies that systematically undermine traditional communities, and replace traditional leaders with corrupt cronies and party hacks.
“Relativist arguments become particularly perverse when they support a small elite that has arrogated to itself the “right” to speak for “its” culture or civilization while imposing its own self-interested views and practices on the broader society, invoking cultural relativism abroad while ruthlessly trampling on local customs. In traditional cultures--at least the kinds of traditional cultures that might justify deviations from international human rights standards--people are not victims of the arbitrary decisions of rulers whose principal claim to power is their control of modern instruments of force and administration. Traditional customs and practices usually provide each person with a place in society and a certain amount of dignity and protection. Furthermore, rulers and ruled (and rich and poor) usually are linked by reciprocal bonds. Th e practices of systematically rights-abusive regimes are as antithetical to such cultural traditions as they are to “Western” human rights conceptions” (110-111)
D. Explaining the Persistence of Culturalist Arguments
If my arguments are even close to correct, how can we explain the persistence of foundational appeals to culture? At least six possibilities come to mind. First, it is surprisingly common for even otherwise sophisticated individuals to take the particular institutions associated with the realization of a right in their country or culture to be essential to that right. Americans, in particular, seem to have unusually great diffi culty in realizing that the way we do things here is not necessarily what international human rights norms require. Th is provokes reactive arguments of relativity. Second, narrow-minded and ham-handed Western (and especially American) international human rights policies and statements exacerbate these confusions. Consider Michael Fay, an American teenager who vandalized hundreds of thousands of dollars of property in Singapore. When he was sentenced to be publicly caned, there was a furor in the United States. President Clinton argued, with apparently genuine indignation, that it was abominable to cane someone but failed to fi nd it even notable that in his own country people were being fried in the electric chair. If this indeed is what universalism means—and I hasten to repeat that it is not—then of course relativism looks far more attractive” (110).
“Fourth, culturalist arguments may refl ect a misplaced notion of inclusiveness based on the idea that values or practices can be considered universal only if all major groups contributed to their formulation. For example, Asmarom Legesse argues that “any system of ideas that claims to be universal must contain critical elements in its fabric that are avowedly of African, Latin American or Asian derivation” (1980: 123). Such arguments, however, confuse the origins of a practice with its validity, an error that logicians call the genetic fallacy. Human rights are too important to be rejected--or accepted--on the basis of their origins” (112).
“Our moral precepts are our moral precepts. As such, they demand our obedience. To abandon them simply because others reject them is to fail to give proper weight to our own moral beliefs (at least where they involve central moral precepts such as the equality of all human beings and the protection of innocents)” (114).
??The problem of modern individuals. .... (115).
PREIS 2-3: “First, the case exemplifies what has already been signalled with regard to the San Bushmen, but here at a different level of analysis: there is no Botswana culture in the sense of a unitary whole, a bounded entity, to which human rights may be said to apply. This culture is itself being vehemently contested, negotiated, and debated. This suggests that the numerous disagreements and conflicts within this debate are not simply unpleasant, external disturbances to an otherwise stable and harmonious "Botswana culture," but rather, constitutive of it. Disagreement and conflict are culture, and in this particular case, the culture of human rights.”
Comments
Post a Comment