Cultural Incompatibilities
Christianity has modified Western thought processes only too well.We, in the West, would like to think that everyone in the world is just like us -- under the skin at least. We focus on what we think should be true about the world in stead of what is true.
We would like to have good relations with all other societies and peoples and cannot image that other people might not actually think like us -- might not actually want good relations with us.
In my opinion, we have become so politically correct -- so idealogically inbred, as it were -- that we refuse to see the fundamental differences that separate us from other cultures. These differences may well make it impossible for us to engage with these cultures in the way that we think that we want to.
There is none so blind as he who will not see. Our cultural blindness to 1) the immaturity of other cultures, and 2) their general lack of good will towards us may well make Western culture extinct. Children with guns can do a lot of damage. Even grownups in many cultures act as irrationally as Western teenagers. And they have guns. Some even have nuclear weapons.
In the West, the concept of vendetta has been substantially eliminated. This is not true in many parts of the world. A large percentage of the world's peoples feel an individual sense of insult to their own person because of actions taken by someone else's great grandfather against their own great grandfather. They feel honor bound to do something about this ancient attack, or insult, or injustice or slight. Here are just a few of these long standing feuds:
- Muslims all over the world are still angry over the Crusades -- despite the fact that this was many centuries years ago.
- In the 1800s, the Turks killed Armenians and drove them off their lands. The Armenians are still boiling mad over it. (My own great-great Grandmother suffered at their hands. I, however, am not particularly concerned about this -- if my Grandmother hand not moved to America to escape the situation, I'd have never been born.)
There are other fundamental aspects of culture that are interpreted quite differently in the Middle East -- the rule of law, for instance. Consider the Iranian Supreme Court's recent decision to set serial killers free -- because they had chosen to kill people whom they thought weren't sufficiently Islamic in their behavior:
This Fox news story
( or this if the above can't be found).
One of the important principles of Western thought is that people will in fact obey the law, and that they will in fact fulfill contracts that they engage in. Yes, we accept that some criminals exist but that most people will obey the law and the surely the government will enforce the laws. However, the Iranian supreme court's actions show that not even the clarity of law and the protection of innocent human life is a sufficent motivator for them to set aside their religion. And religion is subject to the interpretational whims of practically every practitioner.
Or consider the numerous honor killings of young girls throughout the Middle East when they fall in love with someone that their family objects to? Consider this article:
Kurdish Girl Stoned for falling in love with a Sunni Muslim Or if that link doesn't work, try this one: here
What if obedience to the law is not a given in a particular culture? Or if, as in the above to cases, people feel that there are plenty of good reasons simply not to obey it? How do we engage with them successfully? It is pretty clear that around the world, unless there is force to back up agreements, people will just do what is in their own short term best interest. Common sense is just not all that common, the Western sense of moral behavior in public life is just not the norm around the world. Just look at the graft and corruption endemic in most third world countries -- even the Christian ones. Its not a matter of religion so much as cultural maturity. The West has it, and most other cultures just don't. (See note 1 below)
If I weren't an atheist, I'd thank God for allowing me to born in a Western country -- particulary the United States. I say this because of how I see people acting in other countries. I'm not just talking about news articles, although there is plenty of evidence in the nightly news, but personal contacts that I've had with people from other countries. For example:
- I used to know a man from Sierra Leone. He was a security guard at a building in which I worked. He and I spoke of his homeland. His mother and sisters were burned alive in a fire in their home when criminals came through their town robbing and looting. He eventually went back home to help his relatives defend their property. I don't know what happened after he left.
- I spoke with a local restauranteur of Lebanese descent. When I asked him why he came to America, he said that he just got tired of arguing with people from his homeland. He had also lived in Jordon and saw the same behavior there that he saw in Lebanon. People there are all so strongly convinced of their beliefs (religious and otherwise) that if you disagree with them, no matter slightly, they immediately tell you that not only are you wrong, but that you are stupid, and that you are going to Hell for thinking the way you do. He just found himself stifled by so much irrational certainty. The opportunity to make money here in America was important too, but the narrow-mindedness of people made it easy to decide to leave.
What do you do with such people?
Personally, I think that we should just leave them alone -- a long period of strategic non-contact seems appropriate. Lets develop cellulosic ethanol as a motor fuel then stop buying Middle Eastern oil for a few decades and then see how their civilization progresses. So long as we engage with them, we become focus of anti-pagan rhetoric from their radical right (with us being the pagans). The Middle Eastern countries would probably even appreciate it. They are tired of our meddling -- so lets give them what they want and just leave them alone -- completely.