The Peripatetic shares:

The Concept of “Western Society” Disputed:

An Exchange!

JAMES R. FISHER, JR., Ph.D.

© November 16, 2017

A EUROPEAN WRITES:

As having worked as a corporate executive in Germany, France and U.S., I would be careful in using the general expression "Western Society." 

There are some commonalities, to be sure, but also quite a few differences between cultures, values, and attitudes in Europe as compared to the U.S. In fact, within Europe we have such critical differences that we see palpable disharmony at the common parliament in Brussels.

In regard to globalization, these differences are much more drastic. For example, common terms may have a different meaning and be used in a different sense.

A year after the events on Tiananmen Square (1989) I was at a fair in Shanghai and during a dinner I had the opportunity to talk to a high ranking member of the Chinese government. When I mentioned the violation of the human rights to him, he answered:

"Why do you think your values would be equally functional in another culture that you clearly do not even understand?"

Why do we so, indeed.

Best regards


DR. FISHER REPLIES:

Your caution is well taken. The term and concept of "Western Society" can be seen as ambiguous.

Moreover, I agree there is no universal culture in Europe; indeed, there is no universal culture in the United States.

That was precisely Isaiah Berlin's take on culture, that is, that there are a plurality of cultures and that not a single culture is necessarily superior (or inferior) to another.

Moreover, he got into some trouble for his stand on pluralism with his fellow Oxford dons, when he further suggested that there was no universal morality or ethical principle by which to judge all cultures and societies.

Berlin did believe, however, that there were common sense values that applied to and were shared by a common humanity.

As I indicated to one reader, morality and ethics are two sides of the same coin, as is love and hate, but what I didn't mention is that all coins are not of the same impression.

Can you imagine morality without ethics, or ethics without morality? Indeed, where would love be if the capacity to hate was not equally acknowledged and understood as part of individualism? It is part of our collective cultural DNA. Likewise, all cultures have a capacity for violence as well as a capacity for peace; for giving succor and aid to the sick and brutalizing the innocent.

Absolutes had no appeal to Isaiah Berlin, and while I was once totally committed to the absolutes of Roman Catholicism, with age, experience and hopefully, some growth, I realized how destructive such absolutes could be and were.

That said, although I am a renegade Roman Catholic, like Berlin in his Jewishness, I consider myself a Catholic thinker and writer. Perhaps I have gravitated to the Jesuit priest that my mother hoped that I would one day be.

We in the West, meaning specifically, the United States, have this cultural proselytizing zeal to make other societies like our own in terms of human rights, freedom and democracy as if they see the world through the same eyes as we do.

What we Americans have trouble understanding, and Berlin was fully cognizant of this, as he was a Russian, a Jew and an English don, is that his allegiance, sincerity, passion and tolerance were fueled by the conflicts and confluence of competing disparate identities.

Knowing this, obviously colored Berlin's conclusions as he extrapolated his ideas through the works of such 18th century philosophical heroes as Vico, Herder and Hamann, leavening their views as if his own, and as seen through a three sided crystal. That is what thinkers and writers do.

While agreeing with you, perhaps I should qualify my use of the expression "Western Society."

It is taken from the "Age of the Enlightenment" from such philosophers as Descartes and Kant who stamped "the Age of Reason" with Western Society's imprimatur of empiricism.

For Berlin, as for me, I see little advancement beyond empiricism while what you allude to was the view of critics of the enlightenment philosophy. That is to say, before the 19th century and the "Age of Romanticism" with Goethe, Nietzsche and Sartre, the very idea that values might be in conflict had not arisen.

Up to that time, there was no question that there must be one true answer; that these truths were accessible to all human beings; and that all the true answers to true questions must be compatible with each other.

Rationalists in the church and the state simplified the contradictory impulses of the Enlightenment to fit church dogma and state policies.

These Romantic poets, philosophers and critics considered man an expressive creature who creates his own nature and his own identity through labor, reflection, love and expression. Since human nature is not always one and the same, truth will not always appear the same to each human group much less every individual.

Therefore, each culture has its own center of gravity, which I have suggested represents its own "moral compass." This is not something stated, but something felt and expressed in behavior. It opposes the idea that we are all committed to progress rushing like robots towards the same bottom line.

Finally, we have hopefully moved beyond the idea that there is one right answer to all human questions; that truth is the same to all; and that human values can never be in conflict or contradict each other.

The dogma of Calvinism and Roman Catholicism may be worthy of respect, but there is no heresy if individuals or other societies find such dogma and belief systems damnable.

As always, it is great to hear from you. Your sage comments are much appreciated.

Equally best regards to you as well.