However, for me – a person born to traditional Turkish parents in the Netherlands – there seem to be certain things that do stand out. Most remarkably, there is a strong tendency to value personal autonomy and liberties to an extent that is comparable to holy dogmas present in religious traditions. Also, there is this almost naïve belief that adult individuals (at an arbitrary age of 18+) are always best capable to make the right decisions concerning their own lives. I actually believe that these tenets are generally shared in what we would call ‘the Western world.’ In other words, the belief is that knowledge sets you free and freedom is the holy grail of what one can achieve.

If these are the values and the primary goals that orients The Western men in life, this means that our lives should adhere to certain values and methods to achieve them. In other words, we should be consistent. As is clear in my previous writing on this blog, I believe that cultural consistency is important for the harmony of the individual soul and that of societies. I will not delve into that point too much for now. The question that is most pressing for the purpose of this article is: “are there major barriers to our achievement of this ancient and modern ideal of libertas?”

My proposition is that there is and that we are seriously unaware of it. I believe that we too easily ride ideological waves and believe in propositions that seem to ostensibly have self-evident axioma, but they do not. We are socially coerced to believe in those because otherwise we would feel ostracized, unhuman, and immoral.  This is not surprising as we are deeply social and cultural animals and feel a certain level of interdependence and necessity for the socio-political life, a disposition perhaps best phrased by Aristotle:

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.”

― Aristotle, Politics

So when can we call ourselves (relatively) free? When we are autonomous and unconstrained as humanely possible by external factors. When can we check these boxes? A good start is the necessity of being informed: when we are aware of the characteristics or short and long-term effects of certain actions or beliefs versus alternatives. Also, when we are rational. That is, we are able and willing to make the decisions that would make us best capable of attaining our goals. Even though full attainment of information and rationality might not be humanely possible and some uncertainty should be accepted out of sheer pragmatism, we could at least say that we should not be unnecessarily deluded or have missing information which is actually accesible to us.

In other words, our uninformed and irrational self (an A) should try to become a hypothetical self (an A+) who is able to make rational and informed decisions.[1] Only when we are able to reach this stage, when we get closer to the exit of the Platonic cave, can we call ourselves truly autonomous. Otherwise, we would be chained with our hands and feet and watch the shadows of a delusional world.

So then, are we chained? I am not sure to which extent, but I believe we are in some cases and to some extent. And these occasions are so essential that they might trickle down to the rest of our souls and make our minds meek to ideological constructs that are pervasive throughout our lives. I will illustrate our blind spots with an example of a topic that is highly sensitive to many: the permissibility of abortion.

I think most people would agree that there is a line between “abortion is always bad” and “abortion is always permissible” that is ethically justifiable to them. Reasons to choose a certain point in this continuum can include concerns about the health of the mother, the conceptions about life and when this is relevant, the intrinsic value of life, the distinct right of the mother and the father, believes about human agency and so forth.

But whatever our considerations might be, this issue is a true dividing block between conservatives and liberals. According to the 2018 Gallup report, 19% of conservatives think that abortion is morally permissible while this number is 66% for the liberals. A quick glance through allegedly liberal-leaning media outlets CNN and MSNBC (readily available in the Netherlands) shows that abortion is portrayed as a religious issue where anti-abortion is “extremist” and steps towards planned parenthood are “victories.”

The political and judicial aspects are highlighted biasedly but nowhere are the arguments of the anti-abortionists displayed, they seem to convey the message that there is “nothing to see here, just political deplorables disliking women’s rights.” Reading this, liberals might fall into the trap of the ideological wave and distance themselves automatically of those he or she considers despicable or bigoted. I cannot deny that I feel this sensitivity as well.

But does the media in this case really provide us with contextual information? Does it allow us to be free, informed and autonomous individuals who make their own decisions? I do not believe they do. And maybe you are an exception, but most likely you should confront yourself with your inadequacy to have a respectable opinion on this issue. For instance, start by asking yourself the following questions:

1. At what stage can a foetus be considered a living entity with an intrinsic value that precedes the right of the mother to decide (except in extreme situations such as coercion)? When she starts to move? When the heart is somewhat developed? When the brain is starting to form? When she can respond to sounds?
2. What are the developmental stages and periods and their characteristics?
3. Do you believe that men and women are responsible for getting it right by using contraception (with the exception of coercion and all sorts of disabilities)? And if this is not the case, should they have the moral obligation to keep the fetus/baby after a certain period?
4. What is your state or nation’s current laws on abortion, when and under which circumstances is it legally permissible?

All these questions are interrelated. For instance, as follows from question 2 and 4, in the Netherlands abortion is permissible up to the end of month 5, despite the fact there there are clear developmental signs at that stage. Cleveland Clinic[2] says that even at month 4 a “baby’s heartbeat may now be audible through an instrument called a doppler. The fingers and toes are well-defined. Eyelids, eyebrows, eyelashes, nails, and hair are formed. Teeth and bones become denser. [A] baby can even suck his or her thumb, yawn, stretch, and make faces.” Do you think the larger public knows this?

My personal expectation is that most people who had some opinion on this matter asked some of these essential questions for the first time while reading these and were not even aware of the basic empirical facts displayed here. These questions and observations can potentially snap you out of your comfortable bubble. But this is only an example and it is quite possible that there are more topics where you have a comfortable stance without really considering the essentials (e.g. gun control?).

Finally, I have to add that I do not really feel comfortable to judge the moral permissibility of abortion in a so-called objective manner, even though I have some very strong sentiments and intuitions. However, one should at least inform oneself and be reflective about one’s choices. At least if one wants to be a free, informed, and autonomous citizen. This requirement is especially stringent if you are the one to call others bigots for their points of view while being ignorant on these issues. I do not think there is any sense of progress in such a divisive disposition rather than the accumulation of expressive and uninformed ethical statements. Hopefully inquiries such as these can help to burst your bubble. There is a way out.

Do you want to challenge your current views any further?

• If you would describe yourself as progressive or left, open and forward looking then perhaps Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind can show you some perspectives on how everything new and modern is not necessarily better or at least has significant problems attached to it. You can buy this book here and support us.
• If you would describe yourself as Western centered pr inward looking it might be helpful to look beyond your own culture and narrative for a little bit. You could for instance start with Cleveland and Bunton’s A History of the Middle East which includes the history of the Middle East from the rise of the Islam, the Arab rulership, the Ottoman Empire, modernity and the perennial occurence of geopolitical conflicts and tensions. You can buy this book here and support us.

[1] Mentioned in terms of “an informed desire account” by James Griffin in

Utilitarian Accounts: State of Mind or State of the World?

[2] Fetal developmental stages of growth (https://tinyurl.com/y8dqsktr)

The post Why you cannot be sure that you own “your” opinions appeared first on Genuine curiosity..

If Kuhn is right, individuals are bound to their cultures even when they have the pretension of objective knowledge, since it is their paradigm that decides what should be considered knowledge. Comparing cultures then, becomes immediately difficult for paradigmatic reasons. To illustrate, it is practically extremely hard, if not, impossible to compare each and every aspect of any culture A to any culture B as it manifests itself completely. It is not even possible to conceptualize such a study – where would one start? This means that one has to make decision as to which aspects one will focus on.

However, when making these decisions, Kuhn would suggest, one is hardly led by a purely objective method of what one should pay attention to. Instead, you pay attention to what you value in your own conception of a good culture and civilization. A clear example is how the Arab world is criticized for its lack of freedom of speech by (unacquainted) Westerners, but only seldomly compared with the Western world in terms of its hospitability by the same individuals. In other words, everyone is culturally limited, if not, bounded and it is practically impossible to avoid the asymmetry or incompleteness when comparing different cultures since an intention to objectively perceive another culture becomes a value-judgement by necessity. 

However, since comparisons are aimed at being informative to both cultures and third persons readings these comparisons (or they are a tedious hobby), it would suggest we are unable to conduct fruitful comparisons. And if we cannot compare cultures, cross-cultural learning will seem futile since our judgements of other cultures will be labelled as seriously biased and unable to say something meaningful. Fortunately, there might be middle-ground solution to provide this informative function.

To my knowledge, all value-systems and cultures have one thing in common: they aim and pretend to be consistent. If this is true, it means we have a shared value. And if consistency is a shared value, its implications on cross-cultural observation can be highly significant. Members of one group can specifically look at this value in other group of people and observe with great scrutiny (and automatically judge) the extent to which this consistency is present. In this way, cultures can inform their own members of a higher consistency present elsewhere and provide a blueprint for improvement within one’s own paradigm. And consequently, provide a blueprint to other, less-consistent, cultures as well.

This approach is, of course, open to abuse. But I am hesitant that this downside is sufficient to outbalance the potential for societies to be compelled to fulfil their own values or promises (e.g. equality). In short, the pretension of completely objective comparison between different cultures should be discarded. However, to maintain cross-cultural feedback and learning, cultures can perhaps be compared in terms of some of their fundamental shared values and by doing so, they can be informative and provide blueprints for inner-paradigmatic improvement.

The post Micro-argument: It is possible to judge other cultures appeared first on Genuine curiosity..

My impression is that in our current Western narrative, the life of a non-Western multicultural person is defined either in terms of the victim or the perpetrator. For purposes of this article, I will define multicultural roughly as having been brought up in a context which is significantly different from the dominant culture in one’s society. Especially by the left and the progressives, these individuals are seen as discriminated upon, marginalized, unprivileged bunch of victims of the majority, capitalist, post-colonialist superstructure and so forth. And unfortunately, there is some truth to some of these accusations. But only some and to some extent. The right sees the problems of minorities as caused by a lack of integration and focuses on personal responsibility while failing to explicitly face issues that are systematic and unjust concerning these minorities.

This article is written mainly with the Dutch context in mind. My personal view in the last couple of years in the Netherlands has been that non-Western minorities, especially when they refuse to adapt, are looked down upon with some suspicion. Sometimes they are “guilty” until proven otherwise. With guilty I mean that they are seen as less developed, less intelligent, even more primitive. How do I know this? Well, I do not. But my belief is based on the many comments many highly educated Turks and Moroccans receive of being especially “well-spoken,” “intelligent,” and so forth compared to the peers of their group. As for my own ethnic identity, I am a Turk born in the Netherlands to relatively traditional parents.

Despite this introduction, this article will not be about politics or societal superstructures. It will be a personal account about the experience, potential, psychological and inherent problems facing those who have the non-Western multicultural experience in a Western society. I will do this be putting forward one major opportunity and one major weakness that potentially faces these individuals.

I want to continue with my personal account of things. I don’t think that the experience of these minorities or individuals within these groups is necessarily that grim for several reasons. Moreover, not all of these problems are sociological by nature. Some of them are highly psychological and inherent to being a minority person within a society with a different dominant culture. In this article I want to point to one major upside (‘’opportunity”) and one major downside (“weakness”) of being a multicultural person. Hopefully, this will help to see opportunities where they are shaded by the structural and inherent problems of being multicultural and also create sympathy with an aspect of multiculturalism members of the majority group are not necessarily exposed to. Finally, it is needless to disclaim that I speak for myself and do not necessarily represent a group, even though my strong suspicion is that my experiences are shared by many.

The upside

Yes, primary school and often even high school were harder in terms of language acquisition and perfection. We know that many Turks and Moroccans have a significantly smaller vocabulary than their native Dutch peers. On the other hand, they most probably know a different language and a different culture. This provides a major potential, at least for those who are able to see them. Many of these options are highly self-evident but remain important to mention. They are able to be a bridge between two cultures, in terms of direct translation and explanation and transliteration of differences. One becomes able to traverse between the norms, values, and symbols of both cultures. For instance, Muslims in Europe know that not shaking hands is actually a deed of respect and piety to many instead of a refusal to acquaint the other and their culture. You are able to expose these differences. This all occurs within the same society.

Being multicultural also opens doors beyond the society you live in. Imagine cultures all around the world to be nodes with (geographical) zones of influence. Roughly speaking we can say that Iranian culture is more similar to Anatolian Turkish culture than to Japanese. This means that if you understand this part of Turkish culture, you have an easier access to Iranian culture. I actually derived this from own experience when I was on a trip in Iran: it was easier for me to understand what people implied. This means that instead of knowing one node of culture and the cultures that are in its zone of influence, you have two nodes in the world. Your world of understanding is therefore expanded immensely compared to someone who has to work really hard to grasp another culture and language when they are older. The subtleties might still escape them. And who can blame them? Cultures are complex.

Finally, both the national and global opportunities the position of a multicultural provides can be monetized. In your own society and under equal circumstances, you are more likely to be appointed to stations where contact with many cultures is important. This can include translation work, the police, ministries of foreign affairs, journalism, teaching (some classes), and many more. Internationally, the examples become even more obvious. Businesses need to communicate with other businesses and prevent misunderstandings. Here is where the subtleties can kick in. Another potential is that there is often an economic asymmetry between any given two countries especially when they are distant. With asymmetry I mean that the Netherlands might need more engineers while they are overabundant in Ukraine. This means that if you are an engineer in Ukraine it would seems reasonable to move to the Netherlands. One major barrier is of course language and culture. Multicultural people have to worry less (they should not overestimate themselves on this point though) when they traverse between their country of “origin” and the country where they live or have been born.

The downside

Identity, identity, and identity. It does not matter how often I think about this word, it remains vague. The usual anchors of nationality, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, just don’t seem to cut it. Probably because as humans we fail to understand something as it “is.” We rather are inclined to see things through their parts and their functions. We are highly analytical, but who someone “is” is definitely not covered by the sociological use of “identity” (what about appearance, temperament, genetic mutations?) and even if all boxes were filled, we would still not grasp it. It is the fate we are not that unaware of.

I even think the persistence of the term “soul” in our highly materialised-scientific world view is an expression of this. We are not just our brains, we are more, we seem to believe. This issue is epistemological in its essence. A problem of what we can “know” and the claim we can make on knowledge about what “is” and in particular what a given person is: what is essential and what is merely an attribute? Anyways, before drifting away too much from the topic. The identity construct has a function in society, it helps us to meaningfully distinguish one person from another, it helps us to self-position and orient ourselves in life, and its helps others to create a somewhat predictable set of actions and norms which is essential to all social relationships.

My focus will be mainly on the latter point because it marks an ache that affects one of the most important aspects of one’s life: relationships. Humans are highly social beings within any metric of comparison I can think of. Okay, ants might still win, but it was never a competition in the first place (or was it?). Either most behaviours are correlational or they seem to be and expected to be in our daily experiences. With correlational I mean that we expect a person to have a personality that persists through the many situations one encounters. Someone who is kind-hearted is expected to be touched emotionally and perhaps express this after seeing a video of children in poverty. In psychology, this correlation is marked in terms of the big five personality traits (e.g. extraversion-introversion, neuroticism, openness). Someone who is open is expected to either be open to new experiences in terms of aesthetics (i.e. arts) or ideas (e.g. philosophy).

Cultures contribute to a large extent to the formation of behaviours and inclinations. But what happens if a multicultural person is trying to find his or her identity? Or if someone seems to be a patchwork of cultures where they are more culture X in some aspects and more culture Y under other circumstances? How is someone expected to reliably know what the other person will behave under some circumstances. One personal example is that I have taken many of the aspects of masculinity and pride as defined in Turkish culture. This means that I don’t accept certain jokes (e.g. mother or sister jokes) lightly and I am relatively very strict on exclusiveness in romantic relationships including potential flirtatious behaviour, and I feel a responsibility to protect my beloved ones from harm (to their pride and mine) in a way that even the threat of such a thing invokes immediate aggression in me. Again, it’s complicated and this is not the full list.

This means that someone who sees me, an open, cheerful, modern, tolerant, and welcoming person is intuitively assuming that these aspects are somewhat correlated throughout all aspects of my personality. But they might be surprised to find the patch of traditional Turkishness at an unexpected moment. This can feel alienating both to the multicultural person and the other individual. Communication is of course key, but we are bound to our own cultures when we try to understand other cultures so this is not a guarantee. And since this might push the multicultural person to repress their other side, be discriminated because of it, or make them feel uncomfortable or even disappoint others, I believe that this can be a highly detrimental aspect of being multicultural person in a society or community with an obvious dominant culture. In my case there is much anxiety connected to this, but I have decided to communicate this clearly and as soon as possible so others can make the decision about the future of the social relationship.

I do have some hope though conerning the last point. My experience is that native Dutch people who have lived around many people with non-Western background are more tolerant, accepting, respectful and warm towards these groups. Either these people move to those places because they are more open, or they become more open because they live together with these people. It could also be both. In the final two cases cases, there is hope. We might be able to make communication and understanding smoother by looking each other in the eye a little bit longer and see our differences in light of our common humanity. Accept the uncommon patches.

What are your experiences with the multicultural experience? Please do share below!

The post Personal reflections: Being a non-Western multicultural person in a Western society appeared first on Genuine curiosity..

The notion of happiness is dependent on culture, so to understand whether culture makes humans happy or not we first have to define what culture is and how we can understand happiness within that context. In this essay, culture will be defined through a synthesis of Mauss (habitus), Kuhn(episteme), and Bildung theory. Combining these, we end up with a working definition of culture which is “a shared world of meaning” structured by knowledge, values, power, and behaviours or habitus.[1]                        

Importantly, not all values are perceived as equal. One course of actions can be deemed better than other actions, the available resources in terms of time and energy are deemed to be best spent in that direction. In this way, culture is also motivational or idealizing and orients us in life. This aspect of culture will be emphasised in relation to happiness. For instance, Bildung theory makes this idealizing explicit in its emphasis on the potential of rational human beings to interact with nature towards a metaphysical and moral end point. Failing to do so, makes you “fail to be a human being.”[2] It follows that on this subjective experience of the world we can perceive ourselves to be better and worse, we can go up and down.                                                                                                                              

 Happiness is then both the experience and the genuine state of being “up” and living in the higher spheres of the “hierarchies of values.”[3] One example is the successful adherence to moral roles such as a father, spouse etc. If one in ceteris paribus both experiences joy and pride and is justified culturally to do so, he can be considered happy.[4] In other words, happiness is when one is successful in being a human, however that is defined. This working definition gives us the opportunity to circumvent the large variety of content and focus on the structure of happiness across cultures.              

Importantly, if it is true that the perceived position of being in a culturally defined “higher” position constitutes happiness, it follows that there must already be a “world of meaning” present that constitutes this hierarchy. Partly following Hobbes, in the state of nature survival becomes the only goal. This ideal is merely negative and binary (you are either dead or alive). Surviving then seems to be an awkward criterion for happiness since it does not involve being “up” within life. Gladness to be alive is therefore better described with “contentness.” This means that culture is the precursor to the sociocultural state of positive self-reflection called happiness.                                                   

However, it does not follow that culture guarantees happiness. Paradoxically, culture can also seriously hamper its achievement. One important way in which this might work is the lack of consistency within the ideals and norms of a culture. For instance, in Western culture women are often told that they should be as successful as men, but the social and institutional culture is still such that women are the predominant caregivers to babies. As a result, women can feel inadequate in relation to the perceived ideal of the good Western life.

 In short, cultures create “a world of meaning” that is necessary but not sufficient for human happiness. Humans need culture to position themselves in relation to their cultural ideals. As such, cultures can help individuals achieve a sense of fulfilment or happiness by allowing mobility towards the ideals they propose.

Footnotes

[1] Mentioned in my final class as the shift from “culture is the human world” to “a world of meaning.” The benefit of this definition is that it focuses on what culture does to the experience of its members, rather than being a static definition.

[2] Quote often mentioned in my class.

[3] Mentioned by Durkheim and Mauss in Primitive Classification (1903)

[4] Justification and authenticity are emphasised because one can easily be deluded “artificially” to believe his is in such and such a state by medicine or technology. Even if we describe happiness pure subjectively, experience is necessary but not sufficient to happiness because we have certain criteria to our experiences before we consider ourselves happy. This is what Robert Nozick elegantly shows this with his thought experiment with an experience machine. This machine is able to give us all the pleasurable and honourable experiences we would want and yet an overwhelming majority would deny to enter such a machine basically for its artificial nature. We want to be genuinely “up” and flourishing whatever that may constitute for cultures and individuals.

The post Micro-argument: Can culture make us happy? appeared first on Genuine curiosity..