Don't globalize me, bro!

The more I discuss this with Chinese mates, the more I see that it is possible globalisation will increase the expression and the manifest,in order to create difference, but expose that the basic is really basic to all humanity.


We will have more Zhang Yimou, more Tim Burton.

And less real reason to treat each other as 'the other'.

Two coinal sideage: The World Values Survey and Universal People.

"Universal People" comes from Donald Brown.  He did a bunch of behaviour research and came up with a 375 entry long list of behavioural traits common to all human beings.

[Brown's list] contends that significant elements of human behavior are the same throughout societies, suggesting that similar biological and cognitive processes operate across cultures.  For example, universal behaviors include conflict, cooking, decision making, marriage, and play.  Universal concepts, attitudes, and values include ambivalence, beliefs about death, ethnocentrism, metaphor, and the concept of person.... [E]very society creates a division of labor, plans for the future, overestimates objectivity of thought, and develops rituals.

To which I say, whatever, man.  Instantiation of universals differ, though they be attached to the universal by abstraction.  A handshake or a hug are both "common greeting", but that doesn't mean you can get away with them in societies that rub noses to say hello.

The World Values Survey says there is an observable change in values correlated with industrialisation.  Pre-industrial societies are more given to traditional orientations to authority (God, obedience, faith, deference to authority, social conformity) and to survival thinking (we are unhappy, in poor health, can't trust each other much except in out in-group, science will save us, as will authority), whereas Industrial societies go for the secular-rational approach (think for yourself) and the self-expression (be yourself, be happy) values.  And, there are generational changes evident in all of them, the young tending to settle further along the orientation toward the secular-rational and the self-expression than the old.

And I have no idea how they discovered it but they also note as a major finding that even as values shift, there is evidence of persistence of distinctive cultural traditions.


The models represent trends, and commonalities, and flattening statistics.  Research suggests that the models do NOT predict too much about individuals.  Which is to say, models are models.  Something is indicated, but what?


And I say, if you reprogrammed a Chinese, you could make a Dutchman out of him.  But you'd have to reprogram him first.  I believe that to this day there is something that persists in Chinese people and it is heavily obscured both by historical forces and by such authoritative statements as come from the well-known and deeply questionable sources.  If one were to come up with a current Chinese identity it would include a great many weak, unstable *stated* elements pasted over some enduring, perhaps shunned backbone.  It's just a thing I've always thought upon meeting them and talking about what they do.

It perhaps only seems mysterious because I'm not Chinese and I can't really be sure why they value what they value.

Nonetheless... *that*, for the meaning of the globalisation to come.

Don't know if this adds anything useful to your thinking, but here is waht a Chinese mate of mine wrote sort of on this topics.

"“What should they know of England, who only England know?” wrote Kipling.


Being a Chinese does not qualify one as a fair judge of what is a Chinese value or what is a real Chinese. It might be a universal truth for every nation and its people. It seems quite interesting that a respectable distance will normally give you a much clearer picture about something you are looking at that is sort of enormous. It is such an easy job for people to find evidence to prove their hypothesis, and feel the result would be quite satisfactory. It is not much different from drawing a conclusion similar to the story of the 6 blind men and the elephant. There so many wise guys (I do believe that they, in most cases do not intend to be one, but they just can’t help it) making these judgments. It is true that there must be something essential that make an Australian different from a Chinese, but this difference is not that much more than that between the light red and red, not as much as  that between red and green. The danger is when two cultures, two peoples are put together, the wise guys simply cannot help but perceive these differences and not the similarities."

So, "Don't leave me hanging, bro"?

The value judgment that all acts of differentiation are corrupt needs justification.  One presumes the positive value of emphasizing similarities is something like "Hey, cool, look at the ways we can be together, we've got this and this and this in common and, man, that means we can be together and share and work together and, dude, we can even lurve each other!"

This positive value is insufficient to show that differentiation is unavailable or difficult to find or not important or always subject to lack of evidence or most often exists to a lesser degree than supposed.  It is sufficient to show that, prima facie, differentiation is counterproductive.

What of the cases where the other persons do things that "we" don't do, and when called upon for the sake of cooperation, togetherness and lurve, to not do those things, a chunk of their identity disappears?  Will that ever happen in this charming world of high, non-judgmental similarity we live in?

What of the cases where the other persons do things that "we" don't do, and when called upon for the sake of cooperation, togetherness and lurve, to not do those things, a chunk of their identity disappears? 

It certainly does on an individual personality level - asking a person to change basic personality traits for the sake of 'lurve', togetherness, cooperation etc is destructive to that person, destructive to the relationship, and in the end counterproductive.

BUT... most of the things we would ask another to do in losing what we see as cultural traits are what you are labelling the manifest or expressed and change over time anyway.  They are taught, not innate. Culture is taught and can therefore be 'unlearned'.

To make that hypothesis work you would need to be able to define what is the absolute cultural base, and as can be seen in this discussion - no-one has been able to define what makes an Australian, what makes a Chinese (not even the Chinese!) Chinese, so in essence there is nothing that we couldn't ask to change that would create this identity loss.

Quote from: Calach Pfeffer on January 23, 2010, 11:29:43 AM

What of the cases where the other persons do things that "we" don't do, and when called upon for the sake of cooperation, togetherness and lurve, to not do those things, a chunk of their identity disappears? 

It certainly does on an individual personality level - asking a person to change basic personality traits for the sake of 'lurve', togetherness, cooperation etc is destructive to that person, destructive to the relationship, and in the end counterproductive.

BUT... most of the things we would ask another to do in losing what we see as cultural traits are what you are labelling the manifest or expressed and change over time anyway.  They are taught, not innate. Culture is taught and can therefore be 'unlearned'.

Like language can be unlearned?  The suggestion that there exists a basic level of culture is I think mostly the suggestion that the enculturation process starts at the same time as the human animal individuation process.  And is about as reversible as human individuation.

To make that hypothesis work you would need to be able to define what is the absolute cultural base, and as can be seen in this discussion - no-one has been able to define what makes an Australian, what makes a Chinese (not even the Chinese!) Chinese, so in essence there is nothing that we couldn't ask to change that would create this identity loss.

If the local people cannot voice their concern, there is no concern?  Spokespeople for the local people can be called in, perhaps not local themselves but expert at describing things.  If they cannot voice the concern either, then truly there is no concern to be concerned about?

You can easily forget language!  Just stop using your Chinese for a few months and see how fast you forget it!  Children brought up to about 10 in one language, move and don't use again don't remember 20 years later.

Enculturation - how many Muslims do you know who drink?  Me - I know quite a few.  How many Jews who eat pork - several.  Even the deepest held tenets can be discarded.  I'm an Aussie but I don't like cricket!!  It starts early, but is learned and can therefore be discarded as other learning takes its place.

If the local people cannot identify what the concern is - then yes, it is not strong enough, clear enough to be a concern, to be real.  If you have a pain, even a vague one, you can go to the Dr and say - I have this vague pain, I don't know what it is, but it makes me feel sick, it comes and goes, it makes me feel xyz.  Then we have a means of identifying by an expert.

This sort of feels as if we are putting what you are calling the 'basic' level of culture on an almost 'religious' basis - it's there but we can't prove it.  It's faith.

You can easily forget language!  Just stop using your Chinese for a few months and see how fast you forget it!  Children brought up to about 10 in one language, move and don't use again don't remember 20 years later.

Enculturation - how many Muslims do you know who drink?  Me - I know quite a few.  How many Jews who eat pork - several.  Even the deepest held tenets can be discarded.  I'm an Aussie but I don't like cricket!!  It starts early, but is learned and can therefore be discarded as other learning takes its place.

If the local people cannot identify what the concern is - then yes, it is not strong enough, clear enough to be a concern, to be real.  If you have a pain, even a vague one, you can go to the Dr and say - I have this vague pain, I don't know what it is, but it makes me feel sick, it comes and goes, it makes me feel xyz.  Then we have a means of identifying by an expert.

This sort of feels as if we are putting what you are calling the 'basic' level of culture on an almost 'religious' basis[...]

We are.  And rightly so.  There is no precedent for saying large parts of a person's identity are unconscious?

Consider the idea of the subconscious.  The larger part of the person that is consciously accessible only in very short bursts if at all and sets the framework for the operation of the conscious person anyway.  The conscious person can wander far and wide within the confines of that framework, and yet there will still be blind spots taken as given articles, not open to question, to the point that the conscious person doesn't know they are there unless severely tested.  And yet, they are likely recognisable to alien visitors by their impact on what can happen.

Culture cannot appear in this form?  Perhaps not actually a part of the subconscious, but submerged nonetheless because that cultural framework began its penetration of the human animal's identity before that animal was sufficiently aware or even capable of critical assessment.

What adult is genuinely able to access and excise the deeper foundations of their personality learned in childhood?  How many literally have the conscious aptitude to do that?  Or a reason to?  For what reason would members of a culture choose the difficult business of unlearning a foundation they have knowingly or not used for the better part of their life?  And why would they not resist the arrival of an incompatible culture?

And most severely importantly, why would anyone expect them to NOT pay lip service to idea of working together in global harmony?  They after all do know how to exist in a functioning society, surely all things are possible... and look, while we're at it, we'll show deference to our elders, enjoy money, respect face, and generally be human beings.  That's how society works, eh?  Say what?  You foreigners hate your children?  Oh, that's a problem.  Don't worry, I'm sure you really do love your families.  That's what people do, right?  What, you don't?  Sure you do, don't be silly.  How could you not?!

Of course we have a precedent for a INDIVIDUAL unconsciousness.  I believe that our personalities are innate - genetic perhaps, but definitely there prior to birth.  Culture is not.  Culture is taught.  So this comparison does not work.

We can 'unlearn' many things as we grow older.  Probably many of us were given some level of religious inculcation when we were young, but many of us, as we grew older, 'unlearned' that, and rejected it in favour of more rational, more individual or just different views.  We may have learned that sex was 'naughty' (a protective measure!!) but very quickly 'unlearned' that!    Anything taught can be 'unlearned', replaced with better information or forgotten.


Who was asking people not to pay lip-service to working with humanity?  But what you were asking for me was to consciously 'delete' a specific part of my innate personality in order to fit in with a particular group.  This then is asking me not to be me, consciously.  Unsustainable and destructive for a long term commitment, if I have value as a human being, as an INDIVIDUAL.  But, given that no-one in this conversation has been able to define anything that is 'basic' CULTURE and request that essential part to be 'deleted' then all we can ask for is the manifest or the expressed to be 'deleted' in order to forward global harmony.  They can give up spitting, I'll give up playing football, driving a Kingswood and meat pies!!  

Of course we have a precedent for a INDIVIDUAL unconsciousness.  I believe that our personalities are innate - genetic perhaps, but definitely there prior to birth.  Culture is not.  Culture is taught.  So this comparison does not work.


Who was asking people not to pay lip-service to working with humanity?  But what you were asking for me was to consciously 'delete' a specific part of my innate personality in order to fit in with a particular group.

A thing I came across in reading on this said that within culture groups there is frequently more individual diversity than ideas of "we all are the same cultural group" suggest.  That is, within collectivist cultures, you still find individualists, and vice versa and so on with all the usual culture adjectives.

And coincidentally, the big culture models with their dimensions--those dimensions fairly neatly match up to combinations of Jungian functions--sort of suggesting that cultures have archetypal persons, like the archetypal Chinese male according to Chinese culture is [insert one of the sixteen Meyer-Briggs type descriptions here].

So if there is an archetypal cultural person, and there are fifteen other kinds of persons, then within a single culture, you get people closer and further away from the archetype.

And yet... all people still grow into their ways of functioning, and they do it within a given society.  How do they not imbue their version of living with elements drawn from the cultural model presented by everyone and everything around them.

Or to put it another way, are Chinese libertarians the same as European Libertarians because they're both Libertarian in bent, or are they different because while Libertarian in bent, they manifest it using the different forms their own sense of identity supplies.

Or to put it all in a totally different way: if there is not some primal part of people that sucks up their cultures dictates early, then all these people running around today bowing or handshaking or voting or agreeing to war, they're kind of ridiculous if they value any of that.   Shouldn't they be seeking a universal truth independent of cultural identities?  By what parochial right can they lay claim to knowing a decent way to live and valuing it if they haven't looked deeper into the actual absence of culture we all suffer?

And if one seriously asks that last question, isn't one robbing a lot of people of the means by which they value any expression of anything?


*sigh* this is tiresome.  The principle value being asserted by the fact of this discussion is the right to question and to seek new meaning.  How western is that.

  The principle value being asserted by the fact of this discussion is the right to question and to seek new meaning.  How western is that.

And Confucian!   

Since when?

Besides which, who cares?  Is it a value taught at the parent's knee?  Before duty to parents and respect for authority or after?


But anyway, people say what is and isn't valuable.  And if there is nothing fixed inside the person, there is nothing truly valuable.  Unless perhaps one respects people per se, in which case, their temporary ascriptions of value are respectable.

But why should even that be valuable?  How about for the misanthrope who doesn't like people, does he have to respect the temporary ascriptions of value other people call on him to respect?

Game over, I suspect.  Culture has had its depth and impact denied, there is no need to investigate further.  There shall no doubt be some technical difficulties while persons of the world are informed of their loss of identity that isn't a loss because it never was deep enough to matter.  But it'll all end in a gigantic group hug, and that'll be consolation enough.  Love really does mean nothing left to lose.

We haven't been able to define anything but manifest and expressed culture, by your definitions.  So that section of culture you have labelled as 'basic' to a specific culture has been called into question.  By not only western discussion, but Chinese.

Your definitions of the expressed and manifest remain - to be exclaimed over, publicly espoused, mourned and hurriedly discarded in the drive for modernity and sophistication.

Perhaps the rest is actually a quality of 'humanity' rather than of specific cultures - and isn't that what we would be aiming at embracing??


A more interesting question could be 'why do we NEED to find the alien in others?"
















Have we got this damn assignment written yet???  

We haven't been able to define anything but manifest and expressed culture, by your definitions.  So that section of culture you have labelled as 'basic' to a specific culture has been called into question.

"We", kemosabe?

Manifest culture is the stuff you can see and hear: language, clothing, dances, institutions and whatnot.  The expressed consists of what the members of the culture will say when asked to describe their culture.  At the basic level however are the fundamental assumptions of the culture that no one recognises as necessary to explain: basic, foundational beliefs that the users regard as true and universal, and they have no idea why anyone would question them.

That looks like a definition.  It does not look like a list of the contents of basic culture, but it does look like a definition.  All that's needed is to decide if cultural content can or cannot sit at that level of a person's consciousness.  If it can, culture will have a persistent influence over a person's sense of value.  If it can't, culture is window dressing.

Incidentally, the depth at which the culture sits in the consciousness does not equate to a depth in the cultural value itself.  That which is deeply held need not be particularly deep as an isolated statement.  And probably won't be.  It will be a powerful modifier of the person's choices, and it doesn't even have to be substantial as a truth.  All it needs is to be deeply buried.

For an actual statement of basic culture, it would probably look something like expressed culture.  For expressed culture is the person trying to express what is basic.  And it will look stupid.  It will look shallow and easily tossed aside.  And often the culture members will themselves toss it aside.  Only to return later to something very like it.  Because it's buried deep.

Is there such a thing or is there not?

Limits, extents, scope, breadth... depth.  Understanding that leads to a significantly truer evaluation of what to respect and what to not.  Or we could all just sit around and keep on trying to find the blurry line between what stupid part of the culture must be respected and what stupid part can be ignored.  Are they respectable because they're stuck with it, or because they say they like it?

Who cares and why?  Well, cultures compete for ascription of value.  How deep does that competition run?

And, in what sense is it real?

 By not only western discussion, but Chinese.

That idea is such a load of faux connection-making, it should be insulting to Confucianism.  Not only does it deny the method and direction of Confucian thinking, it equates it with Western choices in such matters.  Or did you mean to empty Western evaluations of their substance too?

Your definitions of the expressed and manifest remain - to be exclaimed over, publicly espoused, mourned and hurriedly discarded in the drive for modernity and sophistication.

And they will come back to them.  The form will differ, but a continuity will be there to be seen.

A more interesting question could be 'why do we NEED to find the alien in others?"

You can't spell "uniquely valuable" without a, l, i, e, and n.