[Dean's World] Dave Price: Culture, Beliefs, and Value Judgements

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Culture, Beliefs, and Value Judgements
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1143732834.shtml


   Interesting [1]article from Jonathan Zimmerman, and apropos of Dean's
   post below.

     I don't remember her name. But I can still picture my sixth grade
     student's frightened expression when I asked her to give the first
     classroom presentation that morning.
     "Where I come from," she said, in a quivering voice, "girls don't
     go first." She was an immigrant from a Muslim country in the Middle
     East whose family had moved to Baltimore a few years earlier. I was
     a young social studies teacher at her middle school, fired with
     passion and idealism. I believed in my heart that schools should
     respect national differences. But I also believed that we should
     treat boys and girls in an equal fashion.
     So how should I have responded?

   The problem as framed really boils down whether the culture is
   inferior, or the girl is. Of course, neither is an acceptable
   conclusion, and it=E2s only through the most contrived contortions of
   multi-culti calculus that one can attempt to reconcile the paradox
   (this is one reason why, over the last few years, I=E2ve gradually
   become convinced liberal universalism is the only sensible,
   self-consistent philosophy). Most supposed liberals don=E2t even try;
   like Zimmerman they throw up their hands and say the issue needs more
   =E2discussion,=E2 a cop-out if I=E2ve seen one. Socratic debate is a fine
   method for arriving at truth, but it presupposes that the debaters
   agree such a truth can be held to exist in the first place.
   But is the issue framed accurately? While the girl is clearly being
   placed in an inferior position, I don=E2t think a culture can or should
   be called =E2inferior,=E2 since inferior is itself a value judgment. I
   think it would be more correct to say some cultural beliefs are
   correct and others are not. For instance, a culture that believes the
   Earth is flat or that pi is exactly 3 is not =E2inferior,=E2 just mistak=
en
   in those beliefs. Similar logic should apply to incorrect racist or
   misogynist beliefs, and no more quarter should be given to those who
   defend such incorrect beliefs with =E2well, that=E2s our cultural belief,
   and therefore immune to criticism=E2 than we would give to an engineer
   offering such an excuse for building a levee system with foundations
   three feet too shallow for the soil type. Social engineering is at
   least as important as the other kinds.

References

   1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060330/cm_usatoday/culturewarsbewa=
reofpresumingsameness;_ylt=3DAjMGFcnYTUmwR0.i0tMiG6m7e8UF;_ylu=3DX3oDMTA3YW=
FzYnA2BHNlYwM3NDI-