pinkfloydpsw's Blog

The important difference between Racism, where a person or group, deliberately, or unconsciously, treats another person or group with prejudice or favour, and Culturalism, where a person or group may do exactly the same thing, and garner exactly the same outcome, is in the motivation for doing so. Now that puts us into a bind, one where if we happened to be interested only in outcomes, and I urge you not to be, not yet anyway, then we might think there is no problem, since, racism is demonstrably wrong, then culturalism must also be wrong too? Yet, if we are looking for a justifying foundation that negates outcome, the right way to act, Kantianism if you will rather than utility, then we might just be able to put the case for at least a conversation about culturalism, without being associated with shaven headed union jack wavers and those jackbooted lunatics from the early 20^th century.

As usual, I wish to speak controversially, as the great Rick Roderick once said, “Nothing important to the human species hangs on truths that all can agree upon”. In this piece I intend to play the devil’s advocate and take the position that Culturalism is a not dangerous and pervasive trend that has both a positive and negative value to ourselves, and as usual I invite you to argue with me…

Racism is…. That is a hard statement to finish, especially in a post truth society like the one we find ourselves in today where the truth of a proposition is often a “social truth”; that which is gained through repetition of memes within a society. As if truth were the agreed upon democratic outcome of opinion rather than the demonstrable, or scientifically founded, kind. In an earlier piece I proposed the statement that true things are true no matter who knows them, or believes in them, nor do they respond to power. They are certainly not relative or relational to feelings. And that’s not unfortunate nor unuseful at all, since we have seen much progress in human society by codifying truthful things that are applicable if certain other conditions hold true also, that’s what science and medicine are about. But we cannot discount social truths completely, as societies boogie along they are influenced by more than scientific truths, they are affected by every belief that takes a major hold of the actors within them, so rather than postulate this as an important distinction between Racism and Culturalism, I will discount the use of it entirely and go in another direction. I’ll use the analogy of the rain that Yanis Varoufakis uses to explain economic pitfalls… The weather prediction has no impact on the weather, but the prediction of societal truths shapes the truths themselves. This means that how people feel effects the way they act, how they feel is affected by what they believe, and what they believe is affected by what they are told and observe around them. So, you can’t easily say that other people’s racism does not affect your perspective, nor that their culturalism might not be confused for racism, and effect yours without intending to. It is this mistake that might have many intellectuals and the influential (writers, journalists, MPs) flummoxed and unable to differentiate between these, to me at least, distinctly different philosophical positions.

Culturalism is… is an even harder to sentence to finish. How do we do it and avoid those things that are identified, by the ignorant of course, as being in the same vein as our earlier distinction? I say don’t avoid the similarities, just know that they are merely similar and at the same time different, it is up to the person rebuking your work to prove that you are wrong by some means or other, anything else is prior restraint. I think of a culture as having an accumulated set of habits that are founded in myth and necessity, but continue beyond, and outlive, the myths and the usefulness they once had association with. Let us assume that if we understood the time the habit was formed, and we also understood the practical application of the habit also, then we might gain an insight into why it existed, and so we can understand it. Now this component part of a culture, a practice that is important to the persons who identify as part of that culture, is not easily discarded when it is no longer needed, or acceptable to another culture. In modernity we are no longer accepting of the religiously based genital mutilation of women. This is not historical though, the oppression of women is a historically recoverable fact codified into many canonical works that are easily retrieved by anyone from the public library. The bible old and new is replete with examples of male dominion over women, it encourages, justifies, and even mandates, it many times, other examples can be found by looking up old and existing laws on property, voting, and criminal matters. A culture does not detach from its myths, it carries them into modernity and may change their form so as to modernise them and mitigate their more unpalatable elements, yet they persist. I’ll give you another example, unfortunately it is also a religiously founded one, but bear with me as I am sure you are aware it is hard to deviate from the works written of Abraham. The woman is owned by her father until the time she is wed, then she is owned by her husband until the day he is killed, at that time she belongs to her husband’s brother if he has one, or her own son if she has no brother in law. If she has no marital male relatives, she becomes the property of her father again if he lives, or the property of her own brother if he doesn’t. If there is no male relation found she becomes the property of her nearest male relative by marriage or by birth. The one thing she does not become, or ever is, is the property of herself – this is every Abrahamic religion and was the case in law until very recently in Abrahamic influenced societies. Now we don’t have this in effect now do we, but are you sure? At a traditional Christian wedding the father of the bride still “gives away” his daughter to another man and pays him to look after her (pays for the wedding, and maybe a dowry), I wonder where that came from? The myth has changed in its practical application into a tradition, a custom, a societal artefact that holds no real meaning, but survives nonetheless. I used this one because it has no impact unless you disagree with what it suggests, as I hope you would if you are a woman (or a man for that matter, for who wants to own a woman as if she were a possession?). In many cultures, these artefacts are more felt, more affect than mere symbol, and this is where maybe a rationally arrived-at prejudice may be justifiable, the prejudice I hold against such things, no less in one case than the other. I feel an urge to free what is in chains by way of first recognising it, then speaking or acting upon it if I can, or if I am allowed to do so without being misunderstood. I mean that by accepting that I may be accused of racism for being a culturalist, I must bear that burden and the ire of those that fail to understand that I have no racist tendencies; it is their mistake to attribute that label.

I will assume I have you convinced that I am in fact not a racist, though paradoxically the more one asserts that, the more one resembles one. I hold no tendency to favour or prejudice any person or group because of their ethnicity. So we’ll move on from there with a further attempt to define racism. Racism is…. Where a person manifests their deeply held belief that a difference between themselves (or their people) and another (or theirs) makes them superior in some way or another in comparison with that other they act or hold a view upon or power over. If we look to history we may find that in any case where a people have subjugated, or occupied the lands of, another people, we will also find the process of dehumanisation in play, justifying the action of the aggressor. If we look to religious text we see the same dehumanising in veiled mechanisms masquerading as a doctrine that views itself as spiritual or a moral instruction, in that the human subject is less than enlightened until they have come around to the same way of thinking about the world as those that pose as the enlightening force(usually those with a book that some of them, or their ancestors, wrote), allegedly possessing the knowledge that enlightens. It is in differentiating between people because of the circumstances of their birth, their skin colour, their cultural artefacts such as religion or other, their chosen political adherences, their gender, their access to canons of information, or their sexuality that we find some of the most common prejudices. I would argue that even some of these prejudices can be rational in that some of them can have a purpose that is not for subjugation or domination, but for the protection of the self, they grow from fear. Let’s say fear is a motivating factor, and drill into the question of what we are fearing. We know that we naturally gravitate to that which is similar to ourselves, we naturally remove our innate defences when in the company of people we find common thread with, like at a party when we meet a fellow Pink Floyd fan that talks at length about how the Dark Side Of The Moon has to be listened to with headphones (which of course it has to be, duh). Men favour women that they find attractive, they are more likely to promote them if they have the power to, or to let them off in the event that they may be evaluating a mistake. Let’s say you’re walking home from a football match and you have two equally valid routes back to where you live, one full of home fans just like you, and one full of away fans, I would think it silly if you chose the latter. We make future decisions, the value of which are realised in the perceived opinion we hold in our minds about what others may think or do. Possibilities only for sure, we have no idea how people will actually act because we don’t know the people we fear, if we did, we may not fear them. But here lies the mistake, we ask ourselves what the worst thing we would do if we could do anything, if we were them, if we were at our worst, but in that comparison we imagine ourselves as being as bad as we could possibly be, not as we likely are.

So the question is, if we know we have naturally occurring predominant traits that make us evaluate in a certain way, before the fact, that there is a perceived danger or a familiarity that will shape our actions, one that we may be consciously unaware of, how then do we act affecting and respecting culturally acceptable differences without being apparently racist? Simple, justify it by explaining it. As an example, in a recent conversation I was accused of being prejudiced, so I explained that my preference was not a prejudice because it cannot be. Let’s say I am not attracted to tall women (which is a true statement), and let’s further say that I am an employer. I have six interviews today for potential employees, all women, and I choose to employ the shortest one, does that necessarily mean that I have happen to have chosen my preference because of my preference? (Ad hoc ergo propter hoc). Not at all, this person may have been the right person for the job and it is entirely coincidental that they happen to align with my preference. What happens if I am aware of how my preference may be perceived and I act accordingly, so I deliberately rule out the shorter candidate, opting before the fact to make sure I do not employ them so as to avoid allegation. Then I have been prejudiced beyond the possibility of the unfortunate (looking) happenstance that might have occurred otherwise, as this person’s credentials and potential has been sidelined for the sake of appearance.

If I do not wish to be prejudiced then I must act unaware of the potential uncomfortable position onlookers might seek to take, and this is an important point, there are people who when tasked to find prejudice, by an official body or by their own volition, will find it even if it is not there. HR departments operate to protect the firm against the employee, not the other way round, employment law protects the employee against the firm. HR create rules and procedures that are not in law so as to avoid disharmony and potential dispute, their edicts are above and beyond the scope of law, I’ll give you an example… The UK government issues the law that there is no smoking in a workplace, so the hospitals adhere and prohibit accordingly, but not long after they ban smoking on hospital grounds, this is not in line with UK law, it is an addition to it and only applicable where the NHS holds power (it’s own facilities). Some smart spud invents the vape, so the hospital bans it too, even though there is no medical reason to do so, in fact the NHS is encouraging people to switch from cigarettes to vapes at the very same time as they are enacting the ban. Other companies see this and they follow suit, ban vaping, again they have no real reason to do so but they will work hard to create possible reasons, like electrical safety rules. We can examine this though, this device is operated by a battery the same as a mobile phone, and has advanced safety electronics (in the CE versions, European safety standards guaranteeing safe operation under normal conditions), it s charged like a mobile phone, and it it has very low wattage, so by all measure this is not a harmful device to have or to use, yet still the ban. This is an example of lowest common denominator methodology in the thinking of H&S and HR departments, imagine that a person who can plug in a 2000W heating device, boil a 3000W kettle, make toast in a 3000W toaster, or operate a 1500 vacuum or a power tool that may have a surge of 4000W, cannot use an electronic device that produces less charge than an LED light bulb because of electrical safety? That’s just ridiculous. The other charge is that the vapour may be harmful to others, ridiculous again since the vapour is water and propylene Glycol or Vegetable Glycerine, none of which is actually harmful, PG is in everything, food, soaps, medicines etc, VG is a product used in the food industry, water is water. But I’m off on a rant, let’s return to prejudice…

Preference is justifiable comparison, prejudice is unjustifiable action that may be based on preference. This important distinction seems to be lost now. If I use power to inhibit a person’s progress or remove a person’s rights, then I am being prejudiced. If I favour a preference in a person related sense, those persons I prefer, then I am ok, and should be. Another example… A college examiner finds that there are 30 females on the hairdressing course and thirty males on the plumbing course, this looks like females are not well represented in the buildings and maintenance sector (at least it will play out that way in the future). How is this imbalance to be repaired? Well it’s not, it’s a result of preference, not disablement of opportunity or intervention of power. It may be a cultural issue yes, but there are no barriers, each student has the same choices before them. So measuring what seems to arrive by these means it can be too easy to cry prejudice and barriers! We must not confuse others preferences and the results they create with the idea that power has acted prejudicially, just as we must not confuse the felt preferences, or the really imagined fears of a person, regarding their own personal future, with the idea that they are base prejudiced. I will end with a series of statements that I would encourage you to try for yourself so as to identify the important differences in your own thinking..

I have a preference for short and slim women
I have a prejudice against Israel because of how they treat the Palestinian peoples
I have a prejudice against many countries of the world because of how they treat women
I have a preference for Tea rather than fruit juice
I have a prejudice against all religions that I am aware of because they retard human intellect and make simple beasts of the species

This has not been an argument for prejudice, just a simple nod in the direction of thinking about whether it is or not before calling it so.

Paul S Wilson