I want to share a passage in Women of the Forest, by Yolanda and Robert F. Murphy, an old book I just finished about the Mundurucú people of the Amazon basin:
I want to share this because of the conclusion of the passage that culture is tyrannical in its controlling "our behavior, our sense of self, and our consciousness." It makes me think that one of the main reasons--perhaps the main reason--so many people can't (or won't) accept any of the assertions of people with whom they don't agree is their particular point of view that comes from culture in which those views are held and expressed. It seems that unless someone wants to make the effort to incorporate at least a part of the culture of others, any communication will be minimal and has a good chance of being wrong.
Many problems that religious people have with non-believers I think falls within this framework. It is much less so in the other direction because we aren't former believers, we have lived within their society and can't have helped but learned that culture. Life-long believers, on the other hand, have had little, if any, desire or experience in the culture of non-belief. It may be similar to the way a servant or slave knows their master's ways much better than the other way around.
To be fair, many non-believers have a hard time communicating on a believer's cultural terms and using their mores due to a disdain for them, having "been there." But at least they are known. It is common that a believer will refuse to acknowledge the difference and, if so, only work to get the non-believer to move into their culture. Without force, this method has a very low success rate.
Sojourners in exotic places become more than mere strangers; they are outsiders and "aliens" in the sense the term is used in science fiction stories. This was our dilemma. We could not speak Mundurucú, and the few people who knew some Portuguese did not like using it. To make matters worse, we could not interpret gestures or facial expressions, and most of the actions of the people around us were without meaning. Indeed, we had entered a meaningless (to us) world, and we would never again underestimate the tyranny that culture holds over our behavior, our sense of self, and our consciousness.
I want to share this because of the conclusion of the passage that culture is tyrannical in its controlling "our behavior, our sense of self, and our consciousness." It makes me think that one of the main reasons--perhaps the main reason--so many people can't (or won't) accept any of the assertions of people with whom they don't agree is their particular point of view that comes from culture in which those views are held and expressed. It seems that unless someone wants to make the effort to incorporate at least a part of the culture of others, any communication will be minimal and has a good chance of being wrong.
Many problems that religious people have with non-believers I think falls within this framework. It is much less so in the other direction because we aren't former believers, we have lived within their society and can't have helped but learned that culture. Life-long believers, on the other hand, have had little, if any, desire or experience in the culture of non-belief. It may be similar to the way a servant or slave knows their master's ways much better than the other way around.
To be fair, many non-believers have a hard time communicating on a believer's cultural terms and using their mores due to a disdain for them, having "been there." But at least they are known. It is common that a believer will refuse to acknowledge the difference and, if so, only work to get the non-believer to move into their culture. Without force, this method has a very low success rate.
No comments:
Post a Comment