Controversial topics like religion

[Tabouli]

Phew.

Just took a peek at the last few OT posts on the website after posting my wafflesome musings on Eurasian looks, and things are looking stormy.  Hmmm.  Not sure whether my comments on religion are going to be petrol on the fire or oil on troubled waters, but I'll tiptoe in anyway...

Before I say anything on religion, let me admit upfront that I haven't read the "Facing the Challenge" essay.  I will eventually, but I don't think reading it is crucial to my comments here.  I've read lots of Christian commentary on HP, and have established, pretty much, what this essay says from other people's posts.  About the only thing I have to say for which this could be considered a prerequisite is this: I confess to a faint wince on Chris Holloway's behalf.  I suspect the poor guy meant well: he wasn't to know what he was unleashing... (assuming Chris is male - ah, the perils of unisex names!)

OK.  Back to a touch of long-winded Tabouli's thesis-land.  One of the more daring things I argued in my thesis was that we should restore the word "ethnocentrism" to its original meaning and normalise it.  That is, ethnocentrism is *not* a synonym for "racism", or even "xenophobic patriotism", it means:

".this view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it" (Sumner 1906, yes, I'm even putting in a reference here!)

...and is absolutely *NORMAL*.  Ethnocentrism is not "bad" by definition.  It is the perfectly obvious and natural outcome of being raised in a consistent culture with little intimate contact with other cultures, particularly if that culture is also the dominant majority culture.  Our own cultural group gives us a set of cultural values, which tell us what is right and wrong, moral and immoral, polite and offensive, reasonable and unreasonable, beautiful and ugly, etc.etc.etc.  People **NEED** cultural values like these to function socially.

The reason why people get culture shock when they go to a very different culture is because their rulebook of social behaviour suddenly and terrifyingly ceases to function.  They have been plunged into a world where what they've always known to be "moral" is generally believed to be "immoral" or even "irrelevant", where normal, "polite" behaviour inexplicably seems to cause offence, where they can't tell what people are thinking from their comments and behaviour any more.  This is so distressing and disorienting that a lot of people either cocoon themselves in people who share their rulebook or flee back to their own country.  People *need* cultural values to function and "read" their social world.  When they can't read their social world any more it can trigger serious mental and/or physical illness.

The point is, when you have been raised with a strong, stable, unchallenged set of values (be they Christian or Buddhist or Wiccan or spiritualist or whatever), in a family and social circle (and indeed, society) who mostly share those values and have applied them to good effect, of *course* you're going to believe they're Right and Moral and Good!  Of course you're going to use them as the reference point from which to judge any other sets of values you encounter!  What else are you going to do?  People *need* cultural values, as I said above, and unless something strong enough to shake 'em happens (e.g. religious conversion, powerful cross-cultural experience, etc.), will use the values they grew up with as a rulebook.

(I suspect that one of the reasons why religious converts are notoriously fervent is the very fact that they are trying to reject  the values with which they grew up for another set.  Hence the need for very emphatic belief and behaviour to try and "lock them in").

Then along came individualism, teaching us that we're free to believe our own beliefs, choose our own actions and live our own lives, and should accord other people the same freedom, even if their beliefs/actions/lives violate some of our most deeply held rules.  Not easy.  When you believe that your rulebook defines what is *right*, you can't help feeling that anyone who violates its tenets is *wrong* and will have bad results, no matter what you know you're supposed to feel or say to the contrary.  Hence the bad press of "political correctness" in the individualist world... people mouthing freedom of choice platitudes to toe the politically acceptable line when millimetres below the surface they *know* that Islam/paganism/homosexuality/etc. is *Wrong*.

I have little time for skin-deep political correctness with no understanding (and besides, these days I can spot an ethnocentric value judgment miles away, hidden beneath a politically correct veil or no).  As someone whose job is to increase awareness and understanding, I'd much rather hear what people *really* think, offensive or no, so that it can be explored and worked with (not necessarily on this mailing list, I hasten to add, but on the job).  Political correctness is a real nuisance for me when I'm doing needs analysis interviews.  People are so afraid and on the defensive they're scared to make *any* comments about *any* group.  I try to ask them about any difficult cross-cultural encounters they've had, and they're convinced that I'm about to turn them in to Equal Opportunity.  Then, once they're reassured that I won't, they're afraid to mention the apparent cultural background of the person in question, because this is "racist".  AARRRGHHH!!

I then have to gently, carefully explain that in order to provide them with an interpretation of what may have happened cross-culturally, it is truly very helpful to know what culture they were dealing with, so that I can figure out what clash of values was responsible!  I usually get the information I need out of them in the end, and it's amazing how easily hardened prejudices can dissolve when they realise the "rude" behaviour of the person concerned stemmed from a simple difference in cultural rules (for example, in India, you don't usually say "thank you" to someone for doing a job they are paid for, like a shop assistant.  In Australia you do.  "Those Indians think I'm some sort of servant!  I'm sorry, culture is no excuse for rudeness, they can't even say thank you... how much does that cost them?  It's just common courtesy." etc.etc...)

Going back to the OT religious flame-skirmish (casting off the cross-cultural psychology mantle for a more perilous fire-proof suit), I think we have a bit of a dominant majority culture issue on our hands.  From all I've gathered, most OT listmembers are from countries where the dominant majority are English speaking WASPy types, right?  UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand?  Makes perfect sense on a list centred around an English series of books.

(Tabouli retreats into her concrete bunker once more, and continues her over the PA system)

It's therefore reasonable to assume that a lot of listmembers are members of this dominant majority (perhaps overt believers in the Christian faith, perhaps only sharing Christian-type rules by osmosis from society).  Lucky types, they, growing up in a country where the State and institutions largely agree that their rulebook is the definitive one.  For those who grew up in predominantly WASP circles themselves, where their version of WASPy rules were applied to mostly good effect, and without any major contradictory experiences which lead them to question them, it would be quite natural and quite blameless for them to assume that their rulebook defines what is Right.  Why wouldn't they?  After all, those rules worked perfectly well for them, and everyone they know, are supported by the education system, the media, the church, the government... surely they *must* be Right, and therefore people who violate the rules are Wrong.

However.

Sooner or later, most people raised in the security of a dominant majority culture will run into some situation which challenges their rulebook.  Certainly they'd find it all but impossible to avoid the individualism "freedom of lifestyle" message these days.  It could be discovering that their daughter is gay, or forming a close friendship with someone from a minority ethnic group or religion, or meeting people who violate some of their rules in some other way yet seem to be perfectly reasonable, "good" people, or living overseas for a couple of years.  Depending on the strength and circumstances of that challenge, it might change the way they view the rules, and which ones they endorse, and might lead them to delete or replace some.

People who weren't raised in a dominant majority culture, or who adopt a lifestyle outside it (by choice or by obligation) don't have that security.  By definition their rulebooks contain material that runs contrary to what the dominant culture says is Right.  What do they do?  Some try to edit their rulebook to make it as much like the dominant one as they can, like the black children who reject black dolls and want white dolls and playmates because they've received the message that "white is better" (at as young as 3!).  Some fight to have their own, violating rules accepted as of equal value as those the dominant culture decrees to be Right.  An uphill battle, since the secure dominant majority have the power and not much incentive to validate rules which violate their own - they have the upper hand, they define what's Right... why let dangerous Wrongness pollute *their* society?  When the right circumstances arise and some of the dominant culture members come on-side social change can gain ground (as it has with environmentalism, feminism, etc.), but it's not easy.

To get personal here, this is the context into which I'd put John's "touchiness" about Wicca and homosexuality.  Both of these violate some rules in the standard WASP rulebook, namely those gleaned from the Bible which warn against "man lying with man" and "witchcraft".  Sure, lots of WASPs reject those rules to a lesser or greater degree (many on this list do, and I mentioned my devoutly Catholic practising homosexual friend), and interpretations of the Biblical passages can be fought over, but I think the rules are there, like 'em or not.  For those who belong to the WASP dominant culture and endorse these rules to any degree, there's likely to be some discomfort, voiced or not, about a religion and "lifestyle" that violate them, and also that instinctive feeling that their rulebook is Right and therefore that which violates its tenets is Wrong and potentially dangerous.  Individualism may stop them from declaring this too emphatically, or trying to bring others around to their view, but the feeling lingers.  (Another example of this is the Jewish take on the celebration of Christmas debate a while back).

Now I'll toss aside any attempt at sweeping theoretical comments and head for IMHO...

...homophobia really bothers me.  If you accept that homosexuality is either genetic or the product of early socialisation (as growing evidence suggests), and know that the dominant culture rulebook sees it as a violation of a very touchy rule (as it concerns sex), where does that leave homosexual people?  Pretending to follow the rules (to people they don't trust, to all others, or, in severe cases, to themselves) and internalising the idea that they are Wrong and Bad to break so deep a rule (hence high suicide rate), or going as public as they dare, fighting to rewrite the rulebook and risking the consequences of rule violation... rejection by their family, friends, colleagues, prospective employers (etc.), physical violence, marginalisation, discrimination, and so on?  Unenviable.  As for the "homosexuals voluntarily choose a sinful lifestyle" argument, why would people choose this sort of oppression voluntarily?  Masochism?  Hedonism?  Whenever I hear this argument, I remember the first gay friend I ever had, who told me that, bravado, loyalty and gay pride aside, he'd much rather be straight, because then his family wouldn't have thrown him out, and he could have children, and he wouldn't constantly be living in fear of being bashed or rejected.  As he had been.

It still makes me sad, remembering that.

Tabouli.


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