“To understand something you have to rely on your own experience and culture,
does this mean that it is impossible to have an objective knowledge?”
To answer this question, or more correct to argue this knowledge issue I shall first define
both concepts: culture and objective knowledge.
“Culture is a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes
and influences perception and behavior - - an abstract mental blueprint or mental code.”
(eou.edu) 1
And according to Cambridge dictionary 2 , objective is “something that is based on real
fact and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings”.
Correspondingly objective knowledge is the knowledge that we all share and agree on as
“universal” facts, and not based on “personal beliefs and feeling” which as defined before,
is part of our culture.
Sense perception as a way of knowing can be seen as universal and independent from the
knower’s culture or background.
We all know (or at least think) that the sky is blue and that the grass is green.
We all agree on a lot of scientific theories and mathematical equations, therefore
mathematics, and sciences, as areas of knowledge for example can contain a lot of “facts”
and objective knowledge that almost every human would agree on.
Yet, the problem I would like to argue in this essay is the knowledge issues dependent on
culture, the ones we gain and shape through our culture and social environment.
Consequently, culture is embedded in a person’s way of life. It is difficult to quantify it,
because it frequently exists at an unconscious level, or at least tends to be so pervasive
that it escapes everyday thought, it creates what we know as “common sense”.
As mentioned in the TOK book 3 by Richard Van De Lagemaat: our common sense, that
can be seen as our “mental map of reality which includes our ideas of what is true and
what is false, what is reasonable and what is unreasonable, what is right and what wrong,
etc’.”
As human, we are in a constant need for interaction with other humans.
We live in societies, and these aspects of knowledge that are directed by our common
sense are very important, but vital and influential on our way of behaving,
communicating and living with others.
As we go further away from our “cultural bubble” more and more conflicts are expected.
I will be dealing with two major conflicts that can be faced: our inductive reasoning, and
the moral relativism. How dependent are they on culture, what conflicts can they cause?
And my experience as a knower.
While deductive reasoning goes from the general to the particular, Inductive reasoning
goes in the opposite direction – from the particular to the general.
That means that a person takes a personal experience and induce that that’s how it is
“everywhere”.
Our generalizations and stereotypes are created via inductive reasoning.
It can be very useful, if not vital for our daily life. Everyday we induce millions of things
unconsciously: like lying on my bed without being scared that it will break down because
yesterday I slept there and it has supported my weight so it should do so in the future. I
pass my train ticket in the machine everyday because I know it didn’t open last time until
I passed it in, so it should open every time I do so, etc’.
Inductive reasoning can be problematic when we tend to make hasty generalizations and
conclude some things without any reliable bases.
Every person from different culture, has had experienced different things, and been
taught to think and react differently about certain issues.
Hence, different cultures have many different ideas about the world, nature, society and
religions etc’.
In consequence, lack of knowledge about other people’s opinions and “ways of living”
let’s call it, can lead to false generalizations.
As an example I will bring my experience and the stereotypes about Israeli people.
When ever you read about Israel, it either about bombs and war or about a Jew celebrity
who went to Jerusalem to visit his/her roots because it is THE JEWISH land.
And about Jews, We know how rich and controlling they are, “everybody knows”.
So, whenever I meet a new people, from different countries, they immediately assume
that I am Jew, I am a solder going around killing Palestinians kids and of course, that I
am so wealthy.
Well, the funny thing is that I am Arab, I am Christian, I do not serve in the military and
even if I did, I would not go and shoot people all the time, and no, unfortunately I am not
particularly rich.
Then, as they know I am an Arab, I have to face another type of stereotypes and accuses,
like terrorism, religious and very close-minded etc’
I think stereotypes; especially the negative ones are the biggest factors leading to racism
and sexism between societies and people.
Second problem I would like to discuss is the moral relativism theory, I will rely my
argument on the book Theory of knowledge for the IB Diploma by Richard van de
Lagemaat.
“According to moral relativism our values are determined by the society we grow up in,
and there are no universal values. Moral values are simply customs or conventions that
vary from culture to culture.”
The diversity argument of moral relativism claims that there are no objective moral
values due to variety of moral practices.
Things like burning the widows on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands; slaughtering
prisoners by ripping the hearts out of their bodies; cannibalism etc’ were permitted by
ancient cultures.
Even nowadays, in many societies, stoning; bride kidnapping; female genital mutilation
are being practiced.
It is being justified by these societies through claims like “moral lesson”; “traditions”;
“word of God” etc’.
“The sheer diversity of such practices has been enough to convince some people of the
truth of moral relativism. Of course, given the way we have been brought up, we are
likely to find such practices barbaric; but since the people engaging in them presumably
saw nothing wrong with them, it is tempting to conclude that morality, like beauty, is in
the eye of the beholder.”
The lack of foundation argument claims that there are no ‘moral reality’ against we can
test out values to see if they are true or false.
We build up our common sense, and morals purely conditioned by our culture and
society.
Also, there is no reason behind values and moral; a person could not argue reasonably
that if you have extra food, and people in the world are starving you ought to give the
people some of your food. Of course, it can make perfect sense to me because I was
brought up to think so, but it won’t be a problem for me to make sense of the conclusion
that I am lucky if I was brought up to think that way.
As a case study I will bring again an example from Israel.
Israel is a multicultural country, eastern Europeans, some westerns, Americans, western
Jews and Arabs, mostly Muslims, and some Christians.
Israel is considered to be a first world country, “liberal”; “westernized” and surely
civilized.
Ignoring the war in Palestine and the immoral actions taken there, since they can be
justified as a war and occupation and self defense, no “primitive” immoral traditions
would be expected in the society.
Surprisingly, a female genital mutilation is widely practiced in the south by group of
Arabs called “Bedouins”.
Being Muslims, they claim that this tradition is a word of God, and they ought to do it,
also most girls there do not see any of their rights being violated, and they are totally
convinced it is morally correct.
In contradiction to these argument we can wonder, why all societies, over all ages, have
had some kind of framework, rules and obligations.
All societies from the very start of the civilization had sort of a religion they followed.
In the society it self you could find many rules protecting the insider’s property and
dignity. That killing, torturing and stealing form outsiders and enemies were permitted is
justifiable in my opinion, because it was the only way to survive and protect your own
people.
Religious and social traditions were just a way to feel protected, to show your power,
then the society stays under control, and it carried on for ages till it became
unquestionable and correct.
I am not trying to justify moral relativism, I am only trying to find the point were
societies went against “morals”.
In my belief, as humans we all share the same needs, and in a way or another, we all
created societies serving these need, but with different environment and conditions, we
created different cultures and frameworks.
It is a very complex argument that can’t be perfectly complete in a few words. But this is
my conclusion:
When we are talking about culture and objective knowledge, the problems popping out
are basically cultural relativism and cultural misconceptions.
What I brought in my argument are examples of knowledge issues dependent on culture,
like reasoning, morals, religions and beliefs, which all contribute unconsciously for
programming our common sense and way of life in human society.
Yet, I would not agree that these issues of knowledge are completely dependent on
culture. As humans, with similar needs and instincts, we share a lot of “human ethics”,
beliefs (like the existence of a supernatural power in away or another) and feeling
towards each other, especially our own people and society. And creating similar
frameworks of society like rules and leaders is and evidence for objective reasoning.
So, in addition of mathematics science, colors and smells, different cultures can agree on
basic ethics, beliefs and a way of living with other humans.
Hopefully, with globalization, and westernization, and creation of multi-cultural societies,
problems as the ones mentioned before will decrease and people will be more aware to
cultural differences and cultural understanding.