Culture

Urging Cambodians To Critique Their Culture

Chhay Lin Lim Culture, Liberty , , , , ,

Brandon has recently referred to my comment that the Cambodian culture is ‘backward’ in this post. In response to that, I would like to share some more thoughts about the Cambodian culture and why I would urge all Cambodians (and all others) to critique their own culture.

I notice that some Cambodian people romantically adore their Khmer culture. Some people’s adoration stretches to the extent that they cannot accept any critiques about their culture as if critiquing the culture equals criticizing the person. Their adoration takes levels that are frightening me – examples are sentiments of supreme nationalism, the gullible belief in distorted histories that have pushed Cambodians into a victimized position that they gladly exploit in political and personal relations, and their willingness to fight and die for the country. To them, the excessive love of one’s culture or nation is noble, but to me it is ridiculous. It doesn’t require heart to love something, it requires more heart to critique the thing you love.

Several aspects of the Khmer culture that I find absolutely deplorable:

  • the hierarchical structure of its social life. Cambodian children are raised to respect and to be obedient toward their elders and toward Buddhist monks. Instilled with strict social rules, the Cambodians are unable to properly reflect on social values and social norms. Children are not encouraged to think for themselves, and to oppose their elders as the elders are always considered right. It should be no surprise that they grow up lacking self-reflective skills;
  • the people´s highly status oriented attitude and their low demeanor toward those who are more wealthy. Cambodian people are extremely status oriented and excessively adore those who enjoy a higher status. It is considered impolite to make eye contact with someone of higher status. In return, empowered by a feeling of superiority despite their plain stupidity, those of higher status look down on the lower classes;
  • their idleness and slowness, which seems to be common among most native South-East-Asians and which may be attributed to their tropical climate. Cambodian people are lazy and like to spend their time gazing around mind-numbingly;
  • its false and pretentious intelligentsia. The Cambodian intelligentsia are like dogs: they bark so much, but they know absolutely nothing! Equipped with beautiful words and eloquent expressions, their words are often empty of substance. They are good at doubtlessly regurgitating any knowledge or wisdom that they have read, but are incapable of critical thinking and of constructing their own ideas;
  • and worst of all its culture of self-pity. Cambodians like to pity their own existence and it is in this self-pity that their suffering is multiplied and their extreme egoism is revealed. This most self-destructive emotion which drowns them in a sea of depression is often used as a weapon to manipulate others, and is sometimes expressed through hysterical lamentations. See here and here for some examples of their miserable cries.

Although I know that my harsh critique of Cambodian culture does not please some Cambodians, they should know that in criticism there is often a desire to improve the people’s situation and to elevate them. It requires effort and energy to care enough about something to speak freely about it. I would urge all Cambodians who would like to improve their nation to gather the strength to stand above their culture so that they can look down on it, reflect on it, and critique it – even better, make fun of it and eventually transcend it.

Hence, Cambodian, go and indulge yourself in some self-mockery!

Nationality, Ethnicity, Race, Culture, and the Importance of Citizenship for the Individual

Brandon Christensen Comments , , , , , , , , , ,

Judging by some of the fruitful dialogues that have gone on here in the distant past and just the other day, I’d say that there is still a lot of work to do regarding a few concepts that seem to have meaning to them but are not really well-defined or well-understood.

I am writing about nationality, ethnicity, race, and culture, of course.

Dr Stocker and myself have taken aim at nationality before, and Michelangelo has taken aim at ethnicity while Jacques has taken a few cracks at race and ethnicity. Mike has some notes on ethnic identity as well. Culture has been discussed here at NOL before, but an effort to systematically define it has not been undertaken. (Update 12/8/14: Matthew has also taken a crack at ethnicity.)

The problem of these concepts can best be illustrated with a hypothetical (with apologies to Matthew!): There is a tribe in the state of Kenya known as the Maasai. In Kenya the Maasai are more than a tribe, though. The Maasai are considered by both the Maasai themselves and their neighbors to be an ethnic group. The Maasai and their neighbors within Kenya also consider themselves to be Kenyans. The Maasai have a distinct culture that sets them apart in some way from other ethnic groups in Kenya. Most Kenyans, including the Maasai, consider themselves to be racially black.

Now suppose that a single Maasai man from Kenya goes to Syria, or Belgium, or Canada, or China for a vacation. The Maasai man is suddenly no longer Maasai, for all intents and purposes. He still has a nationality, and an ethnic, a cultural, and a racial component to him, though. The Maasai man’s ethnicity suddenly becomes Kenyan rather than Maasai abroad. So, too, does his culture become Kenyan or simply African. He is still black racially. Notice, though, that these concepts mean different things in different contexts.

Suppose further that our Maasai man goes to Ghana for a vacation. Ghana is in west Africa, whereas Kenya is on the east coast. Africa is huge, and the gulfs between societies on the west coast and east coast of sub-Saharan Africa are cavernous. Nevertheless, our Maasai man is likely to be able to identify ethnically as a Maasai in Ghana. He is likely to be able to identify as part of the Kenyan nation. Culturally, though, our Maasai man is also going to be identified as Kenyan rather than Maasai.

Confused? Yeah, me too.

Here is another way to confuse you. The Ashanti people of Ghana are considered by others in the region to be a nation, but not an ethnic group. The Ashanti belong, instead, to a pan-regional group of people known as the Akan, and the Akan are considered to be the ethnic group while the smaller Ashanti group is considered to be a nation. This, of course, comes into conflict with what it means to be a Ghanaian. In Europe or Asia or the New World, a member of the Ashanti nation would be considered instead as a member of the Ghanaian nation.

In sub-Saharan Africa everybody who is not black is white. So Persians, Arabs, Eskimos, Armenians, Koreans, Japanese, French, English, Dutch, and Brahmins are all racially white to Africans. Africans base their distinctions between whites on their different behavioral patterns. So a Sudanese man may be working with two groups of white people but he only distinguishes them (suppose one is Chinese and one is English) by how they behave toward each other, toward him and his associates, and in relation to the rules of the game established in Sudan. Race is the most prominent feature of foreigners in Africa, but curiosity about differences between whites abounds.

The combinations for confusion are endless. I have not even broached the topic of what is means to be ‘American’, for example.

This is where the importance of viewing the world as made up of individuals comes into play. This is where the abstract legal notion of individual rights becomes an important component of good governance and internationalism.

I think we could all agree that is does no good to ignore these confusing identities and attempting instead to cram them into a specific framework (“Western individualism”). This is where economists go wrong, but paradoxically it’s also where they are most right.

As I noted a couple of days ago, economics as a discipline tends to be more hierarchical but also more successful than the other social science disciplines. I didn’t have enough space to note there that this hierarchy is limited to a very small segment of society. Is it at all possible to establish a hierarchy of sorts, a unified code of laws that protects the individual but prevent this hierarchy of last resort from becoming the norm in other ways? A hierarchy that leaves plenty of space for independent networks and fragmented communities of choice?

I don’t even know how these question tie in to my title. I simply know that they do. Somehow.

From the Comments: What *are* the institutions that promote rational ignorance?

Brandon Christensen Comments , , , , ,

Rick answers my question:

Let’s go a step further than institutions: Instincts.*

Our ancestors survived a dangerous natural environment by taking on genetic strategies that allow us to use our big-old-dolphin-brains in clever ways, but that falls short of perfect Spock-ness. We are easily excited by certain things and will often answer easier questions than the ones posed to us without realizing it.

So besides the fact that it’s genuinely rational to be ignorant, our psychological makeup creates a situation that exacerbates the problem. Voters ask the question “will I be better off in four years with that asshole in charge or this one?” but answer the question “which of these schmucks would drive me to suicide slowest if I were trapped on a desert island with one of them?”

Let’s get back to the institutional question… Rational ignorance is a thing because we are facing a collective action problem. Through repeated play the problem of rational ignorance has created an electoral institution that rewards showmanship (playing on the psychology of voters). There are two questions: 1) Why did things unfold so that this is the case? 2) How might we change them for the better?

I suspect the answer to 1) is that people genuinely thought voting was going to be about information. Perhaps it even was at some point. And if it was successful it’s only natural that its scope would be expanded. But as its scope expands the informational issues become larger and it becomes more rational to be ignorant. (That’s one possible story but not the only one.)

The status quo isn’t going to change without a major shift in the way people think. One way to get that shift would be to fix high school civics classes (Okay, where do I sign up for sea-steading?!). I think one of the higher marginal benefit things is satire (tangent: my introduction to satire was This Hour has 22 Minutes which I watched before I was a full-blown libertarian). One reason I like Jon Stewart so much is that he fights back against the non-role of information in the political-media nexus. If “the people” acknowledge that politics isn’t about making “the right choice” in some objective sense they will be admitting the problem.

*Now, if I remember my last anthropology class correctly instincts aren’t as real as we think they are… but what from what I’ve gleaned about evolutionary psychology and neurology there is hard-wiring, or something like it, that kinda-sorta stands between instinct and culture. So I’ll (perhaps incorrectly) use the word instinct as short-hand for psychological features of humans that arose from our evolution as a social animal.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
  1. As Bad As ObamaCare Is, Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act Was Worse
  2. From our own Dr Shikida in the Cato Journal: “Why Some States Fail: The Role of Culture” [pdf]
  3. Stop Blaming Professors: Study finds students themselves, not professors, lead some to become more radical in college
  4. The World Cup and “soccer” in general: Nationalism versus internationalism
  5. The agony of a Left-wing gun lover
  6. History happens all the time

Un Menteur bien français

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , ,

Les Français, les habitants de mon pays natal, ne sont pas assez soucieux de vérité. Ils ont tendance à raconter un peu n’importe quoi, à ne pas corriger les mensonges , et à occulter par omission leurs crime collectifs (tel que le massacre de manifestants Algériens pacifiques à Paris, le_____ )

Par ailleurs, il y a des Europeens pour qui l’anti-Américanisme sert de philosophie politique. Il n’est plus nécessaire de s’emmerder à étudier les difficiles textes sacrés du Marxisme comme au bon vieux temps. Le “bon vieux temps”, c’était quand il n’y avait guère que deux intellectuels français qui ne se déclaraient pas – d’une façon ou d’une autre – “Marxistes”. Aujourd’hui, il suffit de hair l’Amérique. C’est cool, même si on est obligé de l’exprimer dans la langue de l’enemi car les Russes, aussi bien que les Chinois -ainsi que les Albanais d’ailleurs – usent du même mot: “cool”. (Les Albanais sont les habitants de ce grand pays communiste qui avait déclarél’Union Soviétique, puis la Chine, “déviationistes” – pas assez Marxiste-Léniniste -dans les années soixante-dix!)

Je regarde souvent TV5. Il s’agit de la chaine internationale francophone. Il y a des informations internationales en Français cinq ou six fois par jour sur TV5. J’ignore le nom du présentateur principal des informations. C’est un homme (de visage européen) alors que la plupart de ses collègues sont des femmes. D’après sa diction et son accent, je suis 96% sur qu’il est français. Il a une quarantaine d’années ou un peu moins. Ce n’est pas un jeunot. Pourtant, il dit souvent des conneries, très souvent même. Parfois, c’est pire que des conneries parce-qu’il ne s’agit pas d’ignorance ordinaire mais de préjugés bêtes et méchants. Continue reading →

Race and Ethnicity

Jacques Delacroix History , , , ,

My Facebook friend, VXA who is a disgruntled Afghan immigrant but quite smart some of the time asks this question: What’s the difference between race and ethnicity?

I am a sociologist by trade and I think I know the answer.

Both are vague terms. Race is a well established habit to classify people according to certain selected physical characteristics. The physical features are selected generally according to their usefulness within a given social agenda. Thus the presence or absence of  hair on the second knuckle of the index finger never is selected because it’s not useful. Skin color and hair shape often are because they allow for quick classification.  Medieval Europeans had no category “negro.” They would describe people in physical terms without assigning them to a  social category “Du Guesclin, the Marshall, was very dark of skin and hair.” It turns out that famous French historical figure was probably a man of some African blood. He would have been considered “colored” in Georgia in 1850. Same goes for Pushkin, the Russian national poet. Continue reading →

Big Horrors, Small Horrors

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , ,

“Militia” members guided by official Syrian “security” forces massacre civilians in their houses.They use both tanks and knives. About fifty of the civilians – all terrorist opponents of the Assad regime, of course –  are children under ten. The response of nine rich countries including the US is severe: They call in the Syrian ambassadors, Assad’s buddies all, and they tell them severely to pack up and leave. No ifs and buts; teach the child-killers a lesson; the bastards will get the message now! Every one of those countries has an air force capable of destroying all Syrian tanks within three weeks.

Not so long ago, Arabs of all provenances were infiltrating into Iraq though Syria, precisely. They were on their way to kill the American oppressors who had destroyed that great assassin, the mass murderer of Arabs, Saddam Hussein. Where are the Arab volunteers now infiltrating Syria to go and protect Arab children from Assad’s slaughterers? If I were an Arab man from any country today, I would be dying of shame. Or I would consider donning the hijab. Here is a question: If the violent jihadists could do it, enter Syria clandestinely, why can’t you?

I am repeating myself, I know: When Arabs massacre Arabs it’s not so bad, right?

And, by the way, the silence of the Israeli political class regarding the atrocities next door wins Israel no friends I would guess. Continue reading →

Anthropology Is So Cool

Brandon Christensen Current Events , ,

We interrupt this program to bring you some awesome pop-cultural news:

Japanese Bagel Heads

And a tidbit of an old video:

Oh What a Blow that Phantom Gave Me

I knew I chose anthropology for a reason.