Fallacy

30 Cultural Bias
It is hard to avoid judging others by ourselves. It is especially hard to be tolerant of the customs or beliefs of other groups, classes, cultures, when they run counter to our own. All of us are molded by our social life until we become its creatures; we mistakenly take custom for human nature. "Cultural fallacy" is the name anthropologists give to the misapplying of the values of one culture to another. Ruth Benedict showed in her Patterns of Culture that so fundamental to western culture is a sort of social ambition or aggressiveness that it is hard even to find means of explaining these traits to the Pueblo Indians, whose culture discourages such motivation. Cultural bias is allied to many sorts of social prejudice, and its name can conveniently cover them all.
Personification is taking man as the measure of all things. The cultural fallacy is taking one's group as the measure of all men. Both involve a pouring of new wine into old measures. The measure is often a moral or aesthetic judgment. In the case of the cultural fallacy, sometimes people find the foreign to be "alien" in the pejorative sense; that is, they regard it as bad or ugly or both. At other times, they more charitably find it "exotic" or "quaint," that is, novel and interesting in its appearance but not fundamentally different: "We do it this way. They do it that way. That's all." Both reactions reflect a particular "pattern of culture." Both judge. The one frankly accuses. Though the other attempts to excuse, it excuses on the ground that what is different is only superficially so: one's own pattern is somehow still basic.
Now some cultural patterns may indeed be basic, as where two differing rituals serve the identical cultural function. Whether a swain courts his choice with a box of chocolates or with a handful of raw fish is probably an economic accident. Moreover, some cultural traits to be found in the world, indeed, in our own culture, are bad or ugly. When Bertrand Russell remarks that we cannot know it is bad to enjoy the infliction of cruelty, since science cannot prove it bad, he seems to lean over into cultural relativism -- the opposite of the cultural fallacy. If science can show that the enjoyment of cruelty is psychotic in an individual or a culture, then that would seem reason enough to call it bad wherever it occurs. Psychosis is self-defeating and cannot consistently be encouraged or permitted, if survival is a goal.
" There is no occasion to despair of a knowledge of morality, or to relegate morality to an area of mere feeling, in order to account for the fact that cultural patterns exhibit differing moral codes as well as mere differences in custom or etiquette. It is, in fact, a truly scientific knowledge of morality that teaches us that what might be good in relation to our culture may be good or bad or indifferent relative to other cultures. Yet some things, indeed, must earn the same moral judgment wherever they occur, though these are apt to be fewer than most people think. It will require a profound study to understand this complex planet -- well beyond the capacity of any one man. Yet it is not beyond the power of every responsible person to refrain from judging the practices of other ethnic, religious, occupational, or class groups, by the principles of one's own little place in the world. The chances are that, far from being the basic principles of human conduct, these reflect only the most parochial or transitory prejudices.
EXAMPLE COMMENT
An American soldier, returning from Korea, praised the endurance and courage of the Koreans. Then he complained that the whole country "stank" from the "incredible" methods of fertilizing the rice fields, and he added, "Even the food of these gooks stinks." Courage and endurance are praiseworthy traits in most cultures, perhaps in all, and the soldier's praise of the Koreans, who prize them highly, is deserved. When the soldier speaks of the use of human excrement as an "incredible" method of fertilizing, he shows only his ignorance, since vast areas of the world employ this method. It is true that Kimch'i "stinks." So do many western herbs and cheeses -- consider limberger. The word "gook" has become a name of contempt; it is an offense, not only to the Korean people, but to all men of decent feeling. Incidentally, the name arose innocently enough, for it is close to the way the Korean people refer to themselves: their word for "person," occurring in many names, is "Kuk."
Frenchman Pierre returns to Paris. "L'Amerique! Une telle experience! Why, they boo the umpire at their games and have a 'drum majorette' parade the stage when they are nominating the President! I'd rather lose half our empire than have people chew gum in my face."

Hero Peter returns to New York. "Yes, I got the Croix de Guerre complete with a manly kiss. You bet I blushedl"
When the cultural bias impedes understanding between cultures so closely related as those of contemporary France and the United States, no wonder that some practices in distant or primitive cultures seem, not merely strange, but contrary to good morals or even to human nature.
Northern travelers often return from the South complaining of the indolence, ignorance, racial attitudes, and general backwardness of certain areas. Typical comments include "They're still trying to live in the antebellum days." "Even their language reflects their backwardness; they drawl their words and drag their feet." "Jim Crow is simply insufferable." These remarks are as intolerant as Jim Crow. Some of the areas of the South are, indeed, economically backward -- through little fault of their own, as people don't willingly choose pellagra and substandard housing. Jim Crow is indeed intolerable, but the Supreme Court itself has recognized that the process of non-segregation involves vast complexities and difficulties and requires only that it be achieved in a reasonable time. As to the way of speaking, it reflects ordinary dialectical or regional differences. These same travelers, if they go to England, probably come home imitating the oh-so-funny "veddy, veddy" British pronunciations.

EXAMPLE	COMMENT
An American soldier, returning from Korea, praised the endurance and courage of the Koreans. Then he complained that the whole country "stank" from the "incredible" methods of fertilizing the rice fields, and he added, "Even the food of these gooks stinks."	Courage and endurance are praiseworthy traits in most cultures, perhaps in all, and the soldier's praise of the Koreans, who prize them highly, is deserved. When the soldier speaks of the use of human excrement as an "incredible" method of fertilizing, he shows only his ignorance, since vast areas of the world employ this method. It is true that Kimch'i "stinks." So do many western herbs and cheeses -- consider limberger. The word "gook" has become a name of contempt; it is an offense, not only to the Korean people, but to all men of decent feeling. Incidentally, the name arose innocently enough, for it is close to the way the Korean people refer to themselves: their word for "person," occurring in many names, is "Kuk."
Frenchman Pierre returns to Paris. "L'Amerique! Une telle experience! Why, they boo the umpire at their games and have a 'drum majorette' parade the stage when they are nominating the President! I'd rather lose half our empire than have people chew gum in my face." Hero Peter returns to New York. "Yes, I got the Croix de Guerre complete with a manly kiss. You bet I blushedl"	When the cultural bias impedes understanding between cultures so closely related as those of contemporary France and the United States, no wonder that some practices in distant or primitive cultures seem, not merely strange, but contrary to good morals or even to human nature.
Northern travelers often return from the South complaining of the indolence, ignorance, racial attitudes, and general backwardness of certain areas. Typical comments include "They're still trying to live in the antebellum days." "Even their language reflects their backwardness; they drawl their words and drag their feet." "Jim Crow is simply insufferable."	These remarks are as intolerant as Jim Crow. Some of the areas of the South are, indeed, economically backward -- through little fault of their own, as people don't willingly choose pellagra and substandard housing. Jim Crow is indeed intolerable, but the Supreme Court itself has recognized that the process of non-segregation involves vast complexities and difficulties and requires only that it be achieved in a reasonable time. As to the way of speaking, it reflects ordinary dialectical or regional differences. These same travelers, if they go to England, probably come home imitating the oh-so-funny "veddy, veddy" British pronunciations.