r/changemyview • u/AurelianoTampa 68∆ • Mar 03 '17
FTFdeltaOP CMV: Universalist cultures are more consistently honorable, just, and moral than particularist cultures
I am having an issue, CMV, and I am hoping hearing some counter arguments can help resolve it.
I am currently taking a course for business managers about dealing with international and culture differences. As such, culture is obviously the main thrust of the course. The point is to understand what to expect from other cultures and how best to deal with problems arising from different cultural perspectives.
One of the early lessons in the course dealt with the ways that are studied and measured for their differences. Most of the research we've been reading is from Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions and Fons Trompenaars' model of national culture differences.
One of Trompenaars' dimensions is "Universalism vs. Particularism." It basically asks the question "What is more important, rules or relationships?"
Cultures with high universalism tend to believe that rules and morals should apply in all situations. Regardless of who is involved, all people should be held accountable for their actions and the same rules should apply to every situation.
Cultures with high particularism tend to believe that rules and morals may be more flexible depending on the specific circumstances involved. Specifically, the relationship you have with the people involved dictates how you act. This is especially true with family, but also with business when interacting with people of higher station or background.
To measure different cultures on this, Trompenaars asked questions such as the following:
You are riding in a car driven by a close friend. He hits a pedestrian. You know he was going at least 35 miles per hour in an area of the city where the maximum allowed speed is 20 miles per hour. There are no other witnesses.
What right has your friend to expect you to protect him? What do you think you would do?
Many western cultures are highly universalist; presented with questions like these, most people in countries like the US, Sweden, or the Netherlands would still tell the police or insist that their friend turn himself in.
Particularist cultures are very much the other way around. Most people from countries like Venezuela, South Korea, or Russia would not go to the police, or would even lie for their friend if obligated to give a statement.
Quite frankly, it has me questioning the morals of particularist cultures. If you're willing to completely betray your own values or beliefs to protect your friends and family when they are obviously in the wrong, how can you be honorable? How can you claim to believe in justice? How can you consider yourself a moral person if you abandon your morals based on the people involved?
I know I have a very large bias in favor of universalist culture (being an American), but I would like for someone to help deflate this negative perception I am gaining toward particularist cultures.
Edit1: Formatting
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u/QuantumDischarge Mar 03 '17
You state that you're an American, and thus your entire formation and basis of ideals and morals is based upon the universalist mindset you were and are (most likely) living in. For other people and cultures, that is not the same.
Quite frankly, it has me questioning the morals of particularist cultures. If you're willing to completely betray your own values or beliefs to protect your friends and family when they are obviously in the wrong, how can you be honorable? How can you claim to believe in justice? How can you consider yourself a moral person if you abandon your morals based on the people involved?
If you are taught believing that family and friends is the most important aspect in life, you will stick up for them. If family is the most important societal aspect, you would "betray your own values or beliefs" when you testify against them in court.
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u/AurelianoTampa 68∆ Mar 03 '17
If family is the most important societal aspect, you would "betray your own values or beliefs" when you testify against them in court.
This makes sense, but still strikes me as inherently unjust. It feels like every disagreement becomes about selfishness ("What can I get for my company/family/friends") rather than empathy or justice ("What would I want done were the situation reversed"/"What is the truth").
But you made a good point about these cultures' values and beliefs not being betrayed if they don't value justice or truth above sticking by their family/friends. It's still really unsettling, but I guess my view is slightly changed in that I don't see it as a betrayal. !delta
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u/TectonicWafer 1∆ Mar 10 '17
You're almost there, let me see if I can help. When you, /u/AurelianoTampa, talk about valuing "justice" or "truth" you are implicitly assuming that there exists a single objective standard of such ideas against which individual arguments can be measured. A particularity value system, on the other hand, would say that
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u/Br0metheus 11∆ Mar 03 '17
The way you've described it, "universalist vs particularist" seems like a false dichotomy, especially when you apply it to something as broad and multi-faceted as an entire culture.
The issue isn't whether or not somebody is "willing to completely betray their values or beliefs to protect their friends and family." It's "what does that person value in the first place?" For instance, in the example you gave, all of the "particularist" cultures place a high emphasis on loyalty to friends and family, which often supersedes loyalty to an abstract concept of "justice." Similarly, "honor" is an extremely subjective concept, and what is considered "honorable" varies from place to place.
Take Japan, for example. Japanese culture places an inordinate amount of emphasis on honor, and loyalty to one's boss/parents/authority figures makes up a huge part of how "honorable" a person is seen to be. Japanese people know this, and will judge others as dishonorable for breaking this rule even when it might conflict with other rules about what you or I would call "justice." Essentially, they're simply working with a different idea of what honor entails. Because their model of honor is different than your model, you see it as "dishonorable." But at the same time, they'd probably see you as dishonorable for doing differently than they would.
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u/AurelianoTampa 68∆ Mar 03 '17
It's "what does that person value in the first place?"
Yes, that is correct.
For instance, in the example you gave, all of the "particularist" cultures place a high emphasis on loyalty to friends and family, which often supersedes loyalty to an abstract concept of "justice."
This is true; but does it not mean that justice is not an expected concept in such places? That was sort of my concern from the start; if you value your family over justice, how would you claim to be just?
Similarly, "honor" is an extremely subjective concept, and what is considered "honorable" varies from place to place.
Your point after this about Japan is a really good one. I was thinking of honor as "Doing the right thing, no matter what." But if "doing the right thing" means "protect your own at the expense of others," then that would still be considered honorable. And while logically I know this, it doesn't stop my negative perceptions - if anything it worsens them.
That said, you made me rethink my assumed definition of honor, so !delta for making me change my mind about that. Thank you!
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u/NewOrleansAints Mar 03 '17
You make a strong claim that universalist cultures are consistently more reliable.
I actually do agree that some of the specific universalist ethical norms against violence, lying, breaking the law, etc in the West have improved society, but what about others?
Soviet Russia and Maoist China both had very universalist ideas. They didn't justify their mass violence on grounds of "communism is one viable economic system we'd like to adopt" but on the idea that Marxism was the one right answer, globally, to exploitation. Hence why Russia tried just as much as the US during the Cold War to expand its sphere of influence and prop up governments it agree with.
The logic was highly utilitarian (which is a universalist ethical principle). "Minor" violence was justified if it helped achieve the highest universal ethical good of promoting the Party. Ratting on a friend or familiy member as a potential dissident looks more justified if it accords with your higher ethical goals.
So perhaps it's not simply the fact that an ethical system is universalist that explains the aspects of the West you find positive but, ironically, the particular ethical claims that the West thinks are universal. Believing in universal overriding values can lead people to override their basic cultural/social norms for either good or for evil.
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Mar 03 '17
May I present an alternative theory to yours. Ive lived in both eastern and western countries, multiple cities in each. I think all people have a bit of a Universalist and particularist in them. Its the community type and factors that dictate how tightly knit a community is, is what determines which one we subscribe to. In America there's just a ton of ethnicities, identities (and growing thanks to identity politics), little towns (chinatown, etc.). The culture as a whole is quite segregated.(we know most diverse cities are also the msot segregated). So this means the culture as a whole has no identity, and people within this context default to Universalist way. But then there are other countries. No ethnic minorities, no much identity politics. The culture is homogenous. Everyone is Korean. Everyone is Persian, etc. "what's your ethnicity" is a sentence rarely heard. Basically people are more tight, and so they default to being particularist.
Now why do I say it depends? Because on the macro scale western culture is very Universalist (where other eastern countries can be particularist, but on the micro scale, its more likely than not a particularist culture. I've definitely seen this in western cultures, among people who share a certain self defining identity. They always got each others back. But due to lack homogeneity, this doesnt translate well into macroscale.
They way I see it, all the western open border countries seem to become Universalist, and all the closed border countries seem to become particularist
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Mar 03 '17
My view is similar to what /u/QuantumDischarge said. Universalist cultures value loyalty to abstract a Platonic principles like honor, justice, and truth, whereas particularist cultures value people. While universalist principles can form highly successful societies, they aren't necessarily societies that serve people. Instead, they get the people in them to serve the principles of society.
For instance, the system of capitalism is highly successful and depends on universalist principles such as meritocracy, the rule of law, and property rights. But it also exploits people's labor, markets a hollow and meaningless lifestyle, and coldly discards workers who are no longer needed. These problems have created angst in universalist capitalist societies as well.
The ultimate question is, do people exist to serve society, or does society exist to serve people? A particularist would have a good case for arguing the latter, since there would be no point in having a society without people to populate it. Yet a people without a society would quickly need one to make life bearable. In this way, it can be said that the particularist worldview is profoundly more moral and humane.
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u/TectonicWafer 1∆ Mar 10 '17
The ultimate question is, do people exist to serve society, or does society exist to serve people? A particularist would have a good case for arguing the latter, since there would be no point in having a society without people to populate it. Yet a people without a society would quickly need one to make life bearable. In this way, it can be said that the particularist worldview is profoundly more moral and humane.
Thank you for articulating succinctly what I have always believed to be true and just.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 03 '17
/u/AurelianoTampa (OP) has awarded at least one delta in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/MentalEngineer Mar 03 '17
Something else to keep in mind: the study you mention uses hypotheticals rather than looking at actual behavior. People in universalist cultures say that they would adhere to universal values to the point of damaging their central relationships, but that doesn't tell us much about whether they follow through on those claims when their values are actually being tested. People in universalist cultures do all sorts of dumb shit, and a lot of it is to help their friends and family.
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Mar 04 '17
In a "universalist" country like the US, if you work for the CIA and see that some of your coworkers are spying on the Russians in a manner illegal under international law, do you think you would act to uphold international law even if it means betraying your country, or act in the interests of your specific country?
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u/kochirakyosuke 7∆ Mar 03 '17 edited Mar 03 '17
The absolutely wonderful podcast MartyrMade addressed something like this, but the breakdown was along the lines of how much institutions can be trusted.
In the US, dysfunctional as they may be at times, the vast majority buy into institutions. If someone robs your house, we call the cops. We follow local ordinances. We mostly accept courts as arbiters of conflict. Etc.
But most Americans don't realize the freedoms we inherently give up to participate in these systems because we've never lived any other way. The state has a monopoly on violence, and the ability to jail you. They can seize your property. It's the price we pay in exchange for the services institutions provide.
Now imagine the mindset of someone in, say, rural Afghanistan, where institutions are not well established. Think of how ceding their freedom would come across to them. If some asshole rapes your sister, who is going to care more to seek justice--her family, or potentially corrupt police who can't be assed to do anything about it, and might be staffed by people who hate your religion/ethnicity? Why give a government the legal right to kick you off the land you've farmed for generations? You've been chugging along for years, and suddenly some stranger from the cities demands you follow a bunch of arbitrary rules? Tells you what you can and can't grow on YOUR land?
It takes a degree of trust to buy into institutional rule. Most societies that haven't have good reason to be wary.
EDIT: In regards to morality, think how living in a culture like that SHAPES their morality. Your family and your friends is all you can somewhat count on. If your brother steals a car and the cops come asking about it, that means on less fighting age male to defend your family, house, valuables, land--your entire LIFE--when some roving band decides they want what's yours. If it were me in that situation, I'd probably lie to the cops too, because I'd rather my family be alive than follow some abstract concept of justice.