Julia Rossiter
Professor Sullivan
ENG101
14 November 2016
How many people have been told, “You think too much?” The theories that Ruth Benedict stands by in Patterns of Culture all point to an idea that our species’ most valuable strength, being capacity for symbolic thought, is simultaneously threatening. As cultures thrive nearby one another, our “general practice,” Professor Sullivan points out, is “to assume that everything we believe and value is ‘normal’ and ‘good’ and that everything different than what we believe is abnormal and bad.” It seems we are naturally eager to utilize this skill and assign a quick, dispensable judgment to all that we find. In many ways, today and yesterday prove the severe weight of our tendencies.
Joshua Frey, I thought your post was reasonably on fire. If that makes any sense. The term you used, “faux national[ism],” excellently encompasses the guise that shields Western culture’s forceful pervasiveness. Not only do we “take culture like no tomorrow,” as you said, but we often let it be used as commodity—a tool to connect, demean, or profit on an agenda. The internet’s newfound role in globalization is interesting to me. Though it often seems to foster an unfortunate disregard for customs in many areas (looking at you, racist Facebook memes), it only makes sense, as it is an extension of our physical world. However, it could be said that the internet’s space has developed a culture in itself, with sub-cultures on various websites, containing a population dispersed throughout the world. And I think this is worthwhile to consider when we step back and see room to expand our ability to think relatively. We have access to the most tremendous advancement human communication has ever seen.
Will we ever really transform these somewhat primal habits of assessment, though? The claim Ruth Benedict makes on page two is critical: “No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes.” Perhaps, similar to Wineburg’s work on historical thinking, this is simply a disadvantage that we need to see and acknowledge clearly. Instead of building ourselves up to believe that our minds can simply dispose of cultural influence, it may be more beneficial to put the energy into seeing where it has already sunk its claws. These are the “preliminary propositions” Benedict argues we need to accept. Is it possible to achieve? I am not so sure. On a broad scale, it seems like a fantasy that Professor Sullivan describes well: “No moral superiority. Only objective and dispassionate acceptance of all forms of human societies … driven by the idea that difference is not wrong, it is just relative.” At the very least, a focus on these anthropologist values should direct its growing presence in the sciences as a whole. Right now, they are about as good as it seems to get when we consider powerful institutions.