Cultural Relativism/Morals

The Challenge of Cultural Relativism by James Rachels, was a very interesting read that provoked many good thoughts from me. It had an obvious connection to Things Fall Apart, but also discussed Cultural Relativism in more detail. There was an obvious issue with cultures in Things Fall Apart, between their native tribe, and the new group that begun to take over. There is also the differences in morals between Things Fall Apart and today’s society. The first instance of this is when in Things Fall Apart, there was the deal made that if a boy and a virgin is traded to another tribe, they avoid going to war. In today’s society, that simply sounds absurd and wrong. Just because our society frowns upon deals like that, it does not make it morally incorrect to the people in Things Fall Apart. We are discussing two different societies, and the societies choose what is morally correct and incorrect.

I know I shouldn’t say this. Last time I brought up baby turtles in a piece of literature, my classmates could not get through the fact that I used turtles to prove my very serious point (If you want to know better details on this just ask Jess Vielma). The issue I have with this article, is with the claim that all cultures have some values in common. Rachels uses the first value, a value in protecting and taking close care of their young, to support her belief in common values. Baby turtles are born in the sand, far from the semi-safe water, and are defenseless overall. Their parents are long gone and did not think twice before they laid the eggs and swam away. This may seem a bit silly to some, but it does bring up the point that not all beings are cared for and protected by their parents. It also brings up the question if all animals, excluding humans, can have different “societies”. My answer to that question is simply of course. What makes us humans think we have the right to believe we are the only living organisms that are capable of societies?

Alright. I’ll be honest here. I did read The Challenge of Cultural Relativism, and parts of it was decently interesting to me. It is obvious that it was written in a sociological perspective, and I like to focus more on the individual, psychological perspective. With that said, I still wrote the top two paragraphs in order to get a good grade, but now I am going to blog about the other things I was planning on blogging about.

I have many morals. You have many morals. He has many morals. She has many morals. But how can we know that they are all the same? The answer is that we cant. There is absolutely no realistic way to know another persons morals. People who disagree might say “Well they can obviously just tell you what their morals are”, and how do you know what they are saying is true to them? I don’t believe that we, as individuals, don’t even know our own morals. Some may say that all people have at least the basic morals like “don’t kill people constantly” and “personal hygiene is important”, in common with each other, although, I strongly disagree with that statement. For all I know, that statement could very well be true, although, we will never know for sure that everyone shares a certain moral. It is near impossible to figure out your own morals, nonetheless every single persons morals in a world, or society.

At this time I will point out why I said “no REALISTIC way to know another persons morals”. I do believe that in a perfect world, there could be tests that a person is put through, in order to determine their morals. For example, there could be a test where the moral of when it is justified to kill an animal or another human. That actually brings me to an idea for a good “dystopian world” book, where people are raised by their parents, and at the age of 18, they are put through a series of tests that determines if the newly created adults, have the “correct” morals, which, of course, are decided by the leaders of this dystopian world. The people who pass get to move on in life and continue living the way they were before the tests, while the people who fail, are sent somewhere else. No one knows where these people are sent to, but there are many rumors, and none of them are positive. The whole story would follow the upbringing of a teen who fails the tests, and is sent to that location, and is able to break out of it and create an uprising of some sort. Could you tell that I recently watched Mockingjay Part 1?

Sorry for going off on such a random tangent, but I hope my “readers” are able to understand my views on Cultural Relativism, as well as my personal beliefs on morals.

Jake Gregan

"Fate"

"Fate"



     While studying psychology over the summer, I came across a very interesting theory, a self-fulfilling prophecy. "A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior." This relates directly to my reasoning for why people believed so much in fate, 'back in the day'. I like to think that there is a scientific reason behind every "coincidence" that occurs in life. People, back in the day when Oedipus was alive, truly believed what these so-called oracles, preach. By them fully believing that what they are told, they then start the process of a self-fulfilling prophecy. They will subconsciously direct their lives into positions where they are bound to fulfil what the oracle claims is their fate. I am sure that not all people in Oedipus' society meet their, so called, fate, and they are just not important enough to make up a story about. It seems very selfish to believe that everything in the world will bend and change to accommodate for one person's "fate". If that were the case, the world would be filled with more chaos than it already has, and wouldn't possibly be able to occur without people noticing it in their daily lives.

   We all have had our say on what fate is during our discussion, and even I have now shared my point of view. What I would like to focus on for this blog is the bigger picture. Why do we all feel it necessary to express our point of views on very personal topics like that of fate or religion? I find that question and its many answers much more interesting than what one of my classmates claims the meaning of life is. I think it is natural for humans to want to convince others that their beliefs are correct, but why? Because it is the highest act of self justification. People want to think that they are correct, in all instances. They want to think that because it would obviously make them feel better about the world, and themselves as a human in society. I know there is a lot more to this and other actions that cause the belief in fate.

   All in all, Oedipus and his society had a completely valid reason for believing in fate, and by believing in it, with the help of self-fulfilling prophecy, they guarantee it will come true.

First Monthly Blog!

Our society is scared.

I live in a world surrounded by people who are ignorant from the hard truths of life. I envy those people. I would like to start out by saying that I completely understand that I am only 17 years old and have so much more in life to experience. So as I say my whole spiel, take it with a grain of salt, because I could be completely wrong in the way that I see the world. Who knows? And that is amazing to me.

             Now, going back to my initial sentence of our whole society being scared. I believe I can say such a broad statement because I have reasons to believe it. There are many individuals inside a society that are similar to me, and the term society is a broad generalization of the people in our world. With that said, society has slowly been becoming very scared of the world around us. We may enjoy watching the news for some almost grotesque reason, and learning about the terrible things going on around our world, but that is simply surface issues. The mind is simply the most amazing “thing” in the world. Everything you see around you right now, is all created by a brain. Our minds are capable of understanding truths about you, and the world, that are horrible things. In today’s society, we have tended to ignore these truths, and focus more on the positive, shallow things in life.

            It only makes sense to now explain some of those hard truths, in which society is too scared to accept. A good, controversial truth to start out with, is religion. People in today’s society are constantly fearing what happens when they die. In order to cope with this constant feeling of fear of the unknown, religion was created. There was suddenly a happy explanation for what happens after you die. It would be crazy not to believe that! No matter how unrealistic the story is, people were more than willing to accept it to the truth, as long as this benefited the people themselves*. This is a perfect segway into how this relates to a work of literature assigned in class.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand was personally a life changing novel. I enjoyed the concept of Objectivism and have become a big fan of Rand and her beliefs. I specifically loved the idea that everything you do is solely for your own benefit. I believe that I found that to be true before I read this novel, but after completing it, I had a more complete understanding. This truth, that you are living solely for yourself, could very easily be described as a horribly scary truth. This is why Objectivism as a whole could never be accepted by the majority of society. Too many people in our society can not accept that hard truth, because they are scared to do so. Once you understand and believe in Objectivism, you obtain a completely new perspective on life. For most people, they might assume that this perspective is dark and depressing, but it is only what you allow it to be.

*This obviously is a very small section on religion, but I am sure that I will talk more about it before the end of this year.