And the related question: is it racist to believe one's values are better than others'? — darthbarracuda

The short answer: yes. All values must be judged by reason, and to accept one over another simply because it is of the culture that one has sprung from, is unreasonable prejudice.

Why did so much of this start in Europe? — darthbarracuda

Why did Europe get a head start on everybody else? According to Jared Diamond, (Guns, Germs, and Steel) Europe, India, and China all had a head start, like...10,000 years ago because of agricultural developments in the Fertile Crescent of western Asia. Grains and domesticated animals could move east and west on the same parallel quite easily. The climate was suitable in both directions for grains, grazing, and domestic animals. So the first and later, maybe greatest civilizations arose in these places.

Agriculture, grains, domesticated animals, et al did not move well north to south. As one moves toward the poles, the climates change a lot. A grain that would grow in Egypt would not grow as well in a very arid climate or a very wet climate. Cattle bred to thrive in moderate climates don't do well in very hot, very dry, very cold, or very wet climates.

Why didn't the Western Hemisphere develop? It had great soils, terrific resources, etc. #1, the north/south problem, again. A crop that was developed in what would be Washington and Oregon probably wouldn't do well in what would be southern California or northern Mexico. Besides that, the Amerindians brought no domesticated animals with them, and didn't find any animals suitable for domestication. Cattle, for instance, are calm herd animals. Buffalo are very nervous, defensive herd animals. Cattle were easy to domesticate (relatively) and buffalo were impossible to domesticate.

Without traction animals (like horses and oxen) there was no point in developing wheels. No wheels, no industry behind basket weaving and pot throwing, etc.

It's basically geographical determinism.

"I prefer Western values" might be seen as "I prefer white male values", — darthbarracuda

So what? Philosophers in the West have generally been white males. Surprisingly, philosophers in China have generally been Asian males. Philosophers in India have almost always been Indian males. Odd how that worked out.

is it racist to believe one's values are better than others'? For example, is it racist to only study historical white philosophers who lived in Europe? — darthbarracuda

Of course it's not racist to believe one's values are better than others. One can guiltlessly think the values of the West, as developed in Western Asia, Europe, and the north coast of Africa by Semitic, Greek, Roman, and the hash of tribes in Europe are very fine, and their arts, technologies, sciences, religions, philosophies, and literature are world class, second to none.

Now, the people to the far east of Europe are entitled to think their own cultures (China, SE Asia, Japan, Korea, Tibet, etc) are very fine too, world class, and second to none. Africans and Amerindians are going to think their cultures are very fine as well.

I don't think Africans, the Amerindians, or the ancient people of Australia produced the same high quality of civilization that Asia and Europe did. This isn't a racial fault -- it's part of geographical determinism again.

What is racist is thinking that white people, black people, Asians, Amerindians, or Australian Aboriginals are inherently inferior, or inherently superior, compared to some other human group. There may be small differences between the racial groups, but remarkable superiority isn't the possession of any of them -- as people.

Cultures, on the other hand, can be superior. All people have had cultures sufficient to enable them to survive and flourish, at least for a while. Every culture meets that standard. Some cultures have had much greater success in developing resources and the various arts and sciences. European cultures were much better at that than Amerindian cultures. Asians were better at it than African cultures.

Around the world, people are pretty much alike. Their environments are not.

Amerindians, for instance, did some pretty terrific plant breeding with some very unprepossessing plants, like the tomato, potato, corn, at al. People had to see potential in the very small, unimpressive cereal plant called corn. They didn't find big tomatoes as they explored the western hemisphere. What they found were tomatoes the size of small blue berries.

A lot of the world's menu was invented in the Western Hemisphere:

corn, potato, tomato, bell pepper, chili pepper, vanilla, tobacco, beans, pumpkin, cassava root, avocado, peanut, pecan , cashew, pineapple, blueberry, sunflower, petunia, black-eyed susan, dahlia, marigold, quinine, wild rice, cacao (chocolate), gourds, and squash.

I'm not sure what high culture African cultures were good for, apart from the Egyptians, but we had best not criticize them too much, since we are all Africans by long term heritage.

I think most of us would agree that things like equality, liberty and freedom are important values to be honored and promoted in society. — darthbarracuda

Strongly disagree. Equality and freedom are directly opposed. They're a tradeoff. If you live in a capitalist economy, there's more freedom and less equality. A pure socialist one has more equality and less freedom. It's a huge argument as to which are the most important of these qualities. "Most of us" agree on nothing of the kind.

In the West we have separation of church and state. You can sacrifice chickens to your pagan gods in the privacy of your own home (subject to local ordinances and the disapprobation of PETA of course); but in the public square, all are equal and no religion is favored over any other.

In Islam, the church and the state are one.

It is most definitely not the case that "we all agree." On the contrary, "we" differ intensely and sometimes violently. See the Crusades.

It has been traditional in the West to regard our culture as superior. We've had a good run the past few centuries. However the West is experiencing a crisis of self-doubt. Pulling down statues and such. Where this will go is anyone's guess. Pat Buchanan wrote a book called The Death of the West. He sees it coming.

Is he a racist/nativist? Or a realist and a truth-teller?

The short answer: yes. All values must be judged by reason, and to accept one over another simply because it is of the culture that one has sprung from, is unreasonable prejudice. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it's not racist. Even if it were "unreasonable prejudice", unreasonable prejudice is not racism. Racism is about races not values. It's the belief that race, which is biological in so far as it exists at all, has some effect in and of itself on determining morality or other desirable personality traits. It's just a category error to say that if you think one set of values superior to another set that necessarily makes you racist. That doesn't mean racists won't denigrate others' values for racist reasons (or that people aren't irrationally prejudiced towards their own culture), it just means that the word "racist" has a meaning that's widely abused.

Now, the people to the far east of Europe are entitled to think their own cultures (China, SE Asia, Japan, Korea, Tibet, etc) are very fine too, world class, and second to none. Africans and Amerindians are going to think their cultures are very fine as well. — Bitter Crank

Or alternatively, Europeans may prefer Eastern cultures and vice versa. I agree it need have nothing to do with race and if we go down that route we trivialize racism and make ourselves as irrational as racists who are also guilty of a category error in confusing biology and character.

I used to worry about this sort of thing. What solved it for me was realising that it's not about my values being superior but about how important they are to me. The more important a value is, the wider the circle of people on whom I will try to impose it.

If it is a preference for chocolate over vanilla ice cream, I will impose it only on myself.
If it is a preference for good manners, I may seek to impose it on my children.
If it is a preference for people not to be able to rip off other people by financial fraud, I may seek to impose it on everybody in my country - eg supporting politicians that promote laws that regulate financial conduct.
If it is a preference for people not to kill and torture others on a large scale, I may seek to impose it on everybody in the world - eg supporting politicians or NGOs that make humanitarian interventions (aid provision, diplomatic pressure, military intervention in the last resort) in other countries.

It's not about whose values are 'better'. It's about how important my values are to me.

And by the way, I don't think most of the human rights abuses in places like China or Saudi Arabia have anything to do with values. It's just convenient for those in power in those countries to pretend that they do.

Oh, and Amen to capitalism not being cool!

There's a racist element to the Enlightenment myth as it's usually formulated. As it stands, history looks like: ancient Greeks -> Enlightenment thinkers -> contemporary Western Civilization. Sometimes the Ancient Egyptians are included. But everyone is white (even though the Ancient Egyptians weren't, they had very dark skin colour).

The role the Moors played in introducing mathematics, engineering and philosophy to Europe is usually entirely omitted. Just like the idea that slavery was ended by William Wilberforce, the contributions of people with non-white skin colour to the history of white civilization is usually minimised, so the ideological background of our Enlightenment heritage is constructed on the destruction of black history. More precisely, it creates, through elision,a distinction between white history and black history.

Edit: making the link between this post and the OP more explicit. Looking at history gives a continual process from 'non-white' values to 'white values', the idea that the distinction exists is ahistorical. This isn't to say that there aren't variations in morals and ethics with respect to countries, just that the amalgamate of Western values aren't at root, Western, and the West as an ideological construct is part of a whitewashing of history.

When students learn philosophy, they overwhelmingly learn the "Western tradition" — darthbarracuda

If we see our values as superior to other values, the question inevitably crops up: what causes this? Why did so much of this start in Europe? — darthbarracuda

If you only look in one place, you will only see one thing, and you might be under the impression that writing, paper, printing, decimal notation, sugar, spice and all things nice are European inventions. Our values are that we are cultural thieves who pretend the work of others is our own, and then start to believe our own bullshit. Thus we can simultaneously revere the Greeks and Romans as the cradle of civilisation, and despise them as idle and degenerate foreigners. Anything of value is ours, and anything despicable is foreign; that is racism.

I really think that many people in this thread have no clue what racist means. Racist has to do with race, not with nation or culture. So saying my nation and my culture are superior to all others isn't the same as saying my race is superior to all others. The former is nationalism while the latter is racism. But, having now said that, racism implies an assertion of superiority that is not actually based on reality. It also implies something that involves discrimination, and one (or more) race(s) being treated differently.

Because if I were to just say that generally black athletes run the fastest, and are therefore "superior" in running, that wouldn't be racism, since it's true.

Anything of value is ours, and anything despicable is foreign; that is racism. — unenlightened

The short answer: yes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope. That's just a version of nationalism. It's not the same. My nation can be multi-ethnic, in which case it would not be racist. It's the nation and culture that is relevant, not the race of the people(s) who make up the nation or culture.

Thinking of foreigners as degenerate is xenophobic and prejudiced, which is bad enough, but not necessarily racist unless the reason has something to do with racial differences.

No, it's not racist. Even if it were "unreasonable prejudice", unreasonable prejudice is not racism. Racism is about races not values. — Baden

But according to my post, I refer to a certain form of unreasonable prejudice, one which places the values of one's own culture as higher than another's. And culture is an aspect of race.

It's just a category error to say that if you think one set of values superior to another set that necessarily makes you racist. — Baden

It only makes you racist if you think this without reference to reason, the reason why one's values are superior to another's. If you can produce no reason, and you say this of prejudice, you are racist, because culture is an aspect of race.

Racist has to do with race, not with nation or culture. — Agustino

If you can separate culture from race, such that culture is not an aspect of race, then you might have an argument here.

But according to my post, I refer to a certain form of unreasonable prejudice, one which places the values of one's own culture as higher than another's. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, still not racism. That would be xenophobia at most.

And culture is an aspect of race. — Metaphysician Undercover

:s lol

If you can separate culture from race, such that culture is not an aspect of race, then you might have an argument here. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course, you can. Take America. America is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation and culture.

And culture is an aspect of race. — Metaphysician Undercover

There's no necessary connection between culture and race. Haven't you noticed that people of the same race can have completely different cultures or different races the same one?

Cultural racism.

This seems like a trivial discussion, though. What difference does it make if we call it "cultural racism" or "xenophobia" or anything else? The name we give the view is irrelevant. It's better to ask if the view is right or wrong, offensive or inoffensive, etc.

As a simple reductio, if it were, babies would have a culture in the womb. They certainly have a race (if you believe in race at all). The culture is potentially anything.

Good point. We should probably get back to that.

Thinking of foreigners as degenerate is xenophobic and prejudiced, which is bad enough, but not necessarily racist unless the reason has something to do with racial differences. — Baden

You seem to want to distinguish between xenophobia justified in terms of nature, and xenophobia justified in terms of nurture. But both can only be justified in turn by reference to the same historical facts and fictions. Accordingly, the subtleties of such a distinction are generally lost on both the xenophobes and their victims.

As a good xenophobe, I might consider it the white man's burden to educate and elevate the benighted savage to the joys of our civilised culture, whereas as a racist, I would prefer to leave them in their darkness lest they drag us down to their level, and/or pollute the gene-pool. But whether one considers the foreigner in principle reformable or not, in practice, they get largely the same treatment.

Fair enough.

Yes, I agree that cultural differences are probably geographical, environmental, accidental. Consider how the weather patterns may influence the outcome of a critical battle in ancient history, which might have caused one warlord instead of another to rise to power, imposing a dynasty of the few over the masses of the many for countless generations, alongside region-specific values that owe their existence to the fear mongering of the few in power, etc.

Western values assign a blank slate to everyone, and are universalizable. Yet these values came from a particular section of the global population, centered around Europe (but also nearby Mediterranean and whatnot). It's not at all difficult to see how someone might derive racist connotations from this (everyone is equal - but only the white man came up with this - so "everyone is equal" but really white men are better than everyone else for their coming up with this and other things). A lot of Westerners probably do have subconscious racist beliefs even if they think they aren't racist - at least, they probably have vestiges of colonialism (we have to raise up the "other" people to our culture).

So what? Philosophers in the West have generally been white males. Surprisingly, philosophers in China have generally been Asian males. Philosophers in India have almost always been Indian males. Odd how that worked out. — Bitter Crank

Is the difference between Western and Eastern (or African, Latin American, etc) philosophy similar to the difference between analytic and continental philosophy? The latter two study many of the same things (but also some different things), but there's a lack of communication between the two and a lot of misunderstanding. If this is the case with the former then why are we still only reading European philosophers? Especially if Western philosophy is a search for truth, what's the value of a tradition in the search for truth?

It's not about whose values are 'better'. It's about how important my values are to me. — andrewk

I don't think I can look at things like this, seems to run into relativism. Why are these values more important to you? Are you implying there's nothing wrong with systematic oppression, death penalties, capitalism, etc?

When I see some values I genuinely have disgust. Treating rape victims without compassion and demanding they continue to have the child (as they do in many countries across the globe and even many citizens in the U.S. wish this were so), is wrong, and a culture that does not have this is better to me.

Edit: making the link between this post and the OP more explicit. Looking at history gives a continual process from 'non-white' values to 'white values', the idea that the distinction exists is ahistorical. This isn't to say that there aren't variations in morals and ethics with respect to countries, just that the amalgamate of Western values aren't at root, Western, and the West as an ideological construct is part of a whitewashing of history. — fdrake

(Y) Interesting, yes. It is as if all the privileged white males get all the respect and honor and attention when there was a ton of work being done by unprivileged, non-white, and non-male people in the background. It is "whitewashed". And it does seem to be racist to continue to act as though it's not this way.

Interesting, yes. It is as if all the privileged white males get all the respect and honor and attention when there was a ton of work being done by unprivileged, non-white, and non-male people in the background. It is "whitewashed". And it does seem to be racist to continue to act as though it's not this way. — darthbarracuda

Less Hussein, more Avicenna. Less conflict in Iraq, Iran and Afghan, more Islamic Golden Age. Less Ota Benga, more M'Banza-Kongo. Less William Wilberforce, more Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Less 50 Cent, more Marcus Garvey...

Not just equality, liberty, and freedom, but things like science and philosophy are overwhelmingly Western — darthbarracuda

Statements like these which both homogeneous and idealize a concept stretching back roughly 3,000 years are ludicrous to me. Concepts such as equality, liberty, freedom, etc. have been presented and argued in a variety of Asian, African, and Middle Eastern philosophies, and in the substantive form of working political systems and empires. And plenty of inventions that form the basis of modernity traveled from East to West. Modernity is not predicated on an exclusively "Western culture".

And we cannot ignore the existence of genocide, authoritarianism, and other forms of persecution that have plagued "Western Civilization" for millennia. If the American Revolution is "Western" than so is the Holocaust. If the Radical Enlightenment is "Western" than so is the Inquisition. We don't get to have our cake and eat it too. We cannot pick out positive concepts that have emerged from a more or less arbitrary "shared history", claim them as our own, exclusively, and then gloss over historical disasters as mere hiccups. The homogenization of "Western culture" is useless in any practical sense. It's an absurd notion that has no basis in historical accuracy, and attempts to build arguments off the basis of such a concept is inherently fallacious.

I agree, but as said, these sorts of values have been white-washed, made to seem like they come exclusively from Europe or North America.

Hence why I'm curious as to why philosophy is so often associated with Western philosophy. We read Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger, etc and are told these are the "greats", the "giants" of philosophy which everything else hinges around. It may not be "racist" but it certainly seems to be dogmatic and narrow-minded to only teach and study these thinkers and not try to learn about other traditions. Continental philosophy isn't only practiced by those on the continent of Europe, but it's name (given to it by outsiders) comes from the fact that the central thinkers all came from Europe.

And perhaps continental thinkers just focus on different problems and don't claim to be the best tradition in philosophy. But it's interesting to wonder why it is so constrained to historical European thinkers and not on the broader world at large. The problem seems to be a paradox: if continental philosophy has its own set of problems, then there's the question as to why only continental philosophy has them; and if continental philosophy does not have its own set of issues, the question then is why it is constrained primarily to European thought. Both can have racist or ethnocentric consequences.

Probably at some point to do philosophy became to engage with the canon. I think this is largely an institutional feature (or bug). I think it's doubtful that there was any conscious decision made at some point not to engage with anything but the canon, but to do philosophy as a professional became to engage with the problems in that canon. Perhaps this is why feminist or black ethnographic critiques often fall on deaf ears (see this for a hilarious example and counterpoint), since they're treated as external to the canon - institutionally though maybe not philosophically. Thus they are a threat. The same thing happened with Derrida and Foucault in America and the UK (despite there still being more radical 'ordinary language analysis' than the form Derrida was anathema to, also Foucault's focus on discourse sharing some minimal things in common). That backlash is still ongoing (see any of Jordan Peterson's comments on Post Modernism).

Racist has to do with race, not with nation or culture. So saying my nation and my culture are superior to all others isn't the same as saying my race is superior to all others. The former is nationalism while the latter is racism. — Agustino

This.

It is no more dogmatic or narrow minded for Westerners to study Western philosophy than it is for Easterners to study Eastern philosophy. Only the West, I notice, has a guilt-complex about its own accomplishments, interests, and history, resulting in a desperate attempt at inclusion of the other, as if truth and value can only be determined by a committee of ethnically and philosophically diverse individuals. I doubt philosophers in China who study Chinese philosophy are similarly wracked with guilt over having failed to adequately consider Western philosophers. I doubt they compose threads online asking whether they are racists for thinking Chinese values superior to Western ones. No, only the white man is so burdened. I for one am beyond tired of these questions.

I don't think I can look at things like this, seems to run into relativism. Why are these values more important to you? Are you implying there's nothing wrong with systematic oppression, death penalties, capitalism, etc? — darthbarracuda

It is relativism: Meta-ethical Moral Relativism, to be precise. What the rationale does is provide a robust, compelling reason for not drifting into Normative Moral Relativism, which is the state of being unprepared to impose one's moral convictions on others.

I don't need to answer the question of why these values are important to me. It suffices that they are. But there are good explanations of how one's values are formed, based on a combination of nature and nurture. So I don't find any dilemma or gap in understanding there.

The position certainly doesn't imply there is nothing wrong with oppression etc. But it allows that wrongness to be mind-dependent. I see no need to believe in mind-independent moral truths. It's a purely abstract belief that has no impact on either my behaviour or my emotions.

I understand that some people feel that their urge to act in accordance with their moral beliefs would be undermined if they didn't believe them to be absolute, mind-independent truths. They know their first-person experience and I don't, so I can't comment on that, except to say that my experience is different.

Exactly.

America is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation and culture. — Agustino

It's multi-ethnic for sure but I doubt the various ethnic cultural values have been subsumed in the larger "American" cultural framework. It's more like different cultural island within the boundaries of the USA. You can meet people from different cultures in the USA without sharing important aspects of each other cultures.

Well, a bit too monolithic approach to culture for my liking as they certainly interact and influence each other but I hope you get this gist of what I'm getting at.

(Y)

No, the Chinese on the contrary, thinks his values are the greatest in the world, and that China deserves to be global hegemon.

I think your missing his point.