There will always be judgement passed on people seen as "the other" who engage in these different cultural practices, but by framing them more as empirical claims it is more productive in a way. If you think about this in terms of the human sacrifice example, by just saying it's wrong, there is a moral judgement passed and a strong superiority/inferiority relationship implied. However, by framing it more as an "inefficient way to organize a political system with long-term instability," it allows for people to really think about what is being said and what the implications of human sacrifice are. This allows for less of a moral judgement, but rather a factual judgement that proves this is wrong. There is still a superiority/inferiority implication as one group is still saying this is wrong, but it allows for more of a discussion surrounding the topic.
Even though this is a better way to pass judgement on others, this is still a reassertion of the kinds of hierarchies that Todorov argues that we need to call into question. I don't, however, see how we can get rid of these hierarchies as there is always this concept of superiority and inferiority involved with passing judgement. We see this a lot with members of the developed world passing judgement on members of the developing world. Countries like the United States can make so many judgements on practices like gender roles in countries in the developing world and simply say these are wrong and there needs to be more equality. This reinforces this hierarchy, with the developed world thinking they are superior to the developing world, even though they haven't experienced the challenges and cultural practices of that country. Playing into this, I don't think there can be the correct dismissal of alternatives because it comes down to the sheer cultural differences between the two groups. You can't ever truly dismiss someone else's ideas because you haven't lived their life and don't have the cultural experiences to make that claim.
To bring this back to Todorov's three axes of alterity, I don't think they can be mutually exclusive. The axiological level of value judgements will always exist between two entities as these cultural practices create differences which cause each of them to pass judgement on the different practices. In terms of the epistemic level, this knowledge of the other's cultural practices can never be "perfect" in a sense because judgement will always be passed as one continues to learn and compare different practices. The only way this judgement can be mitigated is by framing them as more empirical claims to generate discussions about the issues and work to eliminate the moral component.
I like how your blog post simplifies a question that I thought was very complicated and confusing. I agree that we need both moral and epistemic judgement, and I think that in the modern world, you often can't make one judgement without the other. Killing humans is morally bad because we know (epistemic aspect) that it is an inefficient way to run society. Where we disagree is on the aspect of dismissing an alternative. I think that any acceptance of one method, idea, policy, etc, is inherently a dismissal of the others. And dismissing the alternatives automatically creates a hierarchy without even trying. I don't think the dismissal of alternatives necessarily applies to life experiences, and if it did, it would be easy to dismiss that (i.e. pretty much any American history textbook). Obviously I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, but I think that our brains naturally process information in a hierarchical sense and it dismisses anything that could be irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I interpreted "dismissal" to mean was deciding that the other practices were wrong, not your interpretation which in my mind is more passing judgement. In your interpretation, I agree that one can dismiss alternatives because they are simply different, and this does in fact create hierarchies. I still think that this dismissal can never be correct because different ideas and practices aren't necessarily wrong. They simply pertain to different cultures that one hasn't necessarily experienced.
DeleteI love how you tackled this blog question. I agree with you that we cannot get rid of hierarchies because it is impossible to experience others' lives even if you want to. I just had one quick question. "I don't think there can be the correct dismissal of alternatives because it comes down to the sheer cultural differences between the two groups." Can you elaborate this sentence for me please...?? As reading your blog post, it reminded me of the significance of discussing issues or making claims with multiple perspectives. I think that is one of the way to reduce the hierarchies within knowledge... what do you think?
ReplyDeleteThank you! What I meant by my take on the correct dismissal of alternatives is kind of elaborated on in the following sentence where I say "You can't ever truly dismiss someone else's ideas because you haven't lived their life and don't have the cultural experiences to make that claim." In my mind, you can never truly judge different cultural practices because you haven't really been part of the culture to see the role it plays within it. I do think that hierarchies are kind of always going to exist, especially with larger institutions, but I do think it's important to always get multiple perspectives on an issue because different cultural backgrounds bring different things to the table. It's important to have conversations between different cultural groups because it can help address snap judgements that are made about differing practices.
DeleteThis is PTJ's comment: Distinguish, perhaps, between two different kinds of epistemic knowledge: knowledge of what some group's practices are, and knowledge of the effects of those practices. If we know (epistemically) that some group has a particular set of practices, does that knowledge alone have any implications for how we judge those practices? On the other hand, does our knowledge that a set of practices leads to particular effects necessarily imply a judgment about those practices...or that group?
ReplyDeleteI definitely think the knowledge that a set of practices leads to particular effects implies a judgment about those practices or group, and that is why I think there will always be judgement passed about practices that differ from one's own. It was something that came up when discussing the question with my friends because they said that even though we frame human sacrifice negatively through an empirical claim, we're still viewing it negatively. This is why I think empirical claims won't get rid of this judgement, but rather create space for conversations where people can question the practices. In terms of whether knowing that some group has a particular set of practices has implications for how we judge those practices, I would argue that yes, it does. We create judgements based on what we know and these can be good or bad.
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