The game of cultural differences....?

reply to post by luciddream


That's what I mentioned in relation to not kiling your parents. Surely, I thought, I had my instructor with that one! ....err... No... The Inuit, apparently, and some cultures do have a way of putting the elderly out to die...although, that isn't how they'd put it. Surprisingly (since we thought alike) ...even that isn't universal.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Hey pssst, Wrabbit, are you going to put us out of our misery and tell us? A person could die of curiosity, just saying.

*Discovers Ayahuasca.

*Kills Everyone.

I tried

I think we are all where we are, for a reason. It's probably best not to question it.

If Scots were actually from Columbia we'd all have died out about 1000 years ago.

reply to post by aboutface


I'm sorry... I moved away from this a bit because I seemed to have just fumbled the delivery of the outline so badly in folks responding the wrong way. That's me, not anyone else. Everyone in class got it instantly ...and no one here is less than anyone there .. so it has to be wording in delivery. (Bad Rabbit.. bad bad.. lol).

The answer, to our collective shock, was that there are NO values or cultural norms/taboos which are universal. Not one. Not even a basic one.

* Respect for elders or murder of parents? Err.. Japanese elders, as was explained, have and do choose to go off and die at times. Not in the wilderness or elements, how some cultures put them out in the open but by withdrawing to privacy in their home to die. I hadn't heard that before about Japanese culture so it came as a surprise. In America, that wouldn't be allowed to "just happen" in privacy. It'd be called a suicide to stop. That was a gentle and kind example compared to another putting the elderly out onto the ice to die.

* Infanticide? Perhaps one of the most taboo things in Western society. It wasn't even allowed to be shown in a movie until recent years and was 100% verboten when I was growing up. Heroes didn't die and babies never got killed. 2 constants in movies...and the latter one, absolute that I ever saw back then. Yet.... China's one child policy is a modern example, ranging back to Sparta in old history putting infants on a local rock outcropping to die by exposure, if found lacking in some obvious way. That's no constant value.

* Incest and Child Molestation? Well.. What IS incest and Child Molestation? It seems a value held pretty universally ..until that is asked. Then, anything universal about it, just falls apart. Brides married off in pre-teen and early childhood isn't especially common but anything like rare, around the world too. Those little children aren't in a platonic marriage, to say the least I'm sure. 1st cousin marriages are verboten in the US....but often the favored arrangement in other cultures where arranged marriage is a norm.

* Religion? Well, the belief in something...? Hmm... Do we need to go here? lol.... If someone placed one of those novelty lightning balls you see in mall stores within a primitive tribal village while all were asleep, to find in the morning? I'll bet half would worship the thing as a divine gift and omen ...while the other half debated whether to go hunt down and kill whatever brought such a curse and doom in the night. err... I'm only half kidding too.. lol

* Thou Shalt Not Kill! There is a winner right? Lets remove warfare entirely to make it work! So, does it work? Errr... No.. It doesn't, huh? I support the Death Penalty...but I won't play semantic games to say it's something it's not. It is taking another life against their will. That is killing.. Justification is secondary to cultural value matters. Honor killings are another where it's a true cultural value at work, to justify the killing of another. (Very justified ..to some cultural thinking)


....anyway, on it went, and she's done this with classes for quite some time, apparently. She's yet to have a single example come that couldn't be shown to be a value to SOME ...but NEVER ALL. Never universal. It shocked me a bit ....because prior to being put to that mental test, I never would have agreed that Humans have *NO* universal and common values. Yet...there it is. If anyone disagrees to say we do? Please... share... Share what cannot be debunked as Universal. I'd have fun returning to class with an example no one could shoot down in the first response or two.

Amazing and endlessly diverse world we live in, isn't it?

(For all my effort since, still no wins?? This game is like Tic Tac Toe. Every time you think you got an 'AH-HA!! That's Universal!" the X comes to block the line of O's with a culture than doesn't agree..lol)

I get it now. It's a good one, I just can't think of any.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Ok, I'll put myself out there to be humbled I'm sure. However, I maintain that there is no culture on earth that would deliberately feed its dead to wild animals, as far as I know, except for Bin Laden's dubious burial at sea. So beginning there, I submit that although perhaps they might go about it differently, (burial, cremation, cryogenics or what have you), all cultures have rituals and agreed principles that dispose of their dead, including paupers' graves.

reply to post by aboutface


Hmmm... Well, the Romans fed all sorts to 'beasts' as they termed it, in the Arena games (Over 5,000 across one 4 month period). That wasn't dead though ...and you have me a bit stumped. I have a feeling my Anthro instructor will make a moments work of citing an example to address it, but you got me.

I have that class in about 30 minutes, as it happens.... So, I'll ask when I see her and come back with the reply I get.

The point would be, for cultural reference...Protection/respect for the dead as an overall value or specifically the protection of the dead from animal and exposure? (I am a little fuzzy, since Burial at Sea is a common thing going back as long as ships have gone to Sea...so I'll assume you mean the deliberate and not just disregard for it possibly happening). I'll ask her both ways to be sure.

reply to post by Sublimecraft


Agree. .surprised it wasnt the first answer