> There is a common view of cultural norms as at worst tyrannical or at best random and arbitrary, rather than the sophisticated and curated product of billions of human lives.
Examine any of these “fundamental norms” and see that they were not so fundamental after all. With their narratives built to enforce cultural norms today, not genuinely explore lessons from the past.
My grandma will _insist_ that homosexuality simply didn’t exist when she was younger. This is the “sophisticated” product you speak of - a blatant denial of reality.
> There is a common view of cultural norms as at worst tyrannical or at best random and arbitrary, rather than the sophisticated and curated product of billions of human lives.
> Social iconoclasts dismiss organized religion, marriage, sexual norms, social duty, gender roles, and cultural traditions.
Some of the cultural norms you named there are millions of years old and show little variance across cultures and time. Others only a few millennia old at best and show very high variance.
> Dismissing a multi-millenia multi-cultural fundamental norm as "indoctrination" severely downplays the collective learning of uncountable generations.
I agree in this case, but only because I think marriage is an institution that we’ve learned needs (sometimes strong) active endorsement and it’s pro-social.
My view is that cultural norms are at worst tyrannical and at best the essence of being human.
> Social iconoclasts dismiss organized religion, marriage, sexual norms, social duty, gender roles, and cultural traditions.
This is just true. But this is all of us: we all have a relationship with society around us and dismiss parts of it. As we should.
> I would argue that relativism is in fact the fundamental construct
Then you pretty much agree with any practice that is currently-bad-but-wasn't-in-the-past? After all, it was relatively ok at the time, and can be again.
> The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it.
Not if you've studied much history. Modern western society is awesome compared to what nearly all of our ancestors lived through. Wanting more is good, but denigrating things that nearly anyone from history would kill for doesn't sound right.
Do you have a source for this? I feel like peoples beliefs change all the time.
> Today LGBT rights and acceptance have won (and will keep winning)!
This is true. But in contrast racism and sexism is increasing, in the western world at least.
> In a world of immortals, only violent uprisings could challenge the status quo. The world would have no incentive to change.
I don't buy this at all. The world has even more incentive to change. You are not making the world better for anyone else in the future. You are doing it for YOURSELF. Because you will most likely still be around in 200 years.
> Would the world of today have still invented punk rock?
Maybe, Maybe not. Hard to say. But the world would have invented something new.
> Maybe, just maybe, those traditionally suppressed lifestyles were suppressed because those societies had memories of what happens when they are not suppressed.
That would be more plausible if we saw that all mature cultures ended up with the same or similar norms. But we don't. Instead, we see a rich variety of norms across history and cultures, but also many examples of territorialism where specific cultures try to impose their idiosyncratic norms on others. And maybe there's good to be found even in that (uniformity is easier to govern), but it does run against the pluralist principles of the modern west.
All descriptions of cultural norms are opinion by definition. Cultural ‘norms’ are, themselves, vastly more complex and interesting than any single statement can declare. Editorial word choice is necessary to express and discuss those perceived norms, and care must be taken to not overstate a viewpoint. I appreciate your concern, however. Thank you for taking the time to express it.
> "You can't respond with the cliché brainwash argument either. Culture is always brainwash."
Your logic is bad.
I more-or-less agree that "culture is always brainwash." The logical follow-up is not, "Let's therefore accept all cultures that don't immediately, viscerally violate our sense of right and wrong"; it's, "Wow, culture is fundamentally really messed up! But I don't want to live in a society that eliminates it completely. How much messed-up-ness am I willing to endure to get the benefits of culture -- namely, consistency in what I'm expected to deal with every day, social stability, a sense of unity with my neighbors and countrymen, a sense of heritage, and various intangibles?"
> "I am saying we need to be careful of what we are criticising. A lot of cultural norms are always arbitrary."
So criticize all of them! The problem here is that you're working off the premise that our own cultural norms are somehow above critique, which is simply untrue.
However, I think that, even on close inspection, many of our culture's norms do more good than harm. I honestly think that most Americans would be (marginally) unhappier if it became culturally acceptable in America to walk naked in public (even if we let a generation pass so that there's no cultural shock) -- whereas I'm quite certain that at least a majority of people living in societies that force women to cover themselves and act subservient would be happier if their communities' cultural norms allowed women to act like women of first-world democracies. That's what distinguishes our cultural norms from theirs. And if any of our norms fail the shit test of "does it make life better?," for God's sake let's throw it out.
>Have you considered the possibility that not everyone shares the same moral standard and ideology? People came from different backgrounds and have different experiences, and most things are not black and white, but different shades of gray in this world.
So what? By my standards, they're doing the wrong thing, and my standards are what count to me.
> Often people seem to be happy for other peoples children to do what they like but not theirs. To me this seems like the wrong attitude towards ones neighbours.
I think you miss the important concept, that people can have different world views and different things might be acceptable to them.
So I may not approve my kids/family/myself doing something, living some kind of lifestyle, but I accept that there are people who have different values and it's OK for me (as long as it doesn't infringe my freedom, of course).
> What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They're just as arbitrary...
There is an argument that people should not be held responsible for decades old views, as well as the argument that people should be given an opportunity to learn new social norms instead of being immediately canceled. But to say that these issues are just as arbitrary as fashion is a completely different argument --- and a specious one at that.
This sort of relativism of all norms, mores, morals, and ethics needs to stop. There are some cultural and social norms/mores that are better than others. We know this, because empirically some produce better outcomes than others. Mass-scale social anxiety at having to interact with another human being is NOT healthy for society, and is likely the underlying cause for a significant amount of the current social ills that are either new or increasing over time.
I'm not sure about that. To keep with the examples you stated earlier as being normative (namely being disgusted by homosexuality and being an early riser), for example, I am neither. Which according to your opinion is abnormal and should be shunned by society, because you consider not shunning homosexuals and nightowls anti-social. That sounds fairly dogmatic in these specific cases, and in general the attitude that minority behavior and tolerance of minority behavior should both be punished is itself a dogma.
To be fair, I don't see how dogma is avoidable. My assertion that minority lifestyles should not be shunned as long as they don't harm anyone is also dogmatic. It's just that we all have a habit of calling principles we disagree with dogma.
But if I had one shot to change your mind about this specific issue, my argument would be like this: there are so many opinions to be had and so many behaviors to engage in. Chances are, you are yourself also holding opinions or doing activities that are not shared by the majority. Do you consider those tendencies abnormal and anti-social? You may not like homosexuals or nightowls, but surely there are things where you diverge from the statistical everydayman? Would you then apply those policies of social repercussions to these activities by default because their existence threatens the integrity of the majority? And if so, why do you allow yourself those outlier behaviors, but don't apply the same tolerance to others?
>Academia is where we get much of the evidence that socially-constructed groups (based on religion, gender, race, etc.).
Social Studies in general are frequently non-rigorous, sloppy and a mess. The academic areas where those ideas are promulgated are even more so. For example, I have yet to see any evidence, for example, that a girl who plays with dolls as a child is being socially conditioned away from STEM fields as an adult ... a claim that is repeated all the time and stated as simply a fact.
At this point, given how sloppy those academic areas are, I can only be skeptical of the crap they promulgate.
Examine any of these “fundamental norms” and see that they were not so fundamental after all. With their narratives built to enforce cultural norms today, not genuinely explore lessons from the past.
My grandma will _insist_ that homosexuality simply didn’t exist when she was younger. This is the “sophisticated” product you speak of - a blatant denial of reality.
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