I’d never seen myself in a work of literature. I loved books, always, but I didn’t know Indians wrote books or poems. And then to see myself so fully understood in one line of a poem, as though that one line of a poem written by someone else was my autobiography ... It was like understanding human language for the first time... I feel like I could start a church with that line. The number one tenet of that church? No cedar flutes. Also, no references to talking animals. And a concerted effort to get everyone off the res. What would be the symbol of my church? It’d be a broken circle. And that would be a positive sign. That break in the circle would really be an explosion of possibility. Indians always praise circles. But they actually are chain-links.
Alexie argues that Indians who grow up on reservations are trapped there in their minds, imprisoned by the cycles of poverty. I'd argue that this happens to many people who are subjugated or discriminated against: communities are formed, such as ghettos or reservations, and a strong culture emerges. But Sherman Alexie argues that the goal of "preserving culture" is not worth the continuation of suffering. This seems to be an argument against cultural relativism, almost -- he argues that human suffering is human suffering, regardless of the cultural forces that created it. That goes for Indians on reservations, women in Saudi Arabia, you name it.
Alexie also speaks to the influence of minority role models - if our media is saturated with one perspective (generally speaking, the affluent, white male perspective), people who don't fit in that category don't know where or how to express themselves. Going back to the beginning of this unit, if there are no women scientists around, little girls don't know that they can be scientists.
I also just really like the image of a broken circle to represent change -- we've been discussing revolutions and often arguing that they are cyclical in nature, but this paradigm seems to argue that true "revolutionary" change only happens when cycles are broken. And this is a good thing -- you can't move forward if you're just walking in a circle.
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ReplyDeleteAlli, I think you may be looking at cultural relativism differently from me. I admit that I am completely biased. I am also not an anthropologist and have no formal training as an anthropologist. With that being said, I would argue that cultural relativism is an attempt to forgo the ethnocentrism that so often creates suffering in the first place.
ReplyDeleteLooking at female drivers in Saudi Arabia for example, a “western” ethnocentric view (a view that had no place for cultural relativism) might be that women are equal and should be able to drive. Period. The end. No ifs, ands, or buts. No regard for centuries of tradition, the convictions or goals of the women themselves, or the repercussions of such a change. The “west” might just swoop in and enforce female rights no matter what it takes. It’s like treating the symptoms without investigating their cause. A culturally relative approach might begin with an examination of why women in Saudi Arabia are not currently allowed to drive: what deeper societal beliefs are reflected by this taboo? Rather than immediately jumping to the conclusion that because this taboo is not reflected in our own society, or because we see it as a sign of human suffering, it must be abolished at our earliest convenience, cultural relativism allows us to examine what that taboo means in its own context. I know what it would mean for me, here in the US, if my right to drive was suddenly taken away. Is it fair, logical, or effective for me to impose my understanding of my own situation onto the life of another human being? Cultural relativism not only allows for the opportunity to enact change from within the culture by the people most effected by the practice, but it also allows for a change at the most fundamental levels of culture. What if the real problem is not that women can’t drive or that they are sexually harassed or that they must dress a certain way? What if the real problem is that Saudi conceptions of kinship place the majority of the stress of the public sphere on the shoulders of men? Or that the scarcity of resources has traditionally placed more value on the subsistence duties of men? I’m just making things up for the sake of illustration, but you get the idea.
In effect, cultural relativism allows one to look at the cause of a cultural norm in situ. It’s like when a doctor asks you for your personal medical history rather than assuming that their own history can also describe your situation. Cultural relativism is not, strictly speaking, an attempt to preserve culture. The preservation of cultural norms is a minor and occasional result of its practice. Rather, it is an attempt to set aside our biases and invisible privilege when dealing with other cultures in order to avoid making hasty judgments that fit into our socially accepted norms. It is something we do so that we don’t automatically assume that cannibalism is savage, that homosexuality is a sin, that being female makes one lesser, or that coming from an impoverished area automatically makes one unfit to operate in society.
One caveat that I feel the need to include: there are entire texts written about anthropological theory and individuals much more qualified than I have written in both defense and in critique of cultural relativism. It is certainly not a perfect framework for dealing with the world and, like anything else, it can be misused and abused. However, I think that at its very core, cultural relativism is about “walking a mile in someone’s shoes” before you start judging them.
I really enjoyed your post: I had never thought about revolution in the context of a broken cycle before!
Thanks Katie! I was definitely pigeonholing cultural relativism as a philosophy by equating it with the (relatively rare) practical outcome of preserving cultural norms at all costs. The idea that cultural norms should be preserved because they are inherently good is the idea that I (and I think Sherman Alexie) have problems with, not cultural relativism as a whole.
DeleteIn this thinking about breaking away from destructive and unhealthy cultural institutions, I am reminded of Zora Neale Hurston's opposition to integrating schools. She argued that truly equal but separate schools would better preserve Africans Africans American culture than integrated schools.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a symmetry between Hurston's childhood in Eatonville and life on a reservation. Both places are enclaves of a culture faced with serious oppression by the outside world. Such enclaves are a positive in that they protect an otherwise vulnerable culture, but they can also be limiting because members may become so obsessed with maintaining the status quo that they lose perspective on opportunities outside of their enclave. I think that's an element of what Sherman Alexis is getting at above.
That's another great example which I totally didn't even think of. It's tricky because I think, as outsiders, it's easy to say "well the culture in your reservation/ghetto/what-have-you is holding you back! Just abandon it!" and we end up with things like forced integration, or other culture wars. Lots of people miss out on opportunities because they're entrenched in a certain way of life, but we have to be careful not to impose our ideas of "success" or "fulfillment" onto other people. (This isn't something that I think you're arguing for, just a counter-argument to my own post of sorts. But the idea of forced school integration reminded me of it.)
DeleteI'm sitting here wondering (and this is in the context of just America, not the world) where we draw the line to say "you define your own success based on your cultural norms" and "you need to do x,y,z."
DeleteIn asking this question I'm thinking very specifically of my students. The school I work out had a major administration overhaul this year and is still changing things. This is resulting in a lot of ideas about how important school is and what success should be for these kids (TCAP, ACT, exams scores, college acceptance, graduation rates, etc.). The neighborhoods these kids grow up in, and even the culture of the school for decades has never been one that really cared about school. These kids live in the US, but does that mean we're allowed to tell kids (especially the illegal students who have no rights in this country) that they have to view school the same when their families/communities view school differently? More broadly, what about state mandated school standards? How are we trapping students in a cycle with narrowed ideas about what they should learn, and how are we ignoring the histories and traditions of many cultures when we teach a limited curriculum?
Alli, oppression of American Indians by putting their kids in English-speaking schools, making the kids cut off their hair, etc. as in early 20th c. is standard practice in cultural oppression and elimination all around the world. That's completely different from an adult American Indian choosing to live off a reservation. In the case of African Americans, the white schools did not allow black students. So it was whites keeping blacks out, not black folks being forced to go to white schools. I think a group can make their own decisions, as Alexie Sherman is suggesting. That's different from having it forced from the outside. Self-Determination vs. You Will Do What's Best For You, Like it or Not. We get back to human rights. Certain activities we won't permit, like murder, rape, etc. At what point do we have the Responsibility To Protect? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect . It's a very important conversation we're only just beginning to sort out in a global 21st century society.
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