While a particular individual might not fit well into a cultural stereotype, a cultural stereotype is made up of the averages of many individuals, so creates a heuristic and is somewhat predictive of behaviors and attitudes of a randomly selected individual from the group. While many would argue against judgements and generalizations, I wonder how many of those people identify "as" a member of a group and then, how many of their individual traits align with the stereotypes that might be made about the group they claim.
Now, cultures change over time in many ways, but there is no such thing as a perfect culture, because by nature, groups of people are going to favor those who are closer to themselves than others. This means that within any large group, there are subgroups of culture, and if we keep dissecting based on various differences, we end up all the way down to the individual. And even at the individual level, depending on circumstances and conditions, more subdivisions could be made, many in conflict with each other.
Because we are products of our environments, influenced by our surroundings, and conditioned by our cultures, it is interesting to consider how much an individual might be representative of the stereotype. For instance, the average American is likely to hold some faith in a two-party system, getting all worked up over left and right, red and blue, without even entertaining the idea that this might not be a good way to govern a country. And if we were to look at subdivisions of the labelled left and the right, it would be likely that some on the left and some on the right more closely resemble each other, than people within their own group. The false dichotomy of US politics is something that is increasingly being pushed globally, because polarization generates control.
But, there are other cultures that could be considered also, where for example the cultures within Iran, where the assumption is that women are second-class citizens. Now, I have no idea, but is that the culture of the people, or the legislation of the government? Do the women getting beaten, tortured and killed for showing their hair fit into the stereotype of Iranian culture? In what would be considered corrupt government structures like that of Nigeria and Venezuela, is it the government that is corrupt, or the culture that has raised them to be so? If governments represent the people because politicians are also people, then it suggests that the people are already corrupt, before entering into politics.
The uncomfortable fact is that we are all on a distribution of every trait, and across pretty much all of them, we are going to track as average. An individual might be good at math, but that doesn't mean they are good at fucking their partner. And someone who is good in bed, isn't automatically a great singer. Between some traits however, there are going to be some correlations, and essentially this is what culture is doing, where it is a representation of the probability that an individual from a group, exhibits similarities to the group.
So then I wonder, does someone from a country with a corrupt or abusive government, look in the mirror and see something different, or do they see similarities between themselves, and that of the thing they might denounce. If they were suddenly given the same powers of a corrupt politician, would they use it any differently?
The bigger the group bucket, the less closely stereotypes are going to resemble any individual within the group, which is why so many of the assumptions made on men and women can be wrong - especially those with an agenda, like "toxic masculinity" being applied as a blanket over all men. Yet, because we are human, we have to create heuristics that will keep us safe, so I would tell my daughter to be wary of men in general, and encourage her to learn how to predict the behaviors of subgroups, and then individuals within those groups.
I wonder if we worked backwards and built a model that represented what a "good person" is, and then held that up to all individuals, how many of us would fit the model? And then, I wonder if we were to take all the people who did indeed fit the profile and evaluate them across their range of behaviors, how much overlap and variation would there be amongst the group.
I wonder how many people meet their own standard of a good person.
Culture is a funny thing, because people will fight to maintain the parts of their culture that they believe is good, without recognizing that ultimately it is futile, because all cultures will fail. The things that are working today, can become harmful tomorrow, and even the best of us, will be replaced by better at some point. History is strewn with the dead bodies of cultural behaviors that failed the test of time, so what is the point of the fight? If anything, we should be looking to continually change our culture to better meet the needs of ourselves and society, not trying to maintain it.
What we should recognize though is, going backwards is never an option, as the law of nature says that nothing can ever be the same again. As soon as we try to go back, failure begins. However, this doesn't mean that we can't learn from what has come and gone, and we can't alter past conditions to improve upon them. It also doesn't mean that all forward progress is inherently good, because it is not. So much of what we have innovated has taken us forward in some respects, but has severely harmed us in others.
If something is going in the wrong direction, the earlier it is addressed, the easier it is to course correct, but we aren't that smart as a culture. It seems that we have to feel the pain before we will even begin to do something about it. This is especially true when the thing we are going to have to change, provides us with convenience.
Slavery was convenient.
Not for the slaves, but for the people who controlled and used them to improve their own position in life. But I don't hear many people openly talking about bringing back slavery because it is good for the economy.
Oh, yes I do.
I hear many people talking about how AI and automation is so great, because it makes things more convenient and does things better than we could alone. Essentially, what AI is, is digital slavery, but without a human directly suffering, it is therefore acceptable. But, does that mean humans aren't going to suffer due to the influx of AI? Is it okay because it is harm via proxy, and legalized harm?
Culture is a convenient excuse for so many bad behaviors in this world and as a result, culture shouldn't be protected. Instead, it should be tested to see if it is suitable for the time and how it should change in order to bring out the best of us, not the worst of us. Yet, people keep telling me how great their culture is, without looking at all the shit sides of it and realizing, it is part and parcel. Humanity is constantly on an endless array of spectrums, with large swathes of individuals that might look alike, but don't behave alike. We can associate or disassociate from one group or another, but at the end of the day, the only behavior we have the power over, is our own.
But, doesn't power corrupt?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]