Discriminationism

Firstly, I know the title of this piece is crap, but I guess that is part of the point.  Perhaps there is actually a real word for this, but I don't know it, so I made one up.

Discriminationism:

"The propensity for people to jump to the conclusion that prejudice is the motivation behind other people's thoughts, words, and actions." 

I bring this up mainly because of all the talk of culture being involved in the recent Sewol disaster and allegations of "Culturalism" (again) against those who propagate the idea that Korean culture might have played a role.

There are other reasons, however, and they link to the foreigner experience in Korea.  I do believe that many people who come to Korea to work end up spending much more time on the internet than they would back home for a variety of reasons.  I think that this makes people come into contact with many popular causes that sweep around the web on social media.  I notice a few involving prejudice that make daily appearances on my Twitter and Facebook feeds:

1. Discrimination against women
2. Gay marriage
3. Celebrities saying naughty racist remarks, racist TV programmes, and music videos
4. Immigration 
5. "Culturalism" (Korea only)

The first 4 seem to be part of a liberal crusade at the moment and stories involving them are everywhere.  Let me first start by saying that I have many beliefs you might say were liberal.  I would be, pro-choice, anti-gun, for gay marriage, anti-death penalty, pro stem cell research, pro-euthanasia, and in the "Climate Change is real" corner.  I do also have a few classically libertarian and conservative views as well, however.

In all 5 of the listed above I see a great wave of "Discriminationism" going on.  Let's use some classic examples:

1. The disparity in pay between men and women is because of prejudice against women.  People who don't agree are sexist (most right leaning politicians fall into this bracket).

I would argue that there are a number of reasons for the difference between the pay of men and women, the least relevant is unfair discrimination.  The fact is that men and women make vastly different choices in life and prioritise different things, women tend to:

• Choose different lines of work
• Have babies (therefore take breaks from work to bring up children)
• Work less hours in full-time positions
• Choose less dangerous professions
• Want more flexible working hours (tend to choose flexibility over high pay)
• Do more part-time work
• Are less inclined to travel long distances or relocate for work
• Are less inclined to ask for pay rises than men

Instead of addressing these well-known points, most just ignore them and bang the drum of prejudice. They jump to the conclusion that Western society is still inherently sexist and people who don't see any unfair discrimination in pay are sexist too.  There is very little sensible debate between opposing sides.

http://www.upworthy.com/whats-a-penis-worth-turns-out-a-hell-of-a-lot-more-than-you-think-2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-crYzSA8Yw
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2615687/Bear-Grylls-rubbishes-sexist-claims-new-survival-The-Island.html

2.  People who are against gay marriage are homophobic.

I actually think gay people should be allowed to marry if they so desire, why not, right? What harm can it do?  I don't accept the arguments from the other side, but that doesn't mean I think they are all motivated by prejudice.  Some are, sure, but to jump to conclusions, like Will Self does in the video below is wrong. Peter Hitchens thinks this is a form of Liberal bigotry, I think he is right to point out what Will Self is doing is wrong, but this doesn't mean that I am on his side in the gay marriage debate (and I think the accusation of bigotry in return might be unhelpful).  I respect his right to a different opinion and would not make accusations of homophobia.

3.  Hypersensitivity is all the rage in popular culture

No doubt there are examples of racist celebrities, racist TV shows, and music videos and those that produce them should get their comeuppance, but the search for racism is going too far, to the point where every TV show has to show racial diversity, any music video that depicts another culture is using them or making fun of them, and any off-the-cuff remark by any celebrity is evidence that they are bigots.  But jumping to conclusions about celebrities is fascinating news for a celebrity-obsessed culture as we are, and we love to see the rich and famous humiliated or shown as flawed individuals.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/04/25/avril-lavigne-hello-kitty-video_n_5213491.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2513107/Katy-Perry-accused-racism-dressing-geisha-AMAs.html
http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/stephen-colbert-accused-of-racism-with-cancelcolbert-campaign-1201149494/

And in video games too:
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/05/reaction_mario_kart_8_accused_of_poor_sales_potential_ruining_battle_mode_and_racism

4.  A world without borders is a happier place, those who disagree.... well, you get the idea

I would love the world to be border-less, as an avid traveler it would be a dream come true.  However, at this moment in time it is not at all desirable.  The fact is, cultures clash. I know this better than most being married into a different one.  Some differences are irreconcilable for many people and this causes conflict. Multicultural nations can absorb people from other cultures, but it does take time.  Too much immigration, too fast, is a recipe for disaster and I think the open borders policy of the EU at the moment is causing too much friction in Europe, with right-wing parties starting to pop-up all over the place.

5.  "Culturalism" 

I have been purposely brief with the first 4 on my list to pay more attention to something more relevant to Korea.  Let me first say that I am sure some people have their prejudices towards other cultures and I am sure they jump to conclusions sometimes. However, I do not think that, a) There is an obvious pattern of culturalism in the Western media or in Western people generally, especially for explaining disasters, and b) that when wrong conclusions are drawn sometimes that this implies prejudice.  A couple of points below to illustrate what I mean:

a)

• People were justified in questioning Korean hierarchical respect culture for possible communication problems in the cockpit in the Asiana crash.
• People were right to question the culture of indifference to safety issues in Korea.

b)

• I believe people were wrong to conclude that Korean students were too obedient because of respect hierarchies or Confucianism, and that's why they stayed below deck, leading to their deaths. However, I can understand how someone with experience of Korean culture might think it.  It was an over-reach, though, as I am not sure it applied very well to that situation.  Wrong conclusion, yes, but was it because of simple ignorance, filling in time on 24-hour news or columns in newspaper or was it true prejudice?  When a Korean-American news reporter (Kyung Lah) thought Korean culture was a factor, I have difficulty thinking it was prejudice in her case. Generally, I think it was just a bad argument, but not the result of prejudice. Perhaps there were some reports where prejudice was a factor, but I think they were the exceptions rather than the norm. 

I see a hypocrisy in the whole culturalism argument.  Those who advocate this idea place incredibly high demands of proof before we can even question whether culture was even partly involved in a disaster.  Yet they require no proof whatsoever to assert that when people do question cultural involvement they do so as a result of a prejudice.

No only this, but surely there is a cultural accusation going on here, and that is the West regularly shows a prejudice in explaining disasters in Asia.  If the statement said, the West regularly gets things wrong explaining disasters in Asia, then I'd have no problem with it.  However, many go further than this (like TheKorean), they claim to know the mind and the motivation of writers like Malcolm Gladwell, journalists, and just ordinary people with an opinion.

If it was a simple matter of "you are wrong, I am right, and here's why", there would be little to worry about and we could have a good debate about it.  But it is worse than that, instead one side is saying, "I am right, you are wrong and the reason you're wrong is that you are prejudiced against Asian cultures."  Unfortunately, it is only then a short step away from accusations of racism as well and then moral superiority over the opponent is truly asserted and debate can be silenced, as funnily enough, people don't much enjoy being accused of racism, especially when they know they are not.  People that oppose modern-day liberal viewpoints are most at risk of being labeled racist and instead of debating with liberals, this fear drives them to watch sometimes radically right-wing radio and TV programmes in large numbers.  This could actually have the effect of turning people who genuinely have a point worth arguing about on some issues into an actual racist or inflame or create real prejudice.

This is extremely problematic, encouraging a whole lot of emotion and push-back from the other side.  Just like in the other debates I have mentioned, as soon as a prejudice is accused of good, unbiased people (not everyone will fit this category, but many are) merely with a differing opinion, you create a real "us against them" tussle.

The accusation of prejudice is something that must be much more carefully made or tension and resentment will be the result when it is made unfairly.  Black people having to drink from different water fountains to White people is clear-cut prejudice.  Explaining poor communication in a cockpit by invoking Korean respect culture is not an example of clear-cut prejudice as there are reasons to believe this could be the case. Argue the conclusion is wrong if you like, but keep the accusations of prejudice out of it.

Culture is not race, gender or sexual orientation, it is learned behaviour, not innate. Different cultures can be prone to different problems through certain aspects of their culture.  Respect hierarchies could affect clear communication and safety and attitudes to safety among Korean people could make dangers more likely. Attitudes towards food in many Western countries could make obesity and ill-health more likely.  Cultures are not equal, therefore the prevalence of explanations regarding ill-health and Western food culture will happen more often and disasters will be explained more often by using Korean attitudes to safety and the interaction with their elders and superiors.  We are not obligated to explain negative connotations of cultural attitudes equally between all cultures in all situations.


Unfortunately, I do think there is a real concerted effort going on in liberal circles to silence arguments, not with good points, reason, and evidence, but with slurs on the opposition and appeals to emotion.  There is a way of thinking going around at the moment that if you don't subscribe to, you are a fit target for abuse and are always on the defensive.  You are guilty until proven innocent of prejudice, and to prove this innocence you have to absorb a series of barbed verbal and/or written abuse (I know this better than most on this blog).  I think most just give up the discussion because of fear or social ostracism.  What a sad state of affairs for good, honest, reasoned debate and the search for truth.  Sure, name and shame those that are truly bigots, racists, sexists, homophobes, etc.  But people should start by making sound arguments first and benefit of the doubt should be given.  Innocent until proven guilty, remember.

Saturday Night Live Korea's Adoption Sketch: No Need for an Apology

Outrage has become the insatiable hunger of our time in the West.  People will step over their own mother to find it and show everyone they know what a morally well-rounded and high-class person they are.  It has also become a way of winning arguments. 'I'm offended!' = discussion over, 'I win', and that is what passes for debating these days.

I have found outrage is especially apparent when anyone criticises any non-Western culture (the weak ones that can't handle what we think), but sometimes criticism of Korean culture (I think many Westerners living in Korea think of Korean culture as inferior to theirs so they think it is wrong to criticise aspects of it) by expats is justified if it looks like Koreans are picking on a vulnerable group or people that are less strong than they are.  Many of these criticisms are completely valid, but some are not.

So, with this in mind, I am going to defend those at Saturday Night Live Korea for their little comedy sketch. (Translation here). Not so much because I think it is really funny or a valid representation of adoptees, but because I am pretty sure I don't know enough and don't care enough to be outraged about it, and I get a little tired of misdirected and phony outrage.  I'm guessing that I might be in the minority with this viewpoint though and what I say here might offend people.


I Don't Know Enough

My wife and I have overcome many cultural differences to be the happily married couple we are today.  We understand a great deal more about each other and our cultures than we used to.  However, one of those things we just have to accept is that she just doesn't get British humour and I don't get Korean humour.  This doesn't mean I can't make her laugh, but it does mean that when I watch Korean comedy - in film or on TV - it is simply not funny to me most of the time, even when I get the jokes, and the same goes, vice-versa, for her with British comedy.

This is because comedy is often (not always of course) very subtle and the elements that come together to produce a sketch, a program, or a movie are derived from a close cultural understanding of language (which even a fairly fluent speaker might not be able to pick up on), the history of the subject being made fun of (either as a country, in society, or even in previous TV programs or in films), and the cultural context.

For instance, I have heard that the skit in question on SNL is actually making fun of a specific TV program that used to run in Korea and Korean dramas where they used the subject of adoption (quite possibly many times) and airport meetings of adoptees and their real parents as a subject for melodramatic shows of emotion (cue the tears and piano music).  Most foreigners living in Korea would not have known this and probably most adoptees - who had not spent much time in Korea - wouldn't have known this either.

I find it ironic that many of the same people I see criticising foreigners who complain about Korean culture for 'Not knowing enough' (on some pretty black and white cultural issues), are slamming SNL in exactly the same way.  They don't get it, they don't know enough.  All they see is an attack on adoptees, but if you watch the video again with the above explanation in mind, it paints an entirely different picture.

I don't blame adoptees for getting upset, but I do believe those that became outraged misunderstood the sketch and overreacted.

In a similar case, but not involving comedy, an England cricketer (Graeme Swann) remarked to his brother on Facebook - a few months ago - that England got 'arse raped' by Australia in their test series after losing the 3rd match.  The PC brigade managed to find this remark and spread it around social media and rape charities in the UK were angered about it and demanded an apology.  It was simply an off the cuff remark of a disappointed man in a message to his brother (in a very common British colloquialism), but he had to apologise nonetheless.  It feels wrong to condemn rape charities for overreacting doesn't it? After all, unless you have been raped how can you really know what they are going through, so surely it was irresponsible of Graeme Swann to say what he did.  Perhaps he shouldn't be quite so profane in his everyday language, but was it deserving of such outrage?

Rape is a disgusting crime and we should have the greatest sympathy for people who have gone through it, but that doesn't mean these people didn't overreact, it was a ridiculous reaction given the circumstances.

Although this is not comedy, I think a similar situation has occurred with the SNL sketch; outrage gets magnified as it's spread around social media and it becomes very difficult to take a step back and see that it isn't really that outrageous.  Much graver misfortunes are made light of in comedy all the time.

Examples of 'Insensitive' Comedy Shows/Movies and Characters

Family Guy - Joe Swanson is wheelchair bound and jokes are regularly made of his situation.  Most of us cannot possibly know what it is like for people who can't use their legs, so it is not a fit subject for comedy.

Only Fools and Horses (UK) - Delboy and Rodney are brothers live together with their Grandad in low-level poverty in central London.  Their mother died when they were young and their father left them.  They live from day to day by making dodgy deals and selling tat at the local market and to their friends.  Many of us cannot possibly know what it is like to lose a mother when young or have their father abandon them or live in such poor circumstances, so it is not a fit subject for humour.  How can we laugh at their troubles?

The Life of Brian - A man called Brian is worshipped like Jesus and is eventually crucified.  Since we all have never been crucified (I hope) how can we find this a fit subject for humour?  And singing a jaunty song while on the cross!!  Disgusting.

Hot Fuzz - a London based cop gets more than he bargained for when he is transferred to a sleepy village when murders, disgusied as accidents, occur on a frequent basis. Since I and none of my family or friends have ever been murdered, this is not a fit subject for humour, I cannot possibly understand what murder victim's families must feel when they watch this film, it trivialises death and murder.  Ban it.

Seasame Street - Oscar the Grouch is clearly homeless and the Cookie Monster is clearly coping with a powerful food addiction.  How on earth we can all make light of such situations is crazy.  And it is a show for children!  Most of us have no idea what it is like to be homeless or have a strong addiction, again, this is not a fit subject for humour!! Pull the show from TV before more young minds get corrupted!

The disabled, parentless families, people in poverty, people being tortured and crucified to death, murder victims and their families, homelessness, and addiction, all being used as subjects for comedy in very very popular TV shows and movies.  Should we all be disgusted with ourselves?  Or would that be an overreaction?

I could have given a number of other examples.  The point is that there are many unfortunate situations we will never truly understand, many that are much worse than the subject of adoption.  Intelligent people can see comedy is comedy and making light of hardships is sometimes a necessary part of life and this in no way detracts from our ability to empathise with real people embroiled in really heart-achingly sad and difficult situations.

Personally, I can see how the SNL Korea sketch could be funny, it made me giggle at some points, but has it changed my perception of adoptees in any negative way whatsoever? Absolutely not. Might it change or accentuate bad vibes in Korean people towards adoptees?  I don't know, but I doubt it.  Now let's say the government made a policy change that stopped the reunification of adoptees and their Korean parents or discriminated against them in some way; then I might be moved to some level of outrage.

Comedy is comedy, and upsetting some people is its business sometimes, it tends to be funnier that way. Sometimes comedians step over the line, but the SNL sketch is nowhere near an example of that.


Understanding Comedy


I remember when some of us Brits got all upset by a Ricky Gervais comedy, 'Life's Too Short', because people weren't sure if Gervais just using Warwick Davis to make fun of dwarves and midgets.  But that's the thing with comedy, it is at its best when it is close to stepping across lines.

The day that comedians have to go the politically correct police (or Joe Blogger) for advice on how best to write a comedy sketch, we really will live in a dull, humourless world.


Making Fun of Language Ability

Another aspect of this sketch that I have found many people didn't like is the part that makes fun of the guy's Korean.  Some of the foreign community are crying, 'Oh my god, they are probably making fun of me when I speak Korean!'

So what if they are?  My students make fun of the way I say Korean words sometimes, I just laugh and jokingly say, 'Shut-up' or 'You wanna punch in the face?', which they find quite funny.  A sure way of getting them to continue making fun of me would be to act all hurt and angry about it.  Making fun of your pronunciation; it's nothing, get over it and it's a guarantee people will continue to do it if they see it bothers you anyway.  If it doesn't bother you, they just look silly when they do it.

I remember a while ago my wife and I were watching a Korean film about a mentally handicapped man with a young daughter who got mistakenly accused of murdering a little girl.  The way he spoke Korean bore a resemblance to the way I speak it and my wife noticed this and said so to her family and they made fun of me for it.  My reaction was not to cry like a little sissy girl (or point out how mental illness is not a fit subject for a joke), I just had to take it on the chin and laugh along with it.  It was quite funny, I did sound remarkably like him.

Making fun of pronunciation or language ability can be annoying sometimes and frustrating if you are trying hard to learn a language, but come on everyone, mummy stopped holding your hand when you step out the house a long time ago, time to grow up, have a thicker skin, and get a sense of humour about yourself.  Obviously no one likes to be heckled on the street about their language ability or generally bullied, but we are talking about a comedy show here.  Are people really that fragile or so easily led?


In summary then, some might say I am getting outraged over people getting outraged, but no, not really.  I am just tired of them making life less fun for us all and sitting on top of their throne of moral superiority and not admitting that a huge reason people get upset about stupid things like this is to help inflate their already sizable egos and make themselves feel important or special.

I am not innocent in this regard either, to write a blog in the style of this one, you have to have a bit of an ego, and I am sure my ego does leak into my blogs from time to time, but at least I don't require a sense of humour transplant.

As for the adoptees themselves who were offended by it, of course they can take offense to it and they can voice their feelings, but I think they need not, and in my opinion I think it is pretty lame.  There are a million hardships we will never fully understand that people suffer from and to erase every one of these situations from comedy is not only impossible, but would make the world a very boring place indeed. Somethings are truly damaging or irresponsible - like using a blackface gag in a Sunday afternoon family comedy show - but do we really think any harm will come, any rights trampled upon, or any prejudices enhanced by SNL Korea's mildly controversial sketch involving the issue of adoption? Surely not.

This has nothing to do with people demanding censorship, by the way, this is simply me reacting to the outrage produced.  People are totally within their rights to voice their outrage, as I am within my rights to say it's stupid.

Anyway, SNL Korea have apologised, so let's hope this makes people happy (I won't hold my breath).


Note:  A commenter very fairly asked where I looked for reaction to the SNL sketch. Roboseyo's blog first got my attention and I followed many of his sources as well as doing my own searches.  I'm afraid some reactions on social media are now lost, but here are some other links that I read from:

http://peaceshannon.tumblr.com/
http://www.adoptionjustice.com/
http://iamkoream.com/snl-koreas-offensive-adoptee-sketch-draws-protests/
http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2014/03/11/saturday-night-live-faces-backlash-for-adoptee-parody/

A Culture Bias in Reporting of Korean Culture and Plane Crashes?

I might have some issues with TheKorean's writing, but that does not detract from the fact I read his blog more than most others.  His opinion on many matters seems to run opposite to mine and I enjoy hearing my opinions challenged, which most of his writing does, in an eloquent, well thought-out way.  It is easy to think that just because people disagree with each other that this necessarily involves hatred or even dislike. I do not see it this way, so I'd like to begin this post by saying that I really appreciate TheKorean's blog and the time he has taken recently and in the past to respond to me.

I do, however, still disagree with him about his theory on cultural explanations and culturalism.  I will explain why in this post.  I do believe TheKorean's ambitions in his first post were greater than the position he is taking now, but the way I understand things now - and with his arguments stripped down as generously as I can - it goes like this:

1. We should not posit a cultural explanation for something, especially if the issue is a sensitive one, before we know the facts or at least have explored other avenues first, with particular responsibility placed on the media.

2. In the West, we jump onto cultural explanations when it comes to the non-Western countries and we don't when it comes to ourselves or other Western countries.  This is an example of a bias called "Culturalism."  Here are some quotes to verify this:

"If national culture is such an important concept that must be examined to promote airline safety, why does the discussion about cultural factors never happen when a European or an American plane crashes?"

 "The honest answer to these questions must inevitably involve the concept of bias, for culturalism is a form of bias."

 "This is why Europeans and Americans get a pass from the culturalist desire. It is not that Europeans and Americans do not have a culture that impacts their behavior; they clearly do. It is that Europeans and Americans are always afforded the luxury of being treated as individuals who are not slaves to their cultures. The same luxury is rarely afforded to South Americans, Middle Easterners, Africans and Asians."

"CNN will continue running stories about Korean culture whenever a Korean plane crashes, while never raising questions about American culture when an American plane crashes. That is the discrepancy that I want you to think about."

As I said, I think his ambitions were greater than this in his original post, but I am not going to dwell on it and I am willing to concede that it may only be my mistaken interpretation of what he wrote which is the cause of me thinking this.  This is what he is saying now, so let's examine it.

The first part of his argument I have some sympathy to, but the second part is simply showing complete indifference to the multitude of situations where culture is used by Europeans and Americans to explain their own behaviour, their own problems, and their own disasters, rightly or wrongly (and the behaviour of other Western countries).  Culture isn't used specifically for explaining plane crashes, he's right, but it is used in many other situations which include (and are glaringly easy to find); obesity, gun crime, healthcare, and education in the US, soccer hooliganism, violence, binge drinking and anti-social behaviour in the UK, and the economic crisis in Southern Europe.  Whether all these cultural explanations are correct or even justified are irrelevant to the 2nd point, because it does definitively show that there is no bias and Europeans and Americans don't get a pass from the "culturalist" desire as he says. 

When TheKorean talks specifically about plane crashes, the reasons for supposing a nation's culture might cause them is absolutely vital in the positing of a cultural explanation.  The fact is that we had good reasons with Korean culture, the reasons are not so clear with Western countries (even if these reasons turned out to be wrong, I think you can see how it is someone might hold them based on Korean hierarchical respect culture).  If I was to start talking about traditional Korean food culture as playing a role in rising obesity in Korea, it would be ridiculous and difficult to comprehend.  But if I started to talk about American food culture seeping into Korea and that being a cause of rising obesity, you might begin to think I am making some sense judging by the fact Americans have the highest calorie intake on the planet on average and have high obesity rates, and American food is generally higher in calories than traditional Korean food (especially fast food, which is becoming more popular in Korea).

In a reply to me, he did however, express another factor that could be involved.  He argued that problems, say, in American culture are often localised or universalised and that we didn't do this with Korean culture and airplane crashes.  He gave the examples of people not talking about Korean pilots coming from the military and the effect that might have (localised) and people not talking about "cockpit culture" being a factors across all countries (universalised).  For example, in education the problem isn't so much American culture, but arguments are given relating to the poor within America or the immigrants from other countries (localised).  And in the 2008 financial crisis, again American culture wasn't directly blamed, but corporate greed or "the one percent" a problem we see everywhere (universalised).

I think he was wrong about this because I distinctly remember reading articles in the Western press talking about military pilots becoming airline pilots in Korea, and this possibly being a factor in past crashes, and a large amount of talk about "Cockpit culture" not being uniquely Korean.  So the accusation that we don't localise or universalise with other cultures is false, at least in the example he uses.  I provide these links to show this:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/south-korea/130709/asiana-airlines-crash-possibly-effected-cultur

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/12/asiana-pilot-feared-landing-safely-ntsb-report

In the second article, the Guardian never even mentions Korean culture in the Asiana crash investigation findings. 

When it comes to point 1, however, the justification of the reasons we make for culture being an issue are important.  It could very well be that the people in Western countries are too quick to jump to cultural conclusions and they shouldn't (especially in the media), whether it is about themselves, other Western countries or non-Western countries.  This may in fact be true of people from all countries and cultures.

In my last post, I outlined the reasons why I thought we had good reasons to suspect Korean culture as playing a role in potentially catastrophic failures of communication in plane crashes.  I think it was fair enough to speculate that this was part of the reason for the Asiana crash (especially in light of the previous cases), I also think it is perfectly fine to speculate about it on a blog.  A slightly trickier question is whether it is responsible of a major world news corporation to speculate about it in the wake of the crash when it hadn't been fully investigated yet.  The truth is, I am not sure about this.  When it's put like that it doesn't sound good, for sure.

However, without the obvious signs of a mechanical failure and a history of Korean respect culture playing a role in other crashes - according to crash investigators - I do think they were justified in bringing up the subject of the reasons for previous plane crashes of Korean airliners.  After all, if a British Airways plane crashed tomorrow, the news would probably bring up previous crashes of British Airways and other British airplane disasters, especially if circumstances looked similar.  So in Korean airline companies, the history of previous crashes will hint at the same reason applying for the current crash, so I guess drawing the same conclusions is unavoidable.

It is of course quite natural for us to look for cultural explanations for bad things we see happen connected with cultures that are not our own, this is the tribal instinct at work, perhaps.  I understand why TheKorean is against this, just because it is natural doesn't make it right and it is perhaps an urge that we all should fight against.  But I think Western culture does, quite uniquely, fight against this.  While I have written myself about the frustrating levels of prejudice still present in Western culture, institutionally, in politics, and in the media they actually sometimes take positions that are too relative and too "fair" to other cultures, to the point where we even do not apply our own laws for fear of being insensitive to another culture.  We often disregard objectivity, equality, and human rights to the detriment of our own countries and the detriment of vulnerable people who are immigrants from other countries.  Examples can be seen of this in my own country lately with the brouhaha over the allowing of segregation of men and women in universities by Muslim speakers (which has now thankfully been rescinded after an official watchdog and the government voiced objection to Universities UK's decision).

The Issue of Freedom of Speech

The wonderful thing about free speech and expression, is that when you say or do something that is lazy or is motivated by pure prejudice without reason, logic and evidence, it tends to show up.  You look like a dumbass when you're exposed, you feel like an idiot, and after a period of licking one's wounds, hopefully your opinions get changed.  This is why my heckles are raised significantly when the word "racism" is used in these kinds of arguments.

TheKorean did explicitly state he did not equate culturalism with racism (also note he remarks that culturalism is something Americans do to other Americans in this quote, which seems to contradict his 2nd point):

"I am not willing to equate culturalism and racism, because the two terms do not overlap completely. For example, culturalism is evident in the manner in which the rest of America discusses the Deep South, in a way that racism is not. But as I wrote previously, culturalism and racism are related, as they are two streams from the same source--the desire to reduce an identifiable group of people to some kind of indelible essence."

However, he is creating a strong connection between the two and he made pains to make this clear in his original post:

"Like racism, culturalism puts a large group of people beyond rational understanding."

"Like racism, culturalism distracts away from asking more meaningful questions, and obscures pertinent facts."

"like racism, culturalism destroys individual agency"

The problem with doing this is that he should know that as soon as the word "racism" comes up in an argument people from the opposing side tend to back down for fear of being labeled a "racist."  It has been a tactic used by the far-left progressives for some time now.  It is corrosive to free speech and I believe encourages a festering of racism because people's actual racist views or border-line racist views are left unchallenged.  This is the whole debate on the right to offend in freedom of expression in a nutshell and I firmly sit on the side of the right to offend (without going out of our way to offend just for the sake of it).  Of course, TheKorean is perfectly entitled to write what he does, but this is my response to it.  It is an important debate to have because it has not really been settled yet.

Because of all this, then, if he had made point one without bringing-up the subject of racism or indeed culturalism or any prejudice at all, I might have been more inclined to agree with him, but his second point was the biggest problem.  I think he alienated many people who see good reasons for making cultural explanations/opinions/speculations because they simply honestly see that there could be a large dose of truth in them.  Most are not "culturalists", or even have any prejudice at all and they resent being linked to racists. 

This is a game the progressive left have been playing with conservative opinions for some time now, and whilst I actually have mostly liberal opinions, I have great sympathy for those that hold conservative opinions when they are shot down for being racists or bigots, or simply labeled as ignorant and prejudiced.  Some undoubtedly are, like some liberals are, but I know by having known many of them that most probably aren't and they would not discriminate or show any malice against individuals on the basis of race and culture. 

It is not wrong to have an opinion about a culture, it is wrong to apply this opinion to discriminate unfairly against individuals, that is the bottom line.  By speculating that Korean culture might have been a factor in a crash, how did anyone discriminate against an individual or violate their human rights?  If then some airline company chooses to use this speculation to not hire a Korean pilot, for example, then we have a case of discrimination and this is unfair.  However, is that really likely to happen?  Perhaps it does, but that would be exactly the area we would need to clamp down on.  Not the honest musings about how culture effects behaviour, but the treating of individuals as individuals.

People were totally within their rights to challenge the assumption or the evidence that Korean culture was involved in airline crashes, but until TheKorean did so, perhaps the argument simply wasn't out there.  It is pretty difficult to report on a side of an argument that doesn't exist yet.  One should give credit to TheKorean for questioning Gladwell's lack of thoroughness and people's blind acceptance of what he said and giving the other side of the argument, but to call it "culturalism" and an example of prejudice is going too far, perhaps it was simple ignorance.  There is nothing wrong with ignorance as long as it is not willful.  By putting your opinion out there, you invite others to enlighten you and critique your position, the key is having an open mind.  I would also note how well received TheKorean's article was going against Gladwell's previously accepted theory, he certainly wasn't silenced.

Speculating with an open mind is fine, with a closed mind it is wrong.  Speculating and making it seem like fact, that is another problem and which TheKorean took Gladwell to task on.  Sloppy work motivated by culturalism?  That's a step too far, as I said, I'd say simply sloppy work and perhaps he is a 'culturalist', but I think he should be given the benefit of the doubt that he is not and his work should not be marked as motivated by a form of prejudice.  In fact, TheKorean's conclusion about Gladwell and those that accepted his work hints at a fair amount of hypocrisy because he is the one saying we shouldn't jump to cultural conclusions and says it is unfair and insensitive.  Yet at the same time he is jumping to the conclusion of prejudice, which is just as - if not more than - unfair and insensitive itself.

There will always be examples of people with prejudice, or even whole TV stations or newspapers with prejudice, but to accuse it on the whole culture or the journalistic profession in the West is unfair and not true.  And as I have mentioned, I think even the bad ones do it across the board with all cultures, including their own.  Also, defense of other cultures in the Western media is quite vociferous and a popular position to take among liberals these days.

One newspaper or TV network does not speak for the whole of Western culture.  If TheKorean's point is merely to enlighten us when we see individual news reports about their inaccuracies and jumping to cultural conclusions, he must surely know that CNN, for example, have been roundly trashed for doing both by other news networks, newspapers, political commentators and comedians.  Let's face it, sometimes, especially 24-hour news networks are so desperate for something to report, that they will report nearly anything.

The issue TheKorean brings up is not about prejudice, it is about politeness, sensitivity and accuracy in media reporting and writing, and that is something I could be persuaded upon to change my views when it comes to using cultural explanations, of any culture (when it comes to sloppy work in the media generally, I am already sold).  I would still need to be convinced that being overly-sensitive to a reasonable criticism of your culture from other countries is necessary or essentially understandable (logically speaking, I think it is not).  You are not your culture and should not be offended as if a criticism against your culture was a criticism of you personally, one should listen carefully and see if they have a point about the culture you live in, then dismiss it if they are wrong and try to change things if they are right.  Perhaps this is not very realistic (perhaps as realistic as trying to stop jumping to cultural conclusions), but this is how we can truly grow and create a better society with which to live in, and importantly, live together in.

The Asiana Crash - Korean Respect Culture Under the Spotlight and Justifiably so

Even before the Asiana crash, I had been warning of the perils of Korean respect culture.  Then immediately after it, the suspicions about the cause of the crash started to resemble Malcolm Gladwell's cockpit culture theory, which was critical of Korean culture before with other plane crashes.  Ask a Korean then wrote about it on his site, pointing out that Gladwell wasn't as thorough as he should have been.  He was right about that, but he never proved Gladwell wrong and he went a step too far in insisting that talk of Korean culture being a factor in plane crashes was an example of a kind of prejudice called "Culturalism", which he compared regularly (and wrongly) to racism.


TheKorean's post struck a chord with many people on the left because there is nothing more popular than someone who strikes down an argument against a non-Western culture.  All cultures are equal, don't you know, in all given situations, they just do things differently and there is no such thing as right or wrong (except when it comes to the West, and the US in particular, being wrong) and those poor non-Western cultures always need (our) protection.

I wrote a response to TheKorean, I did so because I was disturbed by three things: 1 - One should not discount all possibilities when investigating a crash, truth is what counts, not cultural sensibilities when it comes to life and death; 2 - I was worried that comparing such thoughts about a culture to racism may dissuade people from honest truth searching for fear of being labeled "Racist"; and 3 - I knew the possibility of Korean hierarchical respect culture playing a role in the crash was a very plausible one.

In his most recent post, I feel TheKorean is doing some serious stretching of his previous arguments in his first (without acknowledging that is what he is doing) and he seems now to think that the first of my concerns above was something he was never arguing against in the first place.  What did he say about entertaining a question like whether Korean culture had anything to do with the crash?

TheKorean - "If entertaining that question seriously wastes time and distracts from asking the more realistic and pertinent questions, the question is not worth thinking about."

So he says all possibilities should be considered, including culture, but ..... it is silly and wastes time to do so. As I said in argument with him at the time, does asking the question really waste time?  Does it really stop a full investigation of all possible avenues?  Does TheKorean think that, when it comes to air crashes, investigators are not going to be as thorough as humanly possible?  It is ridiculous to think that they would turn around and say, " Hey, it was because of Korean culture, right?  Okay, let's just not bother doing any more work and go home."  Anyway, the fact that Korean culture was trotted-out as an explanation clearly annoyed him, if not why did he write what he did?

So why was I still so suspicious that Korean respect culture might have contributed to the crash (even before reading recent findings confirming that it surely did)?

The answer stares everyone in the face everyday, if you are living in Korea.  I suspect even many Koreans themselves know it as well, but like most of the foreign visitors to Korea also, they don't want to see it. Every time a woman automatically makes the coffee, every time an older worker gets away with being lazy simply for being older, every time younger people are forced to attend company dinners and get drunk at them, every time younger workers are given more work than their elders, and even every time when anyone has to "talk up" to anyone else.

Respect culture is unequal and discriminatory by nature, to be frank it is flawed by nature as it is sexist and ageist.  When it comes to children and grandparents it's nice, but when we all grow up it stops being useful. It is not necessary because respect of our elders comes naturally or not at all.  And as we all know in Korea, one person only needs to be a year older than the other to cause a significant difference in how they are spoken to and treated (a kind of fundamentalist ageism, don't you think).

In Korea, many people don't respect their elders - it depends on whether they earn respect or not, just like everywhere else - but they almost always fear their elders, or at least fear to not show their respect to elders. The difference is important because if you respect someone, being honest in disagreement shouldn't be a problem, but if you fear someone, being honest in communicating with them becomes a serious issue.

Some of the situations I mention above seem trivial, but they are not, they are everyday examples that habitualise a way of living and a way of being that is hard to be snapped out of.  The fact is that, in Korea, if you are older or in a higher position at work - and especially a man - you are more likely not to be told of your mistakes, if you are younger you will probably hear about them non-stop (over and above what naturally occurs in other cultures also).  I have no statistics to back up this statement, but it this seems so undeniable that it is a close to an unadulterated fact as you will ever get. Everyone knows this is true and I have never met a Korean who has denied it.

So when TheKorean makes an argument that says why would a pilot risk the lives of everyone on the plane just to be polite to his elders or those of superior rank, he misses the point entirely:

TheKorean - "No sane person would be willing to die for the sake of keeping up with manners"

It is more than likely there is no conscious choice going on inside the head of the pilot, he is simply acting in way he has been conditioned to behave over his entire life.  He would not be playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe with couple of hundred passengers, himself and his co-pilots on the one hand and his concerns with politeness on the other, that would be absurd.  The whole point of the cultural explanation is that it works around logic; it is behaviour that has become ingrained and hard to break out of, even in possibly critical situations.

People from countries without respect culture are also prone to not speaking out against their superiors and this is the argument for, "cockpit culture", generally and that this is just a fact of life across all cultures. Sure, it can happen in anywhere, but what kind of cultures are more likely to have a problem with questioning their superiors?  Honesty and common sense points you towards the Far Eastern respect cultures. Korea's hierarchical respect culture is still so rigid that it will be prime suspect when it comes to possibly life and death breakdowns of communication and should always be investigated.  Forget offending another culture, this is about moral responsibility to discover the truth, which is far more important.

Bobby McGill over at BusanHaps gave a good summary of some of the recent information from the interviews by crash investigators of the pilots.  Now, I'm not going to be all smug and say, "I told you so", just yet but things aren't looking good for those who think, not only that Korean culture had nothing to do with it, but that it was wrong to even think of it as one of the leading contributory factors.

Before the Asiana crash my wife had signaled a number of warning signs to me when she talked about her job as a nurse in Korea.  This is when I became convinced that cultural etiquette in the form of too much "respect" (I would call this fear) could be life threatening.  She recanted a story which I shared in the post I mentioned earlier, "The Perils of Respect Culture", of nurses fearful of speaking out to their superiors as they witnessed a patient's blood pressure dropping precipitously, failed to act with enough urgency to then tell the doctors for fear of being scolded, and finally - after the lucky escape of the patient - younger nurses were not listened to regarding the possible cause of the patient's near death, despite one of them having witnessed a similar case in another hospital, while the others were generally flummoxed.  Other stories of patient care compromised by a failure of honest communication were also forthcoming on a regular basis.

So in a situation with any chain of command, any natural hierarchy of rank or age, I think we are right to be a little suspicious of Korean culture.  In my time here, there have been too many times people have not proved consistently able to handle these kind of circumstances in a satisfactory manner.  There are often too many crossed-wires and too many unfair, and illogical decisions going on from those of high rank and in my experience they are rarely, if ever, questioned by younger or lower ranking individuals.  Until Korean culture can sort itself out in this regard, the culture brings the suspicion upon itself.

This is not an attack on Korean culture as a whole, just one specific aspect of it.  Much like when there is a group of football fans causing trouble or violence in a city holding an international football tournament, many people from other countries might think of English supporters first, sometimes countries or cultures can deserve some of the judgments made about them.  This isn't to say you should look at a random English football supporter and discriminate against them or automatically think they are trouble, but I don't think I'd blame a bar owner being a bit worried about of a group of rowdy English supporters coming through their doors after England lose an important match, for example. 

In a more recent example, the PISA results for student performance in different countries has given many Western countries great cause for self-reflection about their own culture of education and that they might be doing something wrong and some of the Far Eastern countries are doing something right.

To sum things up, I think I will just use the words of another because they are so damn good.  A comment was left on TheKorean's recent post (posted by "Michael") that hit the nail so squarely on the head as to close the matter entirely, especially the last paragraph:

TheKorean - "CNN will continue running stories about Korean culture whenever a Korean plane crashes, while never raising questions about American culture when an American plane crashes. That is the discrepancy that I want you to think about."

Michael - "CNN (and most other news sources) usually discuss American gun culture whenever a mass shooting happens. Yet I don't recall any discussion of Korean culture playing a role in the Virginia Tech shooting. Is this unfair to American culture? No, because we have no reason to believe that any aspect of Korean culture was relevant to the Virginia Tech shooting. 

With American plane crashes, we've never had reason to believe that culture played a role. With some Korean plane crashes, we DO have reason to believe that culture was involved. That is why it gets discussed. 

If you suspect that an aspect of American culture played a role in an American plane crash, please discuss it on your blog. I would probably find it interesting. And I certainly wouldn't get offended or upset if someone were to investigate whether my culture played a role in an airline accident."

Note: Also read Michael's other comments (here and here) don't mean to be overly complementary (which is not usually my style), but he is now my new hero and makes perfect sense.

I hope I have explained well enough why we do have reason to believe Korean culture could very well have played a role in some of these plane crashes and are justified in suspecting so.  One can't help but also think that if there was no reason to suspect Korean culture as a cause, why did the theory ever come up in the first place?  It all seems a clear case of cultural relativism to me.  We have a right to point out the cultural theory and Koreans need to listen carefully and decide whether we have a point and whether they need to change this aspect of their culture or at least work extra hard on making it disappear in the cockpit.

A Challenge: RE My Asian/White Couples Post

My last post on Asian/White couples seemed to offend a few people, so in a bid to understand why, I am issuing a challenge to any readers of this blog, not because I really believe my position is infallible, but because I do want to genuinely know if the offence I have caused is justified.  If you can fulfill any of the following, I will issue a public apology for what I wrote on this blog:

Pull a quote from that post and copy it into my comment section below on this post and explain how it shows any of the following accusations leveled against me - all of which can be found in the comments section of my last post - are accurate:

a) That the post was a direct response to TheKoreans article on the subject in America, and that I talked with authority about the situation in America.  Please bear in mind that I wrote this:

"This post will not be a direct response as such because I do not live and have never lived in America and I don't know what it is like there, but some of the things I bring up here will at least have some relevance to the subject." 

"My expertise is with Korea, so I am going to look at the question from the point of view of living in Korea."

b) That I wrote that Asian men are not attractive to women.  And I will make this one even easier for you; you don't need to find anything that says I thought all Asian men are unattractive to women, just some.

c) That I personally think White men are more attractive than Asian men.

d) That I think ALL Korean women prefer White men.  And again I will make this easy for you, find the part where I said more Korean women prefer White men over Korean men. 

e) That I do not think that unjustified racism, stereotyping, Western media favouritism to caucasians, etc, plays a significant role in the issue.  You will have to explain away the following quotes from the post:

On TheKorean's conclusion: "deep-seated racism and cultural stereotyping which consciously and unconsciously affects people's choices. Actually, I agree that this could be a considerable factor"

"Let me first acknowledge, however, that it probably is true that society puts the white man on top of the social status pyramid and because status is a major influence on a woman's taste in a man, this is of course a big element to the whole thing"

"With this in mind then there is most probably an effect on the mind of Asian women by society, stereotypes and racism even when it comes to Asian men, I am certainly not denying it."

"So while a form of racism and stereotyping exists that harms an Asian man's chances of bagging a White Western woman, this is certainly not the whole story"

f) That I spoke for mixed race couples and silenced them in the process.  I never suggested I knew anything more than a few POSSIBLE problems for a mixed Asian man and Western woman couples that were perhaps not faced by a White man Asian woman couples, like my wife and I.  I never spoke for anyone else and admitted the existence many exceptions.  Another quote to prove this:

 "This seems a little bit more of a problematic relationship and despite the fact there are many success stories, here are some of the problems I foresee for such couples, which are not insurmountable, but definitely make things more difficult"

I am not sure how this involves silencing their views, as was claimed in my comments section. Also see this link on the disparity of divorce rates in Asian/White relationships, from which I pull this quote:

"White wife/Asian husband couples are 59% more likely to divorce by the 10th year of marriage than White wife/White husband couples, whereas Asian wife/White husband couples show only 4% greater likelihood of divorce than White wife/White husband couples over the same period.^[9] Social enterprise research by the Columbia Business School (2005–2007) concluded that while East Asian women statistically prefer East Asian men for marriage, they show no discrimination against White men, causing Asian women/White men pairings to consistently become the prevalent form of interracial dating & marriage in the United States.^[6]"

g) Point to where I implied White women couldn't possibly be interested in Asian men.

h) Point to where I implied that it was strange for a White woman to be interested in an Asian man.

i) Point to where I wrote all women don't like short men or that all women like big/tall men.

j) Point to where I wrote Asian men were less "manly".  I merely wrote that they TEND to be not as big, and again not all of them (this is a fact).

k) Point to where I implied my wife's discussion with her Japanese friend on the subject was the opinion of all Asian women.

l) Point to where I said all Asian women were smaller, slimmer, or more feminine than White women.  I said "arguably" they tend to be, which may be wrong, but I am entitled to my opinion.


As you can see there are a number of accusations I feel are completely unjustified and that I simply didn't write.  Some of them are so laughably misconstrued as to make me wonder what they were actually reading and makes me think that this was an important subject to write about.

In attempt to educate me, Roboseyo posted a number of links which included 4 posts (start here) from the blog "I'm no Picasso" on the effect stereotypes and racism have on Western women with Korean men in Korea, especially relevant to when they are in a Western crowd of people.  I read them all (obviously not quickly enough for the blogger in question), but I already knew what they were going to say and I knew that I would agree whole-heartedly.

If she or Roboseyo think I don't understand the general ignorance, prejudice, and unbelievable stupidity of many Westerners when it comes to their behaviour around an Asian/White couple, they are severely wrong because boy did I receive enough of it in England when I lived there with my wife, which I have written about several times on this blog.  And this leads me to my last challenge, and by far the most important one, because even if I did believe what I am accused to believe in (which I don't, let's just clarify that again) they would make me nothing more than a little ignorant perhaps, but not a monster nor especially immoral.  This is what really matters:

m) Point to the part of the post where I wrote that we should discriminate against couples we meet, treat them differently at all, or judge them upon anything other than their own individual character. Point to where I said we should ridicule their choices or assume anything about their relationship.

Just because I believe that patterns of behaviour and appearance do exist in different populations of people, and this can have some explanatory power sometimes, I would never say that means we can judge individuals on this.  This is a distinction worth noting.  Upon seeing any couple, whether they are inter-racial or not, I would advocate assuming nothing more than they like each other and treating them like any other couple you happen to lay your eyes on or interact with.  Why would I condone anything else, considering I myself am in an inter-racial relationship and my wife and I have been the victim of people's prejudices?

It is worth restating the aim of my post and that was to say that the issue of why there are more Asian women with White men than White women with Asian men is more complicated than mere prejudice (and Western prejudice at that, which appears to be the sole explanation for all matters inter-racial these days) and the language I used in the post clearly points to a speculative approach, considering all the possibilities.  It was never intended to be a direct response to the situation in America, just a perspective from Korea, as I explicitly stated.

It appears as if merely exploring other possibilities, and denying prejudice is the sole cause, is offensive in itself.  The ironic thing is that my post may have exposed a different kind of stereotype, a new one, where relations between races can only be explained by Western culture's prejudices, which is then taboo to criticise (I believe this is a very popular line of thought at the moment).  And once again, I think much of it can be, but not everything and I think one has the responsibility to point this out and most of all be honest and have an open mind to other explanations until they are proven to be wrong.

If you see everything as a sign of prejudice, how can you be without prejudice yourself?

And Finally

As speculative as my post was a regular commenter on my blog pointed out in my comments section that there is indeed quite a lot of compelling evidence for many of my speculations.  I thank him for his intellectual rigour in the search for truth and teaching me a lesson in searching for more supporting evidence, even when I am just throwing out ideas.  I am linking a couple of his sources, that he used in his excellent explanation below (please see my comment section on my last post for his full comment):

http://www.targetmap.com/ThumbnailsReports/5744_THUMB_IPAD.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States#Asian_and_White
http://thethreewisemonkeys.com/2012/06/26/who-do-you-love-korean-ethnocentrism-international-couples-and-the-dating-dilemma/
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/02/17/james-taranto-takes-on-hypergamy/

And just to show , once more, that I do believe stereotypes and media representation of races is a key factor, here is a little nugget to show that too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_capital#Race

Freedom of Speech Threatened by Cultural Etiquette and Sensitivity

Last week, I wrote the longest post ever in reply to Ask a Korean's post on plane crashes and culturalism.  I felt compelled to do it because it touched a nerve with me.  You see, if there is one thing I cannot abide it is branding anyone who has honest concerns about aspects of another culture as a racist.  Now Ask a Korean didn't quite say this, but he did label Malcolm Gladwell's cockpit theory as "culturalism" and made pains to frequently compare this to racism.  He even went so far to say that Malcolm Gladwell was likely motivated by culturalism in a reply to me, as if he can really know what goes on inside his mind.

There was a message to the Korean's post, and this was that nobody should make generalisations or judgements about another culture, especially if they turn out to be negative, derogatory, or possibly offensive without the most thorough intellectual rigour and study.  Let's try and think about this for one second; is this lofty goal actually possible?  No, it isn't.  There is always going to be an internal dialogue going on inside people's heads; they will always be weighing up situations they find themselves in and trying to find reasons for other's behaviour.  Sometimes the way people behave will be purely down to their own personality or their own personal upbringing or DNA, but many times it will because of where they were brought-up in the world.  If we judge their behaviour to be down to their culture we can often be wrong, but we can almost equally often be right.

So, if we can't stop this inner-voice, we can at least make it difficult for people to write books and make it socially unacceptable for people to bring-up cultural explanations for sensitive topics in conversation.  We can punish them with name-calling, social ostracism, or make it impossible for them ever to get their book published or read.  Hang on a minute, this is starting to sound a bit scary; weren't we warned about all this by George Orwell in 1984?

It has become a poisonous theme in conversation in recent history that any controversial viewpoint about a group of people of any kind is quickly labeled as a racist, bigoted, or prejudiced one.  It is a conversation-ender because it puts the other person immediately on the defensive as they are desperate not to be known as a racist.

To be a racist has rightly become one of the most socially unacceptable things to be in modern times in the West, yet despite this racism is still rife in the West, we haven't put that dog down just yet.  The main reason for this is that human beings are naturally tribal.  We affiliate ourselves with a tribe and any outside of this can be treated with less consideration.  If someone's skin colour is different, it is as good a sign as any that they lie outside of our tribe.  There is, of course absolutely no reason why we should treat others differently only because they have different colour skin, but it has taken hundreds of years of argument and science to figure this out.  Now we know the truth; there is no reason to suspect the colour of someone's skin makes them behave any differently, whether it be morally, intellectually or in any other way.

People should be afraid of spouting racist nonsense, not just because of the social stigma attached to it, but because of the ridicule they receive from people who know they have no reason for it other than ignorance and prejudice.

Culture, however, is profoundly dissimilar to race.  The difference is so significant that I believe one should never make the comparison between racism and culturalism.  Our culture really can determine our individual personality, values, and behaviour.  If you doubt this, just step outside your door and travel; it need not be to the other side of the world, you can just visit your local Muslim, Hindu, Asian or African community (if you live in the West) and see if they generally go about things in a different way than you.  I bet that most of them do.

Of course, no one denies that culture can cause differences, but this is only stated when the differences are benign or simply matters of curiosity.  When these differences are judged right or wrong, good or bad, however, then we run into trouble; this, it seems, we cannot do and because who are we to judge what is right or wrong?  And do we judge right and wrong based on our own culture?  It all appears so relative, but it really need not be.  I believe there really are right and wrong answers to such questions that are objective, which sit outside of cultural relativism that can be sorted out, but only by sharing ideas and talking about them, regardless of any offence that might be caused.

There is another key difference between culture and race and it has to do with the ownership of it.  I cannot disown or deny my race; I will always be White-British.  I can, however, disown my culture or at least aspects of my culture.  Granted, this is difficult to do, but it is certainly possible.  Given that culture is about thoughts and ways of living, this therefore gives me the right to be treated as an individual and not judged as thinking how every other British person thinks.  I can accept or reject different parts of my own culture and others to varying degrees.  This means that everyone anywhere should be judged on how they act and what they say not by their culture as a whole.

Culture, however, can throw-up patterns that are difficult to ignore.  In the Western world, where we are taught that everyone is an individual and it is immoral to think otherwise, we have gone too far and are preventing ourselves from seeing meaningful commonalities in the way groups of people behave.  Generalising is not always a bad thing and, in fact, it is essential to actually finding out what is true in the world.  Scientists generalise and hypothesise about patterns all the time.  Think of a scatter-graph of data that reveals a trend; aren't there almost always anomalies that sit outside of the trend?  Does this mean that any judgement we make on the results is unjustified?

As long as we are all willing to be wrong and change our minds and not treat individuals with prejudice and discrimination based on what we think about their culture, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with making generalisations and having your own opinion about matters.

As a matter of fact, I get pretty offended by those who tell me I'm a racist for giving my opinion about an aspect of someone else's culture (and I have been called this name more than once), who the hell are they to advise me on what I can and can't say and then slander me with unjustified names?  So, just for the sake of it, let's make some generalisations about British and Korean culture, simply because I have the right to (some statements will be comparative):

Korean Culture (negative)

1. Most Koreans are too hierarchical
2. The general level of manners in Korea is not as good as back home in England
3. What the hell is going on with their use of air-conditioning?
4. I find Korean students less creative and less able to think for themselves.
5. I generally find there is less empathy in Korean people when someone or something sits outside of a recognised group, such as the family, the business, or friends.
6. Following on from the last point, standards of animal welfare and concern for animals seems less widespread.
7. Too many Korean people are too focused on their status, money, and how they look to others, sometimes above and beyond everything else.
8. Many Korean people have a nasty littering habit.
9. Xenophobic at times.
10. Often dangerous drivers.
11. Working conditions and worker's rights are poor (for Koreans and especially Korean women).

British Culture (negative)

1. Many British people have a terrible attitude to drinking and behave poorly when drunk.
2. Although general manners among the population are good, the worst of the worst are in large and growing numbers and are worse than in any other country I have visited or resided in.
3. British food is unhealthy and not especially delicious.
4. The British attitude towards food is generally poor and too many people are overweight and pass bad habits on to their children.
5. Many British are too focused on appearing "cool" and this is reinforced by the cultural trend on focusing on Britain as being a "cool" place, summed up by the ridiculous phrase "Cool Britannia".
6. Many British are too arrogant and snobby when it comes to our collective intellect.  This is shown by the stupidity and magnanimity of some British when we gleefully put down Americans as intellectually inferior.
7. Service, from all manner of businesses, in Britain is often mind-blowingly poor and regularly and flagrantly tries to fraud people.
8. Those that do have prejudice against others tend to be extremely outspoken, noisy, sometimes violent and threatening, and generally in your face about it, especially when drunk.
9. There are too many people who lack personal responsibility and are dependent on the state.

Korean Culture (Positive)

1. Food in Korea is varied, healthy, and delicious.
2. Many have prejudice against foreigners (which is understandable) but most do not express it in an especially in-your-face, violent, or threatening manner.
3. Service is usually very good.
4. Public transport is excellent.
5. Children are generally well behaved and respectful at school (compared tot he UK anyway).
6. There is less politically correct nonsense.
7. The people are more genuine than in the UK.
8. There is very little petty crime.

British Culture (Positive)

1. It is easier to be honest with people in disagreement and really understand each other.
2. You can be friends with older people.
3. In general, manners are good.
4. British tend to be kinder to animals and people they don't know.
5. Easier to be your own person and be accepted in Britain for your own personality.
6. Workers have more rights and are better treated.

These are simply my own personal opinions, of course, but I do think many of them have a great deal of truth to them.  My real point, however, is that as long as you treat everyone with equal respect and kindness and the benefit of the doubt of being their own person, what is wrong with having opinions about their certain parts of their culture or even their culture as a whole?  It really is a help to know what others think of your culture; it can help in changing the bad stuff and keeping the good stuff.

Actually, discovering truth, what is morally good and what works is the most important thing.  Making judgements about how other people live is one of the most important areas of life because it enables us to ask questions and delve further.  Sometimes our initial judgements will be wrong and other times they will be right, but we can never know until we form opinions and theories and put our minds together to discuss them.

We will never know about or discuss a subject until someone writes a book on it or speaks up about it.  Any attempt to silence them harms us all.  It is precisely the subjects that are controversial, offensive, and that differ to our own that we most need to hear.  This is the very principle of freedom of speech and why it is necessary now more than ever in such a globalised and inter-connected world where different cultures mingle like never before.

My final word has to do with lightening-up and having a sense of humour.  I have just added this paragraph due to a music video I saw this morning.  "Asian Girlz" by Day Above Ground is obviously just a silly song with plenty of satire about just about every classic Asian stereotype you can think of.  My ability to take the song too seriously was disabled in one of the first verses where the lead singer sings:

"I love your sticky rice... and fucking all night"

 As a man married to a Korean I should get upset, shouldn't I?  But only morons who already have these stereotypical views could ever take this music video seriously.  The rest of us with more than half a brain should realise that it is simply a bit of fun, designed to be a little controversial perhaps and get a reaction. And it has got one; I had never heard of the band until this morning.  This always happens when those offended try to ban things like this.  Banning free speech/expression is almost always counter-productive as a tactic anyway, as this quite clearly shows.

I guess you could say that the song and video are also not just culturalist, but racist.  He goes on to sing:

"I love your creamy yellow thighs... and your slanty eyes"

I don't see any particular harm in the aspects of the video related to race, though, most people have got upset by the cultural stereotyping present in it.  I would be open to the argument that the video was in bad taste, but I have seen more exploitation of women in almost every Hip Hop video I have seen and far worse messages in the lyrics.  I remember owning an Eminem album once where almost every song was about swearing, raping, abusing, assaulting and killing (and it was much less obvious he was being satirical).  An 18 certificate was slapped on it and that was that.  It is telling that a very mild song and video in comparison has caused such an uproar.  Want to ban all controversial, bad taste, or rude music, books and TV.  What a boring world we would live in.  I would gladly put up with the stupid stereotypes I receive sometimes when I am with my Korean wife to not live in a world like this.

If we can't have a laugh at each other and have a sense of humour about ourselves, what hope have we got of getting along?  You think banning this song is going to stop the genuine prejudice present in people?  You think not banning the song is really going to set us back fifty years in the public understanding of Asian women?  Fair enough it is not everyone's cup of tea, but if you don't like it don't watch it, it really is as simple as that.