Do modern political people over-emphasize culture?

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Hi all. I want to bring up another important issue. Let's talk about culture.

I've noticed that quite a few political people nowadays will over-emphasize the importance of culture. Liberals are always saying "We need to respect the culture of other people." Conservatives are always saying "We need to distance ourselves from people who come from primitive cultures!" or "We need to preserve our ancestral culture!"

Am I the only person here who thinks that culture has been over-emphasized?

I totally get why people over-emphasize culture nowadays. It's an easy way to avoid racist explanations for human behavior. We use the world "culture" to prove we aren't racist.

Here's the thing: Perhaps human behavior is driven by forces other than race and culture. What about the law? When something is illegal, people usually stop doing that thing. People also behave differently when they are constantly on the verge of starvation. This is why rich people and poor people behave differently.

Of course, people tend to downplay the importance of politics and economics on human behavior because this tends to start political debates. Am I afraid of harsh political debates? Of course not!

Me IRL
VVV


In my opinion, most people wear their culture like a hat. When people feel okay, they will behave according to cultural traditions. When people are in danger, human nature tends to come out.

Consider the Following: Imagine two race cars. One is moving in a circle. The other is moving in a figure eight. Does this mean that the two cars have different bumper stickers? Perhaps one car is on a circular racetrack and the other is on a figure eight racetrack. Isn't that a better explanation?

A while ago, I was watching some travel videos by Rick Steves. Rick Steves usually avoids controversial content because he is just the host of a travel show. A while ago, he went to Iran. Observe.


What did you observe? I'll tell you what I observed.

Rick had to follow the rules while filming Iran, but these rules were put in place by the authorities. Additionally, Rick saw an anti-American painting on the side of a building, but this was also likely painted by the Iranian authorities.

When Rick interacts with ordinary Iranian people, they judge him by his character as an individual, not by his country of origin. They are friendly towards him. Many of them say that they like America. In other words, it's pretty clear that most Iranian people haven't internalised the anti-American hate the comes out of the Iranian government.

Observe the young Iranian women. Have they internalised Islamic modesty? Of course not. They openly admit that they would go out in public uncovered if they were allowed to. They also wear a lot of makeup, which kinda defeats the purpose of hijab. All around the world, young women want to look pretty. Islam has not changed that.

See what I mean? Most people wear their culture like a hat. Human behavior is shaped by things that are concrete and physical, such as resources and the law. Furthermore, people will have different resources depending on how the economy is run.

Religion and culture are not concrete. They are blurry, nebulous and intangible. People are mostly motivated by their physical environment. Culture is a hat.

That is a bit oversimplified.
Cultural constructs can't really be seen as standing alongside economic factors. They are much more the scaffolding around it.
How wealth is distributed, for example.
(In the German socialist wunderland I live in, for example, more effort is made to mitigate poverty than, say, in the US. And by and large people accept that that means higher taxes.)

Yes, culture is a nebulous, shapeshifting entity. Also one in which items are valued differently. In the hijab case, the adherence to scripture is valued higher than the "use value" of covering one's hair.
The adherence to scripture however is important because it shows a committment to the shared foundation of this culture.
The make-up is individual expression on top if that, which can be tolerated by other members of the culture because of the expressed commitment to it symbolized by the hijab.

It is not a hat, but a shifting network of shared signs and symbols.

And of course it's possible to claim one culture and act differently - if no member of that culture is holding the person to his word...
And then one can argue about who gets to interpret shared signs and symbols.

I certainly don't feel in a position to judge on the value and importance of wearing a hijab, and whether it is in contradiction with make-up.

Putting on a hijab and then wearing makeup is a contradiction because the Hijab is supposed to turn away male attention in order to preserve a woman's sexual purity. Makeup has the opposite purpose. Women generally wear makeup when they want to look attractive.

If a woman wears a hijab but also wears makeup, this means that she obviously hasn't internalised Islamic modesty. She either doesn't know what a hijab is for or she just doesn't give a damn.

^^
Yes, yes, I get that a woman wearing make-up and a hijab is contradicting herself on the level of "modesty".

But I claim that a hijab may function as more than that- as a sign of association with a certain culture.
The make-up is a sign that this culture, too, is not a static thing.

If the woman were to drop the hijab, she would break with an explicit rule, while the make-up is a sign of changing values - without distancing oneself entirely.