Dear Everyone,
I hope you are settling back into the school routine after such a busy weekend. We all hope that you found a satisfactory combination of work and enjoyment (and the intersection between).
Let us turn to our Saturday afternoon activity (before the storm). In effect, we had 5 "worldviews" interacting - liberal, religious conservative, capitalist, xenophobe and eco-pantheist! These might have been caricatures of more nuanced positions, but I think the principle is valid and leads us to the following questions:
Despite our differences as humans, are there some core values that we can all accept? Many of you expressed your response to the activity as a set of rules, but those rules surely arise out of underlying values. What were some of those values on which you think we can all agree?
How difficult was it to identify these common values, and what are the implications of your answer to this question? If it was extremely difficult, does this mean that our efforts in the modern world to create functioning multicultural societies are doomed? Is all this "international-mindedness" a grave error, an impossible dream? Or is there some way of nudging people towards acceptable compromise - perhaps through legal or political means?
What would be the consequences of believing that our sense of morality arises from abstract principles such as fairness and the avoidance of harm, or from an external authority such as a god, or perhaps from our feelings and conscience? How did these alternatives affect your group's work?
Let's explore the issues here and see where they lead...
when we were mixed up, it was kind difficult to agree on rules that benefitteed all of us and my group(eco-pantheist)was seen as inferior along with the christains and was banished to our own mountain to be taxed any time we decided to come downt the mountain and into town. our two main leaders(capitalist and liberal) looked at us as inferior. it makes me think about the way we look at others and think we are accepting their cultures but rather we look down on them instead of seeing them as equals, we cast them away insead of learning from them.maybe morality from abstract principles are right but how strong are they?
ReplyDeleteI realised that in my team there seemed to be a core value that everyone stressed on, despite their differences:"TOLERATE US" or "DO NOT STOP ME FROM INDULGING IN MY WAYS.""Do NOT IMPOSE."
ReplyDeleteAny group which wanted to "impose" was considered inconsiderate.
International mindedness isn't a failure.With the exercise, i realised that it was possible to live in a multi-dimensional world. The acceptable compromise in the world today, seems to be a "DON'T DISTURB ME" kind of compromise. It seems as though our agreement is on the idea of "Tolerance" and acceptance of all.
With the many different cultures and beliefs, I must say that it seems to be the only reasonable way to handle things. My group came up with about 16 rules, because from the start, we realised that we would not move forward unless we allowed everyone to have their space.
Beliving that our morality stems from "abstract principles" has many implications. In our work, it was realised that people had differnt "abstract principles" and this made work difficult. The only principle that was strong through and through was that of "freedom from imposition." I have never heard of a group that wanted to be controlled or prevented from what they wanted to do. This was the common thread I found in all.
Deborah - I think you have touched on an important point here. Tolerate and do not impose might be a good basis for integration of groups into a cohesive society.
ReplyDeleteBut aren't some ideologies better at toleration than others? Liberals would say that tolerance is part of their worldview and the problem is that others sometimes do not share this value.
And while it might be a good starting place, isn't it the case that toleration is not enough? If you are part of a society you must also make a commitment to it. What happens when diverse cultural groups live side by side but see their "commitments" in the form of taxation, etc. used for purposes with which some do not agree? How can we ensure that diversity does not undermine solidarity?
This is a problem in many African countries where ethnic loyalties may be stronger than national ones (especially in nation-states carved out of colonial decision-making), but perhaps also a problem in countries where individualism has eroded more traditional affinities.
The following link might be useful here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/feb/24/race.eu
i want to add that , as a part of deborah's groupat some point it was veident that the solution out was to apportion land to the different worldviews so that they could carry out their activities with no interference. I believe that yes, as humans there are some core values that we all accept which might perhaps be attributed to human nature, howwever this is not enough to uphold "international mindedness" as is evident in many countries,South Africa being an example. Of course if we had no core values the human race would be extinct without a doubt, so these values help us survive however they are not able to bind us together.
ReplyDeleteI think this activity was a big challenge mainly because each group thought they were superior. When we were mixed up, we decided that even within the land that we were in we should have seperate regions and not cross each other's paths. Tolerance will then not be needed since we would be on our own "small world". However, it is impossible to live on our own since we definately would need one thing or the other from someone else.
ReplyDeleteFrom the link Mr. Kitching posted, David Goodhart says that the fact that we preferring our own kind does not necessarily mean that we our hostile to other kinds. This could imply that the fact that we were all for our values did not necessarily mean that we did not respect other people's values but we were just holding on to our beliefs.
Being in our groups I saw it as a model of the real world. i believe in the world no matter if we like it or not there are boundaries. In my group boundaries were the main issue however these boundaries in the real world is what causes the lack of international-mindedness. i agree with ms appiah korang. no man is an island, i believe that if each group did not feel so superior we could have learnt from each others culture and even implement some of their views. this is why we go to international schools in order for us to be able to tolerate people who have different views. however i wonder if we all mix, will there be any individuality?
ReplyDeleteAs stated in the introduction to this thread, our portrayal of these different views were indeed exaggerated. “Why so?”… In my opinion, it was because we ourselves, as individuals, have a stereotyped view of some of these personalities, hence the very description of the varying groups of people (who may in fact exist), caused us to act out the roles biased towards a particular perspective. A word that recurs in the messages above is “tolerance” (unfortunately it occurs here again). I beg to differ from the view that “tolerance” is the compromise we must all resort to. For me, the word “tolerance” itself is a disregard of another culture as equally acceptable as your own. It connotes a superior-inferior relationship, where the culture which is completely different, must be “tolerated”. I do agree that assimilating different ideologies and cultures is extremely difficult (I trust that we have all had our bouts of this, in this multicultural institution!...as well as the island exercise), but I think what my group failed to realize as a good solution was striking a compromise that will be mutually beneficial to everybody. Now, that’s the main challenge. It even sounds very ideal, and unreal, but honestly, when you look at the bigger picture, the only reason why ‘tolerance’ needs to come in, or segregation through boundaries comes in, is because we were all unwilling to brainstorm hard for laws that will be mutually beneficial. “Mutually beneficial” means making a sacrifice to strike a compromise. For instance if my group (religious) wanted to build a church and reserve Monday as a prayer day, whilst, another group wanted to build a temple for the sun god, we could have each been allowed to build our sanctuaries, although it means sacrificing the exclusivity given to your religion, if we had our own land. This was really what people were not willing to give up! Thankfully, the real world does more of this, in accommodating our differences. I am not exempting myself from this almost innate/natural human flaw, just that, I think that it is indeed the “assimilation” of culture that is the main issue, and not “tolerance”. International mindedness is therefore, not a grave dream or an error. It just takes sacrifice, strong-will, time and a lot of work!!!
ReplyDeleteSurely, as human beings, we all share a common set of core values. These values, in my opinion, have innately formed over the period of our existence and though every individual is unique in their set of personal principles, we still possess these basic core values that sometimes define our humanity. The desire to live in peace, the desire for freedom and independence, and our desire for access to basic needs are examples of these core human values that featured in the activity that we partook in. Our differences however arose from our different definitions of the keywords in the core values, which are living in peace, freedom, independence, access to basic needs, etc. For instance, "living in peace", to the xenophobes meant living in a place of their own without any strangers, to the capitalists, meant high economic activity and preferably monopolies on their end, to the religious conservatives, meant being spiritually in tune with a Supreme spritual being, to the eco-pantheist meant going completely natural and becoming one with nature, etc.
ReplyDeleteThese differences in our secondary values, I believe, stem, principally, from our
cultural diversity and the environment that we find ourselves in. These secondary values, also give rise to the actions and responses of an individual which form the investigative matter for understanding an individual's core values. Using the famous "iceberg analogy", we can compare an iceberg to an individual's value structure. Since an iceberg is about 90% submerged, we can say that that 90% forms the core values of the person at the very bottom and their secondary values in the middle, all under water, and not readily seen by others. The 10% above sea-level that can be seen refers to the actions and responses of the individual that help one to understand that individual. Despite the fact that about 90% of a person's values are not readily witnessed or appreciable, the 10% that we are exposed to can aid us in our quest to achieve a multicultural society that preserves and respects all the different values of the groups in the society though this will be challenging and time-consuming. Hopefully, as time goes on, people's secondary values will blend in in a positive direction, and societal cohesion will improve.
We as human beings have common values that we share probably we are born with them but they are sometimes overshadowed by the secondary values that we have acquired or have been influenced to us by other people or sometimes even the circumstances that we find ourselves in might cause us to deviate from these common values that we all share.
ReplyDeleteIn my group, the 'tolerant' group, we found it quite difficult to accommodate some values that came from other groups even though our group's name suggests that we should have tolerated all these but as much as we would have loved to tolerate everybody's values we couldn't because it would have overshadowed our own values as a group and more so the tolerance could only be exercised to a certain extent.
When all the groups finally came together, we couldn't easily agree on rule that would equally benefit all of us because each group thought it was superior to the rest and so despising the welfare of the other groups.
Therefore, each group had to sacrifice some of their core values in order to live in peace this rest on the Island.
I really liked the exercise we did but i got frustrated when the people i shared common values and principles with, dispersed to different places. Before i was a capitalist and believed to be superior, intelligent and none conforming its either we rule or the opponent is eliminated by whatever means. Even within the group we tried to agree on some compromises we will make if we separated and this wasn't easy how much more coming to a compromise with people of different values, cultures, beliefs and values. Every one tried to convince each other to accept their belief. This for me was a model of the real world. It is funny how everyone tries to either dominate a group or everyone trying to tolerate and understand each other. For my group it was either we rule or nothing else. Most of the arguments were that we are rich and intelligent so conform to our values and principles. This is a perfect picture of A western and African world..As Tope said these boundaries cause lack of international-mindedness. No man is an island so we should try and at least compromise no matter how difficult it may be. Individuality creates variety and makes the world we live in more adventurous and unpretentious.
ReplyDeleteMetty: I think you forget that in compromising, tolerance plays a strong role as well. I was a sun god worshipper in the activity and if the solution was that we would all build our different shrines on the land, it meant that we would have compromised, and yet, TOLERATED the other. In that the rule was that NO OTHER WORSHIPER except those of the sun god would worship on the land. Now, I agree that then, allowing the Christians to worship on our land was a compromise. But at the same time, if I was asleep on the sunaday morning and the Christians woke me up with their worshipping, I would wake, and wouldn't be able to get angry because I had to TOLERATE them. You see, compromising cannot work without tolerance. We can all agree to do something, but if we do not decide, if we do not make a conscious effort to tolerate the other, our compromise will not work.Tolerating doesn't necessarily mean that there is a "superior-inferior" relationship. It simply means that we are ready to overlook the differences and still work together. I think that our "definitions" of the word tolerate are a bit different though...
ReplyDeletemy group was the liberal group that set out to tolerate and to serve as a bridge between the different, opposing groups.... well tolerate is kind of being thrown around quite a bit in this discussion, but im really wondering what exactly it means, because when we were dispersed into different groups, the catch phrase was that we should tolerate each other. so people who sacrificed humans were to be tolerated. so think about this, at the time there were only two human sacrificers in the group therefore who would they sacrifice... to me it was amazing that we had lost site of the fact that we were all one group even though we still maintained our individual positions. therefore by 'tolerating' the human sacrificers we were putting ourselves at risk. sometimes in our bid to compromise and allow everyone we lose sight if the fact that everything everyone does on the island affects us both directly and indirectly. Therefore i think that that is where the emergence of such hard and fast rules come up such as no killing. We may not all agree to it but then for the greater good, a rule like that should be enforced.
ReplyDeletein response to the question about moral principles i believe that the more abstract principles are easier to work with that principle given from a god. because with the emergence of an external god, judgment is in his hands and usually it has some dire consequences, therefore it was harder to compromise because one group actually believed that the first island sank because they disobeyed the god... therefore were less willing to disobey that god again...no matter how impractical his wish was. this made them less willing to compromise with some of the rules that we were coming up with in our group however, with such abstract principles (which seem to an extent be innate or gotten through relationships in the communities we live in) such as fairness and avoidance of harm we could all agree or work around those principles.
first of all, what I should state is the fact that we are all human beings despite our in-differences in culture, race, and religion which have affected the way the human being think and operate in the world.
ReplyDeleteIndeed there are core values which are still possessed by all human beings which like Nana Kwame mentioned "define our humanity". One good example I can think of is that of helping of one another as one of the most common core values that are still observed by the entire world although some of these values are changing with the situations we are contained by and also by the selfish nature of individuals nowadays.
However some conventional values extracted from these core values by different societies and cultural groups, with time, deviate from the cores values so bad that it is nearly impossible to change back to the conventional values of the entire world at large. An example such a conventional value is RACISM. One of the greatest comedians, Chris Rock once stated that RACISM will never die, it just multiplies. Although this was said out of humor, I found it very interesting as it really made me think that actually the more we try to stop racism, the more we actually create it.