
We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/we-may-never-truly-fathom-other-cultures
======
leereeves
> What was the reason for all this carnage?

Perhaps there was no rational reason, and we are closer to understanding than
we'd like to admit.

A significant portion of modern Americans regularly enjoy blood and carnage in
video games and movies. There's a cruelty, a bloodlust, deep in the human
psyche that even now isn't socialized away, merely supressed, to be satisfied
only in fantasy.

Yet thousands are murdered every year in our society, which harshly punishes
murder. How many more would be killed, merely for sport, if that were
encouraged by religion?

~~~
turc1656
Totally agree. Have you ever seen the movie The Imitation Game? There's a
great quote from Turing's character when he is talking about being picked on
and beaten up by bullies at school - "Do you know why people like violence? It
is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying"

It's that simple, really. It is in our nature, just like sex. We like it. It
feels good.

The only reason we try to eschew and condemn such violence in modern society
is because it is in our best interests and more productive to society as a
whole to not be like that. No other reason. If we all lived in fear and were
huddled in our homes in small communities we wouldn't have even half the
modern luxuries we do today. Plus, on the larger scale, if it's war you are
talking about - well, they cost a lot of money/resources. So they are tough to
maintain for the long haul without noticeable economic harm.

People like to say that love is stronger than anger and hate. I have always
disagreed. Hate and anger run deeper than most imagine. And they motivate
people like nothing else in this world, except perhaps fear.

The one and only reason people aren't butchering each other in the streets is
because we have figured out a way that we can all survive. If that were to
crumble, you can be damn sure society would look a lot closer to The Walking
Dead or Children of Men than Star Trek.

~~~
noobermin
If it "[i]s in our nature, just like sex" then why wouldn't violence be in our
best interest? Why wouldn't we be more productive just doing what we want? If
it really is our nature, then how is our "modern luxur[y]?" It has been
established that while violence is the human condition, altruism also has an
evolutionary origin[0].

I feel like the "sweet water/bitter water" dichotomy that the Christian
tradition left us[1] has been so damaging because it has formed this
perspective that we can only be bad and we can only be good, rather than we
can be both. I do believe some people might have different tendencies than
others and some may be prone to violence or prone to love but to assume your
inclinations extend to everyone else is stupid.

[0] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/prefrontal-
nudity/20130...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/prefrontal-
nudity/201307/the-origin-altruism)

[1] [http://biblehub.com/james/3-11.htm](http://biblehub.com/james/3-11.htm)

~~~
projektir
Because our best interest is not the same as evolution's interest.

We, or, at least, some of us, have figured out, after a long time, that
violence is not a good thing. But violence is what evolution runs on, because
it wants the weak to die and the strong to reproduce. Altruism happened
because groups of people ended up stronger than individual people, so there
needed to be mechanisms to override violence impulses to enable groups. But
the groups of people were still supposed to kill each other over and over to
make stronger groups of people. The altruism is not universal. Hence all the
ingroup biases. And much of that still remains to this day. All of us are
violent directly or by proxy towards animals. Even if people are not violent,
many are mean, they create pecking orders, they measure status, they compete,
etc. They are executing adaptations developed to categorize people or groups
of people as "should not be selected". The old programming is still there.

Except our combination of intelligence, empathy, sympathy, altruism, and
strength "backfired" and resulted in us slowly deciding, for ourselves, that
maybe we don't want to live like that.

I believe Christianity was designed to oppose this programming (original sin),
but it's a 2k old religion, what do you expect? So much has changed since
then, our methods in many places got better; Christianity is out of date and
has too many dependencies.

I also don't think your characterization is fair, anyway. Christianity doesn't
say we can only be bad or only good, it says that goodness demands complete
purity, and through that, it says we're all bad, due to an influence inside of
us, as well as an influence outside. While there are people more prone to
violence and those more prone to love, there's nobody completely free from the
programming or the situation.

~~~
tnecniv
> I believe Christianity was designed to oppose this programming (original
> sin), but it's a 2k old religion, what do you expect? So much has changed
> since then, our methods in many places got better; Christianity is out of
> date and has too many dependencies.

I think this holds for a bunch of old religious beliefs. A lot of the old,
seemingly arbitrary laws from Judaism had practical purposes in ancient times.

------
nitwit005
I think it's quite possible the level of violence seemed excessive even to the
society itself.

A common problem that's cropped up in a number of modern countries is weddings
getting more and more expensive. If weddings are an important means of
displaying status, and it might shame the family to seem poor, then there is
clearly going to be a drive that direction. Pretty soon, people are
bankrupting themselves on weddings that seem excessive to everyone involved.

Cultures that engage in religious sacrifice seem to have the same sort of
problem. Sacrifice shows off both status and religious zeal, so there's
incentive to try to sacrifice more than others. If sacrificing slaves is
allowed, ending up in an extreme state isn't all that surprising.

------
HillRat
Or, to put it another way, "We may never truly fathom cultures that were
destroyed several centuries ago and are only studied through archaeological
fragments and the memoirs of late-medieval invaders."

------
Typhon
70 years after the Holocaust, 40 years after Cambodia and Viet Nam, 20 years
after Rwanda, as Syria is partly occupied by ISIS, what I truly can't fathom
is how anyone would single out _senseless bloodlust_ as "that alien thing from
a distant dead civilisation we will never understand".

~~~
imagist
15 years after we invaded Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with 9/11
and no WMDs, or at least fewer WMDs than the US.

It's easy to distance ourselves from things that didn't happen in our country
or in our lifetimes, but the reality is that we're just as bloodthirsty as
anyone else.

~~~
Typhon
Well I thought Viet Nam was a more clear cut example of America being
barbarous but yeah, Iraq works as well, let's not forget Abu Ghraib.

Anyway, as far as I know, although my country has committed its share of
horrible massacres around the world, none of it has happened in my lifetime...
I just hope it'll last.

~~~
vacri
The US military learned its lesson in Vietnam: don't let the media see what
you're doing. We'll simply never know how US soldiers behaved in Iraq as
compared to Vietnam.

~~~
Grangar
Sure we do:

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinatin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinating_on_Taliban_fighters)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrik...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp)

(not all are Iraq, but you get the picture)

~~~
imagist
Yes, these exist, but a few notable stories that broke are little compared to
the relentless onslaught of news from Viet Nam during the war there. It was
the first time that TV news from a warzone was readily available, and footage
of the fighting was still shocking to people, so it attracted viewers. As a
result, new footage from Viet Nam was aired _every day_ for _literally years_.

The modern military recognizes the need for PR. Abu Ghraib was mostly still
pictures because it was mostly leaks--press was allowed nowhere near the
place. Contrast this with videos of Hussein's statue being pulled down or the
"Mission Accomplished" press conference

If you cherry-pick specific instances, sure, there was negative coverage of
the Iraq War, but the big picture of Iraq War coverage versus Viet Nam War
coverage is very different.

------
jackcosgrove
I think there is a limit to cosmopolitan universalism, and that's a good
thing. Whether separated by time or space, it's good that there are unknowable
cultures. First because to expect that every culture is understandable from
the perspective of another (usually wealthier, more sophisticated, and
"civilized") culture (in the business of writing history books) limits other
cultures' freedom to express themselves as they see fit. Where the rubber
meets the road is when a culture foreign to the metropole flouts what the
metropole considers universal values. Imperialism usually ensues.

Second, foreign cultures are fascinating because they are so different.
Imagine Marco Polo traveling to China. It must have been like getting in a
space ship and traveling to another planet. Nowadays all the airports look the
same, all the center cities have the same types of restaurants, and global
culture is depressingly uniform.

------
VLM
Carthage is much closer to western culture yet still earns its share of WTFs

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Carthage#Child_sac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Carthage#Child_sacrifice)

~~~
pipio21
Well, we abort children legally, so it is not like we have improved so much.
In Spain and other countries it is legal to abort creatures that would live if
taken out of the womb.

We rationalize it, because the mother will not be able to give a good life to
her child or whatever.

What makes us think that people from Carthage could not also rationalize with
more powerful reasons than us? It was way harder to live back them than today.

PS:Most of what we know of Carthage comes from their competing beliefs, like
Jews, because Cartage was totally destroyed, in the same way the Jews portray
a picture of Babel totally distorted.

~~~
mhurron
> we abort children legally

No we do not, that is illegal because murder is illegal. It is not a child
until it is born.

~~~
dismantlethesun
[https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2016/bills/house/1337#digest-...](https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2016/bills/house/1337#digest-
heading)

Indiana General Assembly, House Bill 1337

> Requires physicians to provide information about perinatal hospice care to a
> pregnant woman who is considering an abortion because the __unborn child
> __has been diagnosed with a lethal fetal anomaly.

The terminology of referring to the unborn as children has a long legal
history.

There's a similar history concerning how personhood is determined via
paperwork: i.e. if you do not fill out the paperwork for an abortion, the
unborn child is considered a person for cases of its death---such as if a
pregnant woman is killed, it's considered a double homicide.

~~~
mercutio2
You're posting a link to anti-abortion propaganda from the _2016 Indiana
Assembly_ as an argument for why those of us who strenuously disagree that
fetuses deserve the legal rights of children should agree with calling fetuses
children?

The Indiana Assembly is certainly an authority on one thing: legislating
clever ways to restrict women's right to obtain an abortion. I don't consider
them authorities on much else.

~~~
dismantlethesun
Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize your 'we' only referred you personally and
anyone who agreed with your conclusions.

I had thought you meant a more general and inclusive 'we'.

------
kijin
I think there's something else going on here, other than the humility of
researchers who claim to be unable to understand Mexica culture.

Failure to imagine what it's like to be someone else, from a different place,
a different time, with different ways of thinking -- is perhaps the biggest
reason why we have so much violence and hatred in this world, and modern
scholars are just as guilty of it as warmongers and propagandists of the past
have been.

It is a failure of imagination, a failure of empathy, that every culture
encourages -- sometimes subtly, but often not so subtly -- in order to keep
its members loyal. One of the defining characteristics of human cultures is
that each wants to have a monopoly on a person's mind.

Most of us grow up believing that their way of thinking and living is the only
natural way, and parents and teachers rarely try to give us a world view that
goes beyond what's considered mainstream in our own cultures. Having lived in
a cultural greenhouse all of our lives, the first thing we do when faced with
a radically different way of life is how different this other person is. The
differences so overwhelm us that we forget to appreciate our common humanity,
with all its greatness and weaknesses, that should be the first step towards
truly putting ourselves in the other person's shoes.

It would seem that anthropologists and archeologists are no exception.

Is it repugnant to kill innocent children at the altar of some imaginary
being? Of course it is. Is it a necessary trait of civilized people that they
cannot bear to imagine themselves growing up in a culture that practices human
sacrifice as a matter of course and learning to participate in the bloody
rituals? No, it isn't. It's just a failure of imagination that our own culture
encourages. We have learned to be unable to imagine ourselves performing such
terrible things, just like Victorian culture made it look normal for young
women to faint at the slightest sight of anything disturbing. The inability to
"fathom" another culture, no matter how seemingly barbaric, is not so much
evidence of the moral depravity of the other culture as it is a testimony to
our own narrow-mindedness.

~~~
sophacles
Is it failure of imagination? I don't know that's true.

Let's look at some of the aspect of life described in the article. Assume I'm
just some artisan, good at my job, respected for my ability to work materials
into goods. Making the odd innovation here and there. As a result I'm not in
the ruling elite, nor the warrior "caste", but I'm doing pretty good for
myself compared to most people.

Basically let's just say I'm equivalent to a decent software developer in our
society.

I can imagine all sorts of things:

* I'm ashamed that I'm not a member of the fighting classes

* I don't have strong opinions of that fact

* I have a strange (to me in the 21st century USA) relationship with those of the fighting classes

* similar thoughts toward ruling elites, plus:

\- Do i worship them or revile them? Do I have differing opinions on different
people in that class, or do I view them as an undifferentiated mass?

\- Do I expect to have any influence, or none, etc? How do I feel either way?
(I can imagine having influence on the noble class but being rather upset
because they are supposed to have a direct line to the gods, and why are they
asking me?)

Other things I can imagine:

* Do I fear being sacrificed? Am I ashamed if I am afraid of it?

* Do I see the sacrifices as great? Or do I see them as an unfortunately necessary unpleasantry? Or do I see them as a source of shame because the rulers are out of touch? Is there an apocryphal tradition of the Gods actually being gentle and not wanting blood sacrifice, but this is being ignored by the priests?

* If my kid gets recruited to the military, am I proud or scared or both? Do I prefer his capture or his death in battle? What conduct makes me proud or not?

Basically my point here is that imagination and lack of data combined results
in a truly honest answer of "I don't know which of the options for any of the
questions above is right". This leads to a simple "I don't know", not because
I can't fathom it for lack of empathy or imagination, but because I can see
many many different ways it could be experienced.

~~~
kijin
There is no need to decide whether the artisan worships or reviles the ruling
elites. No society is so homogeneous as to make that question black-and-white.
If someone does give a black-and-white answer, that's as good evidence as any
that they don't really understand how cultures work.

Think of the gazillion different, mutually incompatible attitudes that modern
Americans have about Hillary, Trump, and everyone else. Now re-imagine your
artisan. You can be simultaneously afraid of being sacrificed and ashamed of
being afraid. You might have a great deal of respect for some of the warriors
but also revile the way they lick the elite's ass. You might have heard that
the next village got leveled and all of their women and children enslaved
because they dared to question the authority of the high priests, and have
conflicting thoughts about whether they deserved it or not. Your friends might
disagree with you on this matter, but some of them are afraid to speak out.
But then this big customer wants his swords repaired by morning, and you don't
have time to worry about those things anymore. Most of daily life is mundane,
it has always been. Just because there are human sacrifices going on on that
hill over there doesn't make life unrecognizable all of a sudden.

Knowledge of specific details is not a prerequisite for empathizing with
someone as a human being. The point is to appreciate the many different ways
that a Mexica life could be experienced (which you do very well) and keeping
it all in your working memory instead of aggressively map-reducing it into
answerless questions like "What did the artisans think about the warriors?"
Likely, there were more than one artisan and more than one warrior.

------
beat
Mostly, this reminded me of one of my favorite short stories - "Von Neumann's
Second Catastrophe", by Robert Anton Wilson. This story changed my view of why
we have wars.

The story is told from the point of view of a general in an insane asylum. He
argues that war has been ruined by golems, creatures without souls. By golems,
he means computers. The computers run scenarios for nuclear war, and always
say don't do it because it can't be won - mutual assured destruction. But to
him, the point of war is not about winning. That's a lie we tell. The point of
war is the killing. We don't fight in order to kill enemy soldiers. We fight
to kill innocent civilians. Because when you can deliberately kill a child,
you become a superman, beyond morality. Nuclear weapons should be used just
because we can, _because_ it's amoral.

~~~
jerf
I hope by "it changed your view", you don't mean that that _is_ your current
view. Look out into the world. It is not a model that makes any sense for why
humans have wars. That model predicts not what we see, but an all-out
bloodbath until civilization is dead. That model and civilization can not
coexist in any form, and no, cynically trying to strike a pose that we aren't
really "civilized" is not an out; even what we have, imperfect as it may be,
would not be possible. It is not even clear that such a model would permit
humans to exist as individual nomads, let alone stone age tribes. Such an
attitude would be rapidly bred out of any species that somehow got into a
state where that was its attitude, or the species would go extinct.

Models of the world must not just explain why it is all messed up; they must
also explain why there is sometimes beauty, peace, art, science, civilization,
love. It is not enough to only explain one side.

~~~
mjevans
Clearly Beat meant that the book explained the viewpoint of those who cry for
war and destruction. The 'glory' and 'power' they feel must surely be an
addictive sensation.

~~~
beat
Within the story, it's not glory or power either. Glory comes from defeating
equals - but the point is to kill the defenseless. Power comes from victory,
but the victory is irrelevant.

Could you kill a child? Of course not. What kind of monster kills a helpless
child? But if you _can_ do it - you have become something more than merely
human. Humans are confined by their morality. Supermen are not. And soldiers?
Soldiers kill children all the time. That's why there's war.

~~~
chillacy
Or something less than human, I'd argue. In the same vein, a cancerous skin
cell becomes a "supercell" and gets to live an immortal life, no longer
constrained to the cycle of death.

I suspect that people don't like psychopaths for the same reason our bodies
kill cancer cells: they aren't good for society. (some argue that in small
numbers they can be, but you can't run a tribe of psychopaths).

The specific mechanisms of people going against psychopaths include things
like altruistic punishment: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-
party_punishment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_punishment)

------
adsharma
I'm not an expert on Aztec culture, but this has signs of what some call
"atrocity literature" in the garb of scientific study of other cultures.

~~~
XparXnoiAx
The article itself addresses your point, saying, "modern writers have tried to
show that the Spanish conquistadors exaggerated the human sacrifice;
archaeology has shown that, if anything, they lowballed it."

Sometimes 'atrocities' are real.

------
lappet
I feel that the article is missing something that is very important - the
violence of the Spaniards. Did not the Spaniards stamp and erase the culture &
religion of the Mexica? If the Mexica culture had been allowed to exist could
we not understand them better? I feel the title is a little clickbaity and
would wager most civilizations can barely fathom their own past.

~~~
DanTheManPR
Westerners can relate to the Spanish conquistadors, because we share the same
cultural family tree. Westerners can understand why something like greed could
be such a motivator that the Spaniards would cross an entire ocean to pursue
violence against a people... because they had land and gold. You can probably
find cultures today who would find that concept alien and unknowable. The
point is not the violence per-se, but how it's difficult to grok the deeply
ingrained motivations of cultures (especially ones that are long-dead).

------
emodendroket
Well, this was interesting, but certainly does not persuade me of the thesis
stated in the title. I mean, sure, if we have limited records of them we can't
know a lot about ancient cultures, but who's surprised to learn that?

------
flubert
Interesting to see this along with:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682052)

...on the front page at the same time.

~~~
cooper12
Well the Nobel Prizes are awarded by Swedish and Norwegian institutions, so it
doesn't really say anything about how Americans themselves view these
immigrants. (While the rise of a presidential candidate like Trump certainly
speaks for a portion of the American population)

------
uremog
We are all our own culture.

