Culture & Perception

ariel · 22nd August 2018, 09:52 AM

David,
Please re-read Alan’s reference:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2...ection=science

It is quite short and you will easily find each and every word you refer to.

It speaks of societies defined as Western and non-Western and describes their prevailing way of thinking, clearly separating between the two.

Any interested reader, having read the article, will likely think about its implications. I have described the most malignant one. Hope you were able to figure out my personal attitude toward it.

There are plenty of people around who would be only glad to validate their biased attitudes by this “scientific research”.

Each and every society is composed of a multitude of individuals with various life stories. The “societal” and consequently “ethnic” or “racial” approach might have been valid in a pre-industrial era, when people born in a particular village were dying there as well, without any benefit of exposure to proper education, foreign cultures etc. Painting “ culture”, “society” , “ Western vs. non-Western” in the 21-st century as immutable definitions using a test of fish aquarium and presenting it as “neuroscience” would be laughable had it not been David Dukes around.

A. G. Maisey · 22nd August 2018, 02:30 PM

Ariel, I choose to believe that you have moved your discussion in this present direction because of the socio-cultural influences that you yourself have been subjected to. The message that I understand from your post #8 is that in your opinion there is no longer any distinction between the multitude of societies and cultures that are spread across the world. Please forgive me if I have misunderstood the point that you are trying to make, but this is how I interpret your words.

You speak of the 'pre-industrial era', 'proper education' and so on as if these are universally available to every person on the face of this planet.

You're surely not serious, are you?

I know you to be a highly intelligent and an accomplished man, it is beyond my understanding of how a man of your intelligence and ability could form such an opinion --- if indeed this is your opinion, and I hope that you will correct me if I have misunderstood your words.

I would very gently suggest that even in societies that share a common, or related cultural foundation, there are sociocultural differences and variations that cause multi-national organisations to indulge in very diligent investigation and analysis of a target society prior to commencing operations in that society. Multi-nationals are not known to waste money on research unless they can support a very good reason for it. Even so, it seems that when some multi-nationals move into Australia from an American, or European base, they still manage to get things wrong --- and I am certain that they have similar experiences as they try to adapt to business methods and consumer culture when they move into countries other than the one they have come from.

I began this thread because I thought it might comfort a few of the dedicated students of the keris who are regular watchers and contributors, but who are still not able to come to terms with even the most basic of Javanese thought patterns in respect of the keris. The reason that they are unable to achieve these basic understandings is quite simply because they are not Javanese, they cannot understand the way in which Javanese people process information, thus they see the world around them, and of course the keris, in a different way to the way in which a Javanese person might see both the world, and the keris.

This has absolutely nothing at all to do with one frame of perception being better than another, but it does have everything to do with one frame of perception being different to another.

I consider myself fortunate in that I have had a close association with Chinese people from the age of 8, and that I have spent roughly one quarter of my life in Indonesia for the last forty-odd years. If I have learnt anything at all from this, it is that not all people from all societies perceive matters in the same way.

Here is a quote from a conversation with Noor Huda Ismail, Noor is a recognised authority on Islamic extremism in Indonesia, for a time he worked as a correspondent for the Washington Post. The discussion was about the way that Western countries see Indonesia as a buffer state that can be used to ameliorate the expansion of India & China:-

"--- our leaders are now intertwined with Western interests. They see the Western system as their role model that could help them to restore the country (ie, Indonesia). We are Asians and we have very different ways of thinking and solving problems. If our leaders continue to play this game --- defending the interests of the West in this part of the world --- they will be selling their souls and our souls to the devil."

You see Ariel, Asians recognise that the way in which they see and understand something is not necessarily the same as the way in which a highly intelligent person from a Western society might see & understand the same thing, even if those Asians themselves are also highly intelligent.

David · 22nd August 2018, 03:28 PM

My humblest apologies Ariel. You are indeed correct that the word "analyical" does appear once in this article. The reason i passed it over may seem odd, but it is actually because that particular passage is enlarged, highlighted and in quotations as if it was pulled from some other part of the article. You might think that would make it more obvious, however i made the wrongheaded assumption that this was an extracted passage from the main article and passed it by assuming it was also included within the article and that i would encounter and read it in context. So there is my "block". My bad. Thank you for pointing it out to me.

That said, i still do not see how this article is posing any of this in a good vs. bad modality. It seems as artifact of your own Western way of thinking that you feel that "analytical" modes of thinking are somehow superior to any other method of approaching a problem. Nor does it say anywhere that Asians are incapable of analytical thinking.
You are also still conflating these concepts of race and culture. What is being discussed here is not how people with a particular skin color or facial features process information. It is the cultures in which we are raised that are being discussed, not the actual ethnicity of the people within those cultures. In indonesia, for instance, you might find people who are ethnic Chinese who were raised within a Javanese cultural mindset. They may not be culturally Chinese at all. This is now the third time i have brought up this point so you will probably ignore it again, but if you take a moment to think about it you may realize that this is not a question of racism at all.
So bottom line here gentlemen... i do not intend to have a discussion here on racism. That is not the issue at hand and i will shut this discussion down if there is an insistence to continue along that tract. It seems completely ignorant to believe that different cultures do not process information and other stimulus in different ways and foolish to think one can understand the ways of foreign cultures without immersing oneself fully in the history, mannerisms and ways of those cultures and acknowledging those differences.

David · 22nd August 2018, 03:55 PM

Ariel, if you have not read "Visible and Invisible Realms: Power, Magic, and Colonial Conquest in Bali" by Margret Wiener i would highly recommend you give it a go. One thing that becomes really clear throughout is that the Dutch colonists inability to understand the Balinese culture and modalities of thought was indeed disastrous. Though much has changed in our information age and you may wish to believe that in the 21st century the ways in which this culture processes information has been overcome by our own Western methods i believe you may find you are mistaken.

David · 22nd August 2018, 10:50 PM

And just to bring all things back to the keris, which is, i believe we can all agree, the context for what we discuss here, the point Alan is making about understanding the keris, and by extension the system of tangguh, is not only dependent upon understanding the Javanese culture and mindset, but also understanding it as it existed many centuries ago. While it is not doubt true that the world view of many Javanese has been affected and perhaps changed by the dominance of a more Western world view, the keris developed in pre-colonial Jawa and while the tangguh system certainly came along a bit later it was still at a time long before European influences had the chance to Westernize people in the area. I still believe that the general world view of the Javanese people is strongly influenced by the culture of their past at least as much as by the influx of Western thoughts and ideas in the 20th and 21st centuries.

22nd August 2018, 09:52 AM	#1
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	David, Please re-read Alan’s reference: http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2...ection=science It is quite short and you will easily find each and every word you refer to. It speaks of societies defined as Western and non-Western and describes their prevailing way of thinking, clearly separating between the two. Any interested reader, having read the article, will likely think about its implications. I have described the most malignant one. Hope you were able to figure out my personal attitude toward it. There are plenty of people around who would be only glad to validate their biased attitudes by this “scientific research”. Each and every society is composed of a multitude of individuals with various life stories. The “societal” and consequently “ethnic” or “racial” approach might have been valid in a pre-industrial era, when people born in a particular village were dying there as well, without any benefit of exposure to proper education, foreign cultures etc. Painting “ culture”, “society” , “ Western vs. non-Western” in the 21-st century as immutable definitions using a test of fish aquarium and presenting it as “neuroscience” would be laughable had it not been David Dukes around.

22nd August 2018, 02:30 PM	#2
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,992	Ariel, I choose to believe that you have moved your discussion in this present direction because of the socio-cultural influences that you yourself have been subjected to. The message that I understand from your post #8 is that in your opinion there is no longer any distinction between the multitude of societies and cultures that are spread across the world. Please forgive me if I have misunderstood the point that you are trying to make, but this is how I interpret your words. You speak of the 'pre-industrial era', 'proper education' and so on as if these are universally available to every person on the face of this planet. You're surely not serious, are you? I know you to be a highly intelligent and an accomplished man, it is beyond my understanding of how a man of your intelligence and ability could form such an opinion --- if indeed this is your opinion, and I hope that you will correct me if I have misunderstood your words. I would very gently suggest that even in societies that share a common, or related cultural foundation, there are sociocultural differences and variations that cause multi-national organisations to indulge in very diligent investigation and analysis of a target society prior to commencing operations in that society. Multi-nationals are not known to waste money on research unless they can support a very good reason for it. Even so, it seems that when some multi-nationals move into Australia from an American, or European base, they still manage to get things wrong --- and I am certain that they have similar experiences as they try to adapt to business methods and consumer culture when they move into countries other than the one they have come from. I began this thread because I thought it might comfort a few of the dedicated students of the keris who are regular watchers and contributors, but who are still not able to come to terms with even the most basic of Javanese thought patterns in respect of the keris. The reason that they are unable to achieve these basic understandings is quite simply because they are not Javanese, they cannot understand the way in which Javanese people process information, thus they see the world around them, and of course the keris, in a different way to the way in which a Javanese person might see both the world, and the keris. This has absolutely nothing at all to do with one frame of perception being better than another, but it does have everything to do with one frame of perception being different to another. I consider myself fortunate in that I have had a close association with Chinese people from the age of 8, and that I have spent roughly one quarter of my life in Indonesia for the last forty-odd years. If I have learnt anything at all from this, it is that not all people from all societies perceive matters in the same way. Here is a quote from a conversation with Noor Huda Ismail, Noor is a recognised authority on Islamic extremism in Indonesia, for a time he worked as a correspondent for the Washington Post. The discussion was about the way that Western countries see Indonesia as a buffer state that can be used to ameliorate the expansion of India & China:- "--- our leaders are now intertwined with Western interests. They see the Western system as their role model that could help them to restore the country (ie, Indonesia). We are Asians and we have very different ways of thinking and solving problems. If our leaders continue to play this game --- defending the interests of the West in this part of the world --- they will be selling their souls and our souls to the devil." You see Ariel, Asians recognise that the way in which they see and understand something is not necessarily the same as the way in which a highly intelligent person from a Western society might see & understand the same thing, even if those Asians themselves are also highly intelligent.

22nd August 2018, 03:28 PM	#3
David Keris forum moderator Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 7,211	My humblest apologies Ariel. You are indeed correct that the word "analyical" does appear once in this article. The reason i passed it over may seem odd, but it is actually because that particular passage is enlarged, highlighted and in quotations as if it was pulled from some other part of the article. You might think that would make it more obvious, however i made the wrongheaded assumption that this was an extracted passage from the main article and passed it by assuming it was also included within the article and that i would encounter and read it in context. So there is my "block". My bad. Thank you for pointing it out to me. That said, i still do not see how this article is posing any of this in a good vs. bad modality. It seems as artifact of your own Western way of thinking that you feel that "analytical" modes of thinking are somehow superior to any other method of approaching a problem. Nor does it say anywhere that Asians are incapable of analytical thinking. You are also still conflating these concepts of race and culture. What is being discussed here is not how people with a particular skin color or facial features process information. It is the cultures in which we are raised that are being discussed, not the actual ethnicity of the people within those cultures. In indonesia, for instance, you might find people who are ethnic Chinese who were raised within a Javanese cultural mindset. They may not be culturally Chinese at all. This is now the third time i have brought up this point so you will probably ignore it again, but if you take a moment to think about it you may realize that this is not a question of racism at all. So bottom line here gentlemen... i do not intend to have a discussion here on racism. That is not the issue at hand and i will shut this discussion down if there is an insistence to continue along that tract. It seems completely ignorant to believe that different cultures do not process information and other stimulus in different ways and foolish to think one can understand the ways of foreign cultures without immersing oneself fully in the history, mannerisms and ways of those cultures and acknowledging those differences.

22nd August 2018, 03:55 PM	#4
David Keris forum moderator Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 7,211	Ariel, if you have not read "Visible and Invisible Realms: Power, Magic, and Colonial Conquest in Bali" by Margret Wiener i would highly recommend you give it a go. One thing that becomes really clear throughout is that the Dutch colonists inability to understand the Balinese culture and modalities of thought was indeed disastrous. Though much has changed in our information age and you may wish to believe that in the 21st century the ways in which this culture processes information has been overcome by our own Western methods i believe you may find you are mistaken.

22nd August 2018, 10:50 PM	#5
David Keris forum moderator Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 7,211	And just to bring all things back to the keris, which is, i believe we can all agree, the context for what we discuss here, the point Alan is making about understanding the keris, and by extension the system of tangguh, is not only dependent upon understanding the Javanese culture and mindset, but also understanding it as it existed many centuries ago. While it is not doubt true that the world view of many Javanese has been affected and perhaps changed by the dominance of a more Western world view, the keris developed in pre-colonial Jawa and while the tangguh system certainly came along a bit later it was still at a time long before European influences had the chance to Westernize people in the area. I still believe that the general world view of the Javanese people is strongly influenced by the culture of their past at least as much as by the influx of Western thoughts and ideas in the 20th and 21st centuries.