So we're the weird ones....
Moreover, (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) WEIRD people do not simply react to the world differently, according to the paper, they perceive it differently to begin with. Take the well-known Muller-Lyer optical illusion, which uses arrows to trick the viewer into thinking one line is longer than another, even if both are the same length. (See the diagram on this page.)"No matter how many times you measure those lines, you can't cause yourself to see them as the same length," Dr. Henrich says. At least that's true for a Westerner. For some hunter-gatherers, the Muller-Lyer lines do not cause an illusion. "You do this with foragers in the Kalahari [Desert] and they just see the lines as the same length."
WEIRD people, the UBC researchers argue, have unusual ideas of fairness, are more individualistic and less conformist than other people. In many of these respects, Americans are the most "extreme" Westerners, especially young ones. And educated Americans are even more extremely WEIRD than uneducated ones.
"The fact that WEIRD people are the outliers in so many key domains of the behavioral sciences may render them one of the worst subpopulations one could study for generalizing about Homo sapiens," the authors conclude. "If the goal of the research program is to shed light on the human condition, then this narrow, unrepresentative sample may lead to an uneven and incomplete understanding."
This actually squares pretty well with my observations from travel and life abroad. We Americans are obsessed with spreading our idea of fairness and proper living wherever we go and reject other social contracts as evil, oppressive, and dangerously foreign. I think that is at the very heart of neoconservatism and liberal interventionism.
In reality, the vast majority of the world is simply happy to make a steady living, have a roof over its head, and raise their kids the way they were raised.
I think Paleocon is right about pretty much everything. -- Mex
Paleocon is entirely right --DanB
I agree with everything that Paleocon said... --Boudreaux
Paleo is right on. --Legion
I love Paleocon. --- SallyNasty
Some great food for thought, Paleo. Thanks for the link.
The Michigan Beer Blog
The world would be a better place if more people understood this. It's more reasonable to hate the guy who keeps shooting up the street where your children play than the abstract foreign invader, even when they're the same person.
NOTE: Not a doodle bug.
Steam-XBox-PSN: Lobstermancer
I took a 10 day motorcycle trip through the Mekong Delta when I was living in Asia. At one point, we were good and lost and nearly out of gas and the only person from miles around was a old looking woman who was bent over and about 4' tall from a lifetime of malnutrition. She was using a hand forged iron knife to chop logs into kindling and using the fibrous bark to tie the kindling into bundles. She was selling the bundles for a profit. Upon seeing she had visitors, she immediately went inside her one room hovel and emerged with fruit and tea.
What struck me the most was how blissfully happy she was. It was freaking 102 degrees and 90% humidity and here she was with a beatific grin on her face while she was chopping wood up with a knife.
My buddy asked her where she was from and why she was so happy. She said she was from about ten miles across the river (the Mekong separating Vietnam from Cambodia) and that she was happy because she was finally in a stable place where she could make a living undisturbed by political nonsense. This was in Vietnam, which the CIA Fact book describes as one of the most politically repressive countries on the planet.
I think of this every time I hear some cushy American talk about how we need to bring "freedom" to the world.
I think Paleocon is right about pretty much everything. -- Mex
Paleocon is entirely right --DanB
I agree with everything that Paleocon said... --Boudreaux
Paleo is right on. --Legion
I love Paleocon. --- SallyNasty
I don't know anybody who has tasted our "freedom" and ever wanted to give it up. You met one South East Asian lady and think how happy all the people there must be; I can go all over the USA and find the same happy lady again and again and again. Ours is not the most perfect system. But we don't send soldiers into any State to subjugate ethnic minorities. We don't force territories who wish to be independent to be the 51st State. We don't tell our citizens what they can worship and whom they can designate as their spiritual leader. Give that old lady a chance and she'll leave her happy home and come to the USA at the drop of a hat.
My experience with people's concept America's definition of freedom -- both internally and abroad -- differs with yours, Dirt.
Differs widely.
The Michigan Beer Blog
I think it was Jiddu Krishnamurti who said "The hungry man doesn't want to hear about food. He wants to eat.".
This idea that we can positively affect the world with our spreading of "freedom" at the end of a bayonet belies the fact that most folks simply want to simply live.
I think Paleocon is right about pretty much everything. -- Mex
Paleocon is entirely right --DanB
I agree with everything that Paleocon said... --Boudreaux
Paleo is right on. --Legion
I love Paleocon. --- SallyNasty
It would be nice if WE remembered that all WE really need is
We like to believe all our wealth and prosperity is merely the result of hard work and FREEDOM, but in reality we plundered the Congo (we Belgians anyway) to get rich, and still condone pillaging if it helps us remain wealthy. We burn through the earth's resources while millions are starving. AND we work hard
We like to fool ourselves we're better than the misfortunate of the world, to rationalize how insanely lucky we were to be born in a Western democracy. That we like to tell others how to live their lives is merely to uphold the illusion that we deserve to be richer than 80% of the world, and that they just need to work harder or be more like us to become rich.
That's a lot easier on the conscience than admitting we haven't been particularly nice to those with smaller armies and older guns, in the past or even today (albeit more discretely).
Roo wrote:
Coldstream wrote:
The USA is one of the few places where its citizens can bite the hand that feeds it.
No doubt we've done a lot of evil things. But to believe that we are the root and heart of all evil denies the world the same opportunity for success.
Yeah, the 50th state (Hawai'i) was really clamoring to be a state, the fact it has military importance is just an accident.
Can I ask Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands about that whole 'we wish to be independent' thing?
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
Mark Twain
I don't think anyone has argued that the USA (or any Western country) is a bad place to live, on the contrary.
Just that exporting Western values isn't the way to solve the US trade deficit
Roo wrote:
Coldstream wrote:
Yeah this isn't an America-bashing thread, it's a thread pointing out that Westerners' brains literally think differently than other cultures.
The important take-away I got from the article is that personal freedom and happiness are not as related as our psychologists assume.
The Michigan Beer Blog
I'm not sure the Iraqis would agree with you there, especially the Sunni minority who had a great deal of protection under Saddam. Not so, any more. You're also speaking from the perspective of an American who has been raised to understand this kind of freedom. Give someone a few choices and they can pick which is best for them. Give them infinite and sometimes they'll be so overwhelmed they pick nothing.
It's interesting how you use a straw man to accuse your opponents of a straw man. You're right, we can criticize our government without fear of retribution. I don't think you're considering that not everyone wants to criticize their government, even if their government deserves criticism. Not everyone wants to be a freedom fighter and stand up for liberty. Some people just want to chop their kindling and offer a snack to a stranger.
So you're right, Dirt, we can bite the hand that feeds us. However, that hand is wearing REALLY thick gloves and has trained us to bite in a very specific way so we can think we're really socking it to them while they don't actually notice or care.
I used to think that the surest sign that a country had lost its freedom was when its government started imprisoning journalists. These days, I wonder what it would look like if the government had no need.
Maybe you're right that the woman Paleocon met would be happier in America. Then again, maybe you're not. You have no idea, other than nationalism. The point is the woman is happy. If that's good enough for her, who are you to say she'd reconsider her definition of happiness the moment she saw a ticket to America?
NOTE: Not a doodle bug.
Steam-XBox-PSN: Lobstermancer
I am sure there are plenty of Native Americans that would take issue with the bolded statement.
“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” - St. John of the Cross
Yup. I rather enjoy living in the US. There is quite a bit I love about it. It is not the root of all evil, but it is certainly the root of a neocolonialist's share.
I think Paleocon is right about pretty much everything. -- Mex
Paleocon is entirely right --DanB
I agree with everything that Paleocon said... --Boudreaux
Paleo is right on. --Legion
I love Paleocon. --- SallyNasty
I am sure that the vast majority of countries in the world treats you and people like you as a freak of nature. Only the Democratic ones, the ones who believe in some semblance of freedom and equality will even entertain the idea of treating you the same as everyone else.
I read an interesting article about the difference in the way people play a game depending on their level of development, and the idea that you can't generalize about society by doing studies solely on western populations. How or why that turns into yet another thread about how the west or America sucks beyond me.
Dirt's offensiveness meter goes to 11 this morning, apparently.
The Michigan Beer Blog
Every morning it's the same thing: America or Americans are stupid, lazy, vicious, craven. It gets old. If any criticism is leveled at another country, the response is "but in America we do _____ which is just as bad." Just gets old after a while. We've already lost just about every conservative or republican poster on the board, and threads have turned into echo chambers. I suppose this will change as the election approaches..
Seth, what I just described is the real world that so many of you are romanticizing about.
One of the reasons I brought up the trip to Vietnam is that the Ultimatum Game was one of the many examples of Game Theory (also the Prisoner's Dilemma for those who are interested) that folks like McNamara and the geniuses in the LBJ administration used to justify their "spreading of freedom" in Vietnam. As it turns out, the entire intellectual foundation of it appears to have been wrong all along.
I think Paleocon is right about pretty much everything. -- Mex
Paleocon is entirely right --DanB
I agree with everything that Paleocon said... --Boudreaux
Paleo is right on. --Legion
I love Paleocon. --- SallyNasty
I was making reference to calling one of our posters a freak of nature given his sexual orientation. I agree with you that the "but [xxx] does things just as bad" has turned into a meme used ubiquitously to mitigate countless subjects and is getting tired, but I was focused primarily on the personal attack.
The Michigan Beer Blog
I tried to elaborate on the point Paleo made in his OP, on how exporting FREEDOMtm is not what the 3rd world asks for, a point he made based on the article.
I didn't mean to say how we suck. I'm a proud Belgian, and rather fond of our constitution. I merely tried to give an explanation as to why we are so eager to export or FREEDOMtm as a magic recipe for global happiness. It's a placebo to ease our conscience, instead of minding our own business or REALLY helping out.
Roo wrote:
Coldstream wrote:
Not a personal attack. A statement of fact.
What personal attack? I read that as saying the equivalent of "in Nazi germany you would have been treated as degenerate subhuman." He's not saying he agrees with the concept.
That's all very interesting.
Now please explain how "The Navajo Long Walk" jibes with your statement "But we don't send soldiers into any State to subjugate ethnic minorities."
“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” - St. John of the Cross
It could be I'm overly sensitive this morning, I'll go do some work and re examine.
The Michigan Beer Blog
The article didn't say anything about U.S. foreign policy. Nor did it address the concept of what different people might conceive the meaning of freedom, or whether people outside western nations don't want freedom. It's not there. The article said nothing about politics or government. It's really about not treating psychological theories developed by testing western subjects as universal concepts.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/iroquois-lacrosse-team-cleared-fly-us-state-dep...
Are you Native American?
Nope.
“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” - St. John of the Cross