And who is my neighbor?

Last updated on: September 16, 2015 at 8:40 am by Jane the Actuary

And who is my neighbor? 2015-09-16T08:40:27-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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25On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’c ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’d ” 28“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor? (Luke 10: 25 – 29, NIV, from biblehub.com)

I’m still thinking about the issue of culture, and struck by a piece from Slate today, “How You Lie Depends on Where You’re From,” which had two main points: first, that one’s mannerisms and the ways one interacts with others vary enough by culture that tell-tale signs of lying likewise differ among cultures; and, second, that the matter of when lies are even wrong in the first place varies by culture — meaning that police, customs officials, etc., trying to identify liars by their nervous behavior, are stymied when the liars’ consciences’ are clear. Examples of the second: “That which can be considered a ‘lie’ by regular polygraphs used in the West may not be considered a lie by Turkish people,” according to one expert the article cites, and

While around world, there are rules against lying, what counts as a lie differs from place to place. As one polygraph operator who served during World War II and worked for the CIA wrote in 1987, “In most cultures, speaking truth is a virtue and lying is a vice,” but “the polygraph operator working overseas learns to modify his theory somewhat.” Other 20th-century American polygraph operators reported that “the Russians value truth among their fellow citizens but will unhesitatingly lie if they perceived doing so as a duty to the state” and that “lying to prevent problems between people is acceptable in Arab culture.”

While this might be somewhat essentialist, research has borne out the idea that cultural differences change how people lie.

“We’ve know that for quite a long time,” says Taylor. “What constitutes lying in other populations can be very distinct from what constitutes lying in Western cultures.” In some places, little white lies that smooth social situations might not be considered lies at all, for instance. Or, says Castillo, “if you view lying as a way of protecting your family and if family is culturally important to you, you won’t be nervous lying.”

Now, this last sentence is interesting — certainly it’s generally accepted that there’s nothing wrong with deceiving someone to protect someone in cases where it’s a matter of justice, the standard example being a family hiding Jews behind a false wall. So I’m presuming that there’s more going on here — that it’s a matter of it being culturally acceptable to lie in a broader range of situations, where it would advantage you, or your family, or your “tribe” however defined.

Which then reminded me of a set of posts from back in June, where I speculated about such things as whether, rather than discussing whether atheists can be “good, moral people,” the more relevant question is whether the moral reasoning of atheists is different than people of religion, or Christians in particular, in any way that you can make generalizations about.

And reminds me of my post from last week on Saudi Arabia and the calls they share some of the load in the matter of refugees, both those in refugee camps and those making their way to Europe.

We Westerners have heard the story of the Good Samaritan countless times. Even for those who aren’t religious, the parable — and its message to help those in need, even if they’re not in your family/town/tribe — is a part of our cultural heritage.

The Saudis? The simplest answer to their disinterest in helping refugees (except to the extent that they can convert them to Wahhabism) is that this is simply not a part of their culture.

Now, it would be interesting to see a graphic that answers the question, “which cultures are Good Samaritan cultures, and which care solely about their literal neighbors?” — but there’s likely not a clear divide and, in any case, it’s simply not something that is allowed to be talked about. But if we could identify Good Samaritan cultures, or, to the contrary, tribalist cultures which strongly prioritize advantaging their own group, wouldn’t we want to select our immigrants from the former, rather than the latter?

(Yes, I know, based on the title, this post should have been all about our obligation to help the Syrians. And so we should — but we can help them a lot more effectively in the Middle East, rather than bringing some small number who hit the jackpot to the U.S.)

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