The Emergence of Ethnocentrism

The Role of Comparison in Understanding Other Cultures

Conclusion

There is a certain cultural mind-set or mentality, born eventually of relativism of an extreme or vulgar kind that surely hamstrings credible attempts toward the cultivation of humanity. This cultural mentality is called ethnocentrism. The Greek word ethnos that forms the first part of the term ‘ethnocentrism’ means "a number of people living together, company, body of men; nation, people; class of men, caste, tribe."1 What appears to be suggested by the Greek word is the idea of people living together. When people live together for a very long time, they evolve common goals, values, and practices, a common language, a sense of history and of solidarity, and other features concomitant to a shared life lived over a very long period of time. Thus, they evolve a culture. The Greek word ethnos, then, denotes a cultural community rather than an ethnic group, which standardly is defined by common descent or biological ties.2 (Of course an ethnic group, if there is any such thing, can also evolve a culture). When the members of a cultural community become so inward-looking that they suppose or imagine their own cultural values or traditions as defining what is culturally worthy, and so perceive and judge the values and practices of other cultures in terms only—exclusively—of their values or traditions, they are said to be ethnocentric.

In elaborating a characterization of ethnocentrism, I would like to start by stating with what is not. Ethnocentrism is not demonstrating preference for one’s own culture or expressing appreciation for—even celebrating—the atavistic values that have been developed and maintained by a cultural tradition or civilization. People have feelings of self-importance that derive, at least in part, from their perception of the worth of their inherited values and the achievements of their cultural traditions or civilization. Peoples are brought up in a particular cultural milieu, are accustomed to its beliefs, values and practices which one would have internalized in the process of socialization, functioning, flourishing, and benefit from the whole range of values and possibilities made available in one’s cultural environment. They derive their identity and a sense of belonging from that cultural environment. Hence, normally they prefer their own culture. Nor is it ethnocentric merely to pass value judgments, positively or negatively, about other cultures on the basis of one’s own cultural values or by appealing to some transcultural values, such as human values. Thus, in my opinion, Richard Barrett is wrong when he defines ethnocentrism as "the tendency to evaluate other cultural practices from the vantage point of one’s own culture."3 Evaluation of the practices of other cultures may be positive or negative, but whether or not a negative or critical judgment of other cultural practices is appropriate and defensible depends on the morality or functionality of the practice that is being critically evaluated. It would not be ethnocentric for a person from a culture that does not itself practice, say, human sacrifice or slavery, to pass critical judgment upon a culture that does engage in such practices. As noted in the previous lecture, a practice of another culture that is the object of criticism may in fact also exist in the culture of the critic, who in such a situation sees both practices (that is, the one in his own culture and that in the alien culture) as wrong. It is also conceivable that the critical evaluation may not necessarily derive "from the vantage point of one’s own culture" (i.e., that of the critic), as Barrett supposes, but from considerations of general human well-being. All this indicates that we do not have to consider a critic of the practices of another culture as necessarily implying that his or her own culture is faultless and best and, therefore, as being ethnocentric. What, then, is ethnocentrism?

The British anthropologist, R.S. Rattray, who spent over two decades in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) to study the culture of the Ashante people, commended their pursuit of the value of equality. He wrote: "Here then we have a far more real equality than any which our [British] laws confer upon us. To the Ashanti our equality would seem a fictitious fellowship."4 Another Briton, Dugald Campbell, who studied the cultural practices of the people of central Africa from the latter part of the nineteenth century to the early part of this [twentieth] century, also made quite similar observations regarding the African appreciation and practice of the value of equality: "The social status of equality observed by the primitive peoples of mankind is now the aim and ambition of the most highly civilized communities; and in central Africa we have a complete object lesson before us of the result of life under conditions of equality."5 Campbell, like Rattray, is extolling an aspect of the socioethical thought and practice of some African people, who, in spite of their being described as "the primitive peoples of mankind," have, nonetheless, been able to evolve a system or practice sought by "the most highly civilized communities."

Rattray made laudatory remarks also about the democratic character of the Ashante political culture. Nominally autocratic," he wrote, "the Ashanti constitution was in practice democratic to a degree. I have already on several occasions used this word ‘democratic’, and it is time to explain what the term implies in this part of Africa. We pride ourselves, I believe, on being a democratic people and flatter ourselves that our institutions are of a like nature. An Ashanti who was familiar alike with his own and our [British] Constitution would deny absolutely our right to apply this term either to ourselves or to our Constitution. To him a democracy implies that the affairs of the Tribe (the state) must rest, not in the keeping of the few, but in the hands of the many. . . . To him [i.e., the Ashante] the state is literally a Res publica; it is everyone’s business. . . . In England, the Government and House of Commons stand between ourselves and the making of our laws, but among the Ashanti there was not any such thing as government apart from the people.6

Rattray is implying that, if democracy is a government of the people and by the people, then this political ideal or value was exemplified more in the Ashante political practice than in the British. Rattray was also "astonished at the words of wisdom" contained in Ashante proverbs, an astonishment that would make the ethnocentric or biased reader "refuse to credit that a ‘savage’ or ‘primitive’ people could possibly have possessed the rude philosophers, theologians, moralists, naturalists, and even, it will be seen, philologists which many of these proverbs prove them to have had among them."7 Rattray is here extolling the profundity of the Ashante intellect that created the proverbs or maxims. The fact that Rattray says that he was "astonished" at the words of wisdom does not itself make him or his judgement ethnocentric; one would not be ethnocentric if one admired or extolled the values of an alien culture; the ethnocenric is, indeed, given to doing the opposite. The most one can say, in this connection, is that he was previously prejudiced against the level of the philosophical perspicacity of the Ashante, but had rid himself of his prejudice when he perceived the wisdom contained in the Ashante proverbs.

The ethnocentric mentality can be nurtured by distorted and tendentious interpretation of the cultural traditions of other people, including their thought systems. Such an action can (or is intended to) not only denigrate and burlesque some features of those traditions, but also overstress the ‘us-them’ distinction in terms of cultural values and achievements. Let me refer to two examples that illustrate the inaccurate and tendentious interpretation of the cultural traditions of other people.8 John Locke, the seventeenth century English philosopher, characterized Indian philosophy as holding the myth that the earth was supported by an elephant which was in turn supported by a tortoise. If only "the poor Indian philosopher" had had the concept of substance, as "our European philosophers,"9 Locke continued, he (the "poor" Indian philosopher) would not have entertained such a mythical view of how the earth was sustained. A modern Indian philosopher, Bimal Matilal, observed, however, that the elephant-tortoise image existed in an old Indian religious myth—not in philosophy—and that "it would be impossible to find a text in classical Indian philosophy where the elephant-tortoise device is put forward as a philosophical explanation of the support of the earth."10 Locke thus took a view held in a religious myth as being held also in a philosophy, and in this way ended up ridiculing the philosophy of "the poor Indian philosopher." Martha Nussbaum, remarking on this, says: "Modern [Western] analytic philosophers sometimes continue the same error, first characterizing Indian philosophy inaccurately as altogether mystical and antilogical, then condemning it for that alleged fact."11

Allan Bloom, a contemporary American political philosopher, ridicules non-Western cultural traditions when he asserts: "Only in the Western nations, i.e., those influenced by Greek philosophy, is there some willingness to doubt the identification of the good with one’s own way."12 This off-handed assertion—infected with hubris—implies that non-Western nations or peoples lack a critical tradition. But this is entirely erroneous and can only result from inaccurate, facile, and distorted characterization of non-Western cultural traditions. The critical attitude is certainly not a special preserve of Western cultures: it is manifested in the philosophical cultures of all peoples. If one had adequate knowledge of the philosophical systems of non-Western cultures, one would not make such an unguarded statement as Bloom’s, the basis of which is clearly superficial and weak. "On this shaky basis," observes Nussbaum, "Bloom then judges the West to be superior and the non-West to be not worth studying."13 The person with the ethnocentric mind-set is given to apotheosizing features of his or her culture, while running down other cultures, even if they too manifest similar features.

I might mention, for instance, that none of the world’s great religions originally emerged out of the metaphysical soil of the West. Christianity, which is the major religion of the West, was imported there, having originated in the Near East. Accepted by the Western people, who in the Middle Ages became its crusaders and in modern times its missionaries, it took root in their religious culture and became not only the main religion of the West but the foundation of much of its metaphysics, morals, and law.14 But the fact that, for the Western people, it was originally a borrowed religious culture is noteworthy.

The historical evidence, based on ancient Greek sources, that ancient Greek intellectual culture benefited a great deal from what it appropriated from ancient Egyptian civilization is overwhelming and indisputable. (Whether the celebrated ancient Egyptian civilization was a creation of some African or Asiatic people is irrelevant for the purpose of the present argument.) It has been pointed out that the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were deeply influenced by Buddhism and that these two philosophers in turn influenced artists such as Richard Wagner and D.H. Lawrence.15 It has also been observed that the European Enlightenment did have some non-Western sources and that some aspects of it had non-Western parallels.16 As for the cultures that were invaded by the West and upon which Western cultural values were foisted, their cultural matrices become even more complex and ramifying.

Some philosophers opine that ethnocentrism is inescapable, for it is only in our own terms, by reference to our received cultural values—our cultural lights— that we can understand and judge other people and their cultures. I refer briefly to the views of three American philosophers. Harvard’s well-known philosopher, Hilary Putnam, says that "the whole justification of an interpretive scheme . . . is that it renders the behavior of others at least minimally reasonable by our lights."17Another distinguished American philosopher, the erudite Richard Rorty, commenting on this says that, "It would seem natural to go on from this to say that we cannot get outside the range of those lights"18 and also that "to say that we must work by our own lights, that we must be ethnocentric, is merely to say that beliefs suggested by another culture must be tested by trying to weave them together with beliefs we already have."19 Rorty asserts in fact that "there is much truth in ethnocentrism: we cannot justify our beliefs (in physics, ethics, or any other area) to everybody, but only to those whose beliefs overlap ours to some appropriate extent."20 And, finally, Michael Krausz also says, "In sum, while critical comparison between interpretations of cultures is possible, it is ineliminably tied to one’s own culture. Whatever good reasons that can be generated for one’s preference for a given interpretation must arise within one’s own culture. Who else’s would they be?"21

Because ethnocentrism involves certain attitudes to both one’s own culture and the cultures of other people, attitudes that generally are adulatory of one’s own culture but disdainful of other cultures, it has been supposed by some that the doctrine of normative cultural relativism will be its antidote. Thus, the American sociologist, Jon Shepard, asserts that "One way to combat ethnocentrism is through a perspective known as cultural relativism."22 This approach to dealing with ethnocentrism is widely shared particularly among sociologists and anthropologists. The African-American philosopher, Alain Locke (1885-1954), an advocate of cultural pluralism, which he thought would provide a status for African-American culture and its contribution to the total American culture, asserted that value relativism "reveals our values in proper objective perspective with other sets of values. Through this we may arrive at some clearer recognition of the basic unity or correspondence of our values with those of other men."23 Alain Locke believed that value relativism "has a point of view able to lift us out of the ethnocentric predicament."24 Thus, for him also, cultural relativism will provide a means of overcoming ethnocentrism.

But, as a way of overcoming ethnocentrism, the argument of the cultural relativist is surely unconvincing, for the following reasons. A relativist cultural life means that the cultural world of a people is what will be revealed to them through their reflection on, and practice of, their own values; it means further that their cultural values and practices will constitute the pivot of their cultural sense or understanding. The consequence of all this is that they will come to understand others only through the circumscribed prisms of their own culture, thus telescoping the whole of the human cultural world to theirs. Normative relativism is thus more likely to induce ethnocentrism than not; it will result in people becoming infected with an ethnocentric bias. When people are given to overestimating and expressing appreciation for only their own cultural values and, consequently, get themselves locked up in an ethnocentric prison, they will hardly come to entertain new ideas and values. I would therefore disagree with Alain Locke when he asserts that "the only way of freeing our minds from such hypostasizing [i.e., from exalting our own values and traditions], from its provincial limitations and dogmatic bias, is by way of relativism."25 This position is untenable because normative cultural relativism will bring about the opposite effect: it will rather augment our provincial limitations and deepen the dogmatic bias. Thus, it is simply not true, as Alain Locke thinks, that "Relativism . . . contradicts value dogmatism and counteracts value bigotry."26

John Searle is clearly right, in my view, when he suggests the need "to see one’s own culture as one possible form of life and sensibility among others."27Seeing one’s own culture as one, and only one, possible form of life will lead to the realization not only that that particular form of life is not the natural form, notwithstanding some of its admirable features, but also that there are admirable features, as well as possibilities, in other cultures. Culture nurtures habits of thought and action (or behavior); but the habitual ways of a people need not be supposed as the natural or the best or the most appropriate.

It would be correct to say that the growth of human cultures has resulted in part from the historical phenomenon of cultural borrowing. One major implication of this historical phenomenon is surely that practitioners of one culture perceive and appreciate the greater worth of another culture and convince themselves that appropriating certain aspects or elements of that culture will enhance their own cultural life or development. Those aspects or elements of the alien culture are thus considered by the members of the borrowing culture as real options. The term "real option" was used by the well-known British philosopher, Bernard Williams, in an influential paper that defends ethical relativism. Williams’ argument goes like this: Given two systems of belief, two Ss—S1 and S2, S2 is or becomes a real option for S1 if "the question is one of whether to go over to the other S,"28 i.e., S2. He states: "S2 is a real option for a group if either it is their [own] S or it is possible for them to go over to S2."29 For S1 to go over to S2 means at least that the former considers that it will enhance their life prospects "to live within, or hold, S2 and retain their hold on reality"30 and that there can be a rational comparison between S2 and their present outlook (i.e., that of S1).

Williams does not specify which areas of belief are comprehended by a system of belief, by an S. We do talk of a system of religious or moral or political or cosmological belief. It is not clear whether he means his S to be a system of, say, moral belief or religious belief, or to encompass all of these kinds of belief. Because he uses such expressions as "their life" and "an alien way of life"31 and, given that any system of belief is a creation of a society or a group of people, one would be correct in interpreting his S in comprehensive terms that make it coterminous with culture. Thus, I take Williams’ S as elliptical for culture and would talk of cultures (Cs) rather than systems of belief (Ss).

Now, a real option results from what Williams also calls a "real confrontation,"32 a confrontation or encounter with an alien culture, C2, at least some of whose features are such as could seriously be considered by C1 as worth its while to appropriate. (The reason why I use the expression "some of whose features" rather than " (all of) whose features" will be stated presently.) In a situation of real confrontation, there will be a real option if C1 entertains the question whether to go over to C2. Unless a confrontation translates into a real option, questions of appraisal, according to Williams, "do not genuinely arise."33 In such a situation, there would be no basis for appraisal and, thus, no choice. In the absence of real confrontation and, thus, no real option, what obtains is "notional confrontation."34

As regards the notion of real option between two Ss in Williams’ scheme or two Cs in mine, I will raise two objections against what he says. The first objection is about the possibility of a group that belongs to C1 going over to C2, that is, adopting or appropriating C2. I do not think that the possibility of an entire C1 going over to C2 is ever conceivable, for that would involve abandoning their entire cultural heritage, root and branch, without any sediments of that heritage at all remaining, and embracing C2 in its entirety. I think it will be more appropriate, in this connection, to talk in terms of elements or features or aspects of a culture than to talk in terms of cultural wholes. That is, it will be more correct to talk of a group taking on some aspects of an alien culture if, on some rational or normative grounds, it considers those aspects worthwhile for their own cultural life and development, than to talk of that group donning the whole regalia of an alien culture, bearing in mind that a culture encompasses the entire life of a people. I have referred to cultural borrowing or exchange as a historical phenomenon. Historically, groups of people have adopted certain elements or aspects of an alien culture of which they have reason to be enamored. Usually the aspects they consider will enhance the development of their own culture. There have been no cases, I have reason to believe, where an entire culture has optionally gone over to another culture. This explains my use, in the preceding paragraph, of the expression "some of whose features" rather than "all of whose features." The former expression is intended to mean that it is only some aspects (certainly not all aspects) of a culture that will be attractive to another culture and that this other culture may desire to appropriate.

My second objection is against what Williams refers to as "asymmetrically related options". As an example of such "asymmetries" between cultures, he says: "Some version of modern technological life and its outlooks has become a real option for members of some traditional societies, but their life is not, despite the passionate nostalgia of many, a real option for us."35 (By "us" Williams must be referring to Europeans). The last part of the quoted statement, namely, "their life is not...a real option for us" reeks of the ethnocentric mind-set, a position supported by Richard Rorty who, commenting on this part of William’s argument states: "These [i.e., primitive tribes people] are the people whose beliefs on certain topics overlap so little with ours that their inability to agree with us raises no doubt in our minds about the correctness of our own beliefs."36 Rorty’s statement is as bizarre as it is incredible. The fact that the beliefs of some people differ from—overlap so little with—yours does not by itself, and without any argument, make yours correct, unless you have already made up your mind—are already biased—in favor of the correctness of your own beliefs. Such a claim would be extravagant, just as it would be if it were made by the other people, these of primitive tribes.

Even if the asymmetry Williams is talking about seems, as Bimal Matilal interprets it, " to be simply the asymmetry of time or history, which is usually expressed in such cliches as ‘we cannot re-create the past’"37 Williams’ position will not be defensible, in view of the fact that modern (Western) culture surely does not break with the past, but maintains and cherishes a great deal of the ideas, values, practices, and institutions of its own past;38 people, including the Western people, generally show great pride in their cultural traditions. Also, by "traditional societies," Williams appears to refer to the earlier, pre-modern European societies. He is referring to non-Western societies, contrasting a modern Western industrial/technological society with the life of the non-Western "traditional society." He is saying that, since the life (or culture) of the traditional society cannot be a real option for people in the modern technological society (of the West), therefore the options between the two are asymmetrical, the option is only uni-directional: the traditional society opting for the modern technological society, while the latter opts for nothing from the former. Thus, the asymmetry Williams has in mind is one between the values, practices, and outlooks of different cultures or ways of life of contemporary societies. I believe that the individualistic and secular outlooks of Western cultures that are outstanding features of the technological life of Western societies do not appear to be real options for non-Western societies. A technological culture that does not give adequate consideration to human values, but sets them at naught, would hardly be a real option for human beings, qua human beings.

Williams’ view of the asymmetrically related options between cultures (or systems of belief) clearly flies in the face of both historical and contemporary evidence. The reason is that asymmetry totally throws overboard as inconsequential the historical phenomenon of cultural borrowing or exchange involving the various cultures created by humankind. It mistakenly, and blithely, considers the various cultures or societies of the world as windowless monads or sealed units or completely self-contained, developing on their own original terms without any influences whatsoever from outside; but human cultures are none of these.39 Williams says that systems of belief are "to some extent self-contained."40 The phrase "to some extent" as used here indicates that systems of belief (or cultures) are not completely self-contained, which implies surely that they can—and it is common knowledge that they do—take on elements from other cultures, that they are open to influences from other cultures, and that they at least from time to time depend on other cultures for their growth and nourishment (in addition to internal criticism or re-evaluation of the culture, which also enhances cultural growth). Thus, C1 can in some limited sense "go over" to C2.

In view of the phenomenon of cultural borrowing or exchange and the resulting cultural diffusion, symmetrically related options between cultural values and practices cannot insouciantly be laughed out of court. I must quickly add, however, that symmetrically related option makes sense and will have correct application by reference only to aspectuality. That is to say, real options are not one-to-one: if C1 borrows or adopts a dance form from C2, it does not at all follow that C2 will also borrow some dance form from C1; it may borrow some other cultural product from C1, any of C1’s cultural creations or features that it (i.e., C2) will consider worthwhile for the development of its own cultural life. This is what I mean by aspectuality: in cultural borrowing, exchange, real options, or judgments of other cultures, we can sensibly talk only of aspects or features or elements of cultures, rather than of cultural wholes.

Robin Horton, the well-known contemporary British anthropologist and philosopher, in his most influential paper on African thought and Western science, says plainly that, despite the weaknesses he sees in African thought, he chose to live in "a still-heavily-traditional Africa rather than in the scientifically-oriented Western subculture I was brought up in." He says that "one certain reason [for his choice] is the discovery of things lost at home. An intensely poetic quality in everyday life and thought, and a vivid enjoyment of the passing moment—both driven out of sophisticated Western life by . . . the faith in progress."41 These words of Horton suggest the conviction that each particular human culture, when looked at from different perspectives or purposes, has some virtues that can hold attraction or significance for people belonging to other cultures. His words suggest, furthermore, that no human culture has the capacity to offer total satisfaction for a complex human nature. It is a matter of common knowledge that some people who belong to contemporary Western cultures (I do not know how many) are greatly enthused about Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, and practice them. For such individuals or groups brought up within Western cultures, Eastern religions are real spiritual options, as they believe that Eastern religions offer more satisfying spiritual experience than the religions evolved by their own (Western) cultures. These predilections by practitioners of Western cultures for alien (non-Western) forms of life may be inspired by, to use a phrase of Williams in a different context, "passionate nostalgia."42 But nostalgia is not necessarily an irrational attitude to the past or to a contemporary alien cultural life that an "outsider" may have experienced before. One can rationally and normatively be nostalgic about the moral and social life of a past historical era or some other contemporary form of life by contrasting it with manifestations of the social fragmentation, moral decadence, and possible spiritual emptiness of, for instance, a modern technological society. Edward Shils, an American social scientist, observes that, "The laying open of Africa to explorers and colonizers was followed by the bringing back to Europe of works of African art which were assimilated into and changed greatly the tradition of European painting and sculpture."43 And Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins also say that "Picasso initiated modernism when he brought the images of African masks, then on exhibit in Paris, into the iconography of traditional European art."44 Here are works of art—aspects of non-Western culture—that can be said to have been real options for Western artistic culture. Technology is undoubtedly an indispensable agent in the creation of material comforts for humans. But if it is allowed to detract from fundamental human values—if it is allowed, for instance, to destroy human life or lead to the fragmentation of human society—some version of modern technological life may not be a real option for (most) societies in the non-Western world.

Understanding other cultures is most probably a potent means of overcoming ethnocentrism. But what is it to understand other cultures and how can this be achieved in practice? On the notion of understanding other people and their cultures, a celebrated paper by Peter Winch has been most influential, and I will make it the point of departure for my analysis here. This does not mean by any means that I agree with everything he says. The subject matter for his discussion relates especially to the magical beliefs and rites of the Azande people, as presented in the renowned British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s famous work on witchcraft, oracles and magic among the Azande.45 Winch’s concern is how such beliefs and rites are to be perceived by others beside the Azande, who are said to be "immersed in a sea of mystical notions."46 The main thrust of Winch’s conception of understanding other cultures seems to focus on the need to appreciate the significance that a belief or practice has for the life of those who hold that belief or pursue that practice. He thus invites us to "note how Zande rites emphasize the importance of certain fundamental features of their life."47 For Winch the notion of relating the practices of a culture, such as magical rites, to "a sense of the significance of human life" is "indispensable to any account of what is involved in understanding and learning from an alien culture."48 The interesting and remarkable thing about Winch’s account is his recognizing that cultures other than our own present us with possibilities of different ways of doing things, different possibilities of making sense of human life, different ideas that are generated by man as he contemplates the meaning or point of his life. Those who are given to overestimating the worth of their cultures, while disdaining the worth of other cultures, are oblivious to the status or importance of such possibilities of making sense of human life.

Winch’s aim is, among other things, to launch an attack on the ethnocentrism of (most) Western scholars, anthropologists, and philosophers in particular, whom he chides when he says: "Our blindness to the point of primitive modes of life is a corollary of the pointlessness of much of our own [European] life."49 That is to say, we fail to see the point or significance of a belief or practice of some "primitive" culture because much of our own life may have little sense or purpose or may be based on some extravagant claims. According to Richard Bernstein, Winch seems to suggest that "in order to understand and interpret alien or primitive societies we not only have to bracket our prejudices and biases, but have to suspend our own Western standards and criteria of rationality."50 I do not think Winch makes or implies any such suggestion. Winch says instead that, "Since it is we [Europeans] who want to understand the Zande category, it appears that the onus is on us to extend our understanding so as to make room for the Zande category, rather than to insist on seeing it in terms of our own ready-made distinction between science and non-science."51 To extend one’s understanding is surely not necessarily to suspend one’s standards of rationality, but to try to explore the possibility of bringing some alien belief or practice into the ambit of one’s own standards of rationality. When Winch talks of the need to see the significance or point of a belief or practice of an alien culture for human life, we have reason to take it that that significance derives from some acceptable form of rationality. Winch believes strongly, or implies, that understanding other cultures is the greatest therapeutic to developing the ethnocentric mentality.

One outstanding feature of the cultural life of non-Western peoples, particularly those described as primitive, often misunderstood and made fun of in the writings of Western social scientists and scholars of religion, relates to their beliefs about magic, oracles, and other manifestations of supernaturalism. (It is to be noted, however, that the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece is among the earliest oracles in the world founded by ancient Greek culture, a culture that is acknowledged by the West as the historical fountainhead of its own civilization.) We are made to understand that Western peoples, being modern, rational, enlightened, and scientific, have no truck with such beliefs of the ‘primitive’ people. It is supposed that concepts or phenomena, such as magic and oracles, do not feature in the religious perceptions and practices of the modern West. Thus, as Winch says, "A much more important fact to emphasize is that we [Europeans] do not initially have a category that looks at all like the Zande category of magic."52 Magic belongs to the category of non-science, he would say, whereas modern Western cultural life is based on science.

In a seminal and instructive article on cultural relativism the American social scientist David Bidney averred that "The only antidote to ethnocentric prejudice is comparative knowledge of one’s own and other cultures."53 The role of comparison (or comparative knowledge) in understanding other cultures and, thus, dealing with the ethnocentric prejudice has been taken up also by Charles Taylor who asserts that comparison or contrast is crucial to understanding other cultures, and that, through comparison, we can escape ethnocentrism.54 Comparison is, indeed, involved in the phenomenon of cultural borrowing. This presupposes not only some sort of understanding on the part of the borrowing culture, but also the recognition that certain cultural values, practices, or institutions of the culture (C1) from which some ‘things’ are borrowed are better than or superior to those of the borrowing culture (C2). They are considered more functional, and so will enhance aspects of the life of the participants of C2. I refer to such cases as CB1. In some cases, however, such relative expressions as "better than" or "superior to" may not even apply at all, because a feature or an item of C1 may not exist in C2; comparison cannot therefore be really made in such cases. For instance, p1 as a cultural practice of C1 may not at all be (or, have been) a cultural practice of C2 and, hence, one cannot compare the p1 of C1 with "the p1" of C2 (note that "the p1 of C2 does not exist). Yet C2 may be attracted to p1 and aspire after it because of its importance for C2’s cultural life. I refer to such cases as CB2. Real comparison takes place in cases of CB1 rather than of CB2, even though both of them can lead to cultural borrowing. Let me restate my case here in a nutshell: to my mind, a culture (C1) in its entirety—in all of its aspects—cannot be compared with another culture (C2) in its entirety, that is, in all of its aspects. It is specific aspects of C1 (such as, techniques of farming or nurturing children) that can be compared with specific aspects of C2.

All this said, however, the role of comparison in understanding other cultures and thus diminishing the ethnocentric predicament cannot be underestimated. I feel uncomfortable, however, about Taylor’s view of comparison as "basic to understanding."55 The place of comparison in understanding other cultures depends very much on how open people are in comparing or contrasting the beliefs and practices of other cultures with those of their own, that is, how willing they are to consider or receive new ideas or propositions from alien cultural quarters. Where there is some openness, this may lead to understanding the contrasted other; even more than that, it may lead to appreciation, admiration, attraction and even possible adoption of some aspects of the contrasted culture. But this openness may not be a guaranteed feature of people’s attitudes to the values and practices of other people and their culture. In the absence of openness, comparison may paradoxically confirm the prejudices and biases against a contrasted culture and result in augmenting the ethnocentric perspective and disdain for the other culture. The question, though, is this: is it openness that leads—or, as it were, opens the door—to understanding or is it understanding that leads to openness? That is, which comes (or should come) first, as it were? I would respond to this question by saying that it is openness that makes comparison a fruitful undertaking. But if openness is considered not a guaranteed feature of people’s attitudes to the practices of other cultures, how can it be achieved or take place? I think the answer to this rather important question may be grounded in the Roman poet Terence’s view (already referred to56) about the availability of human possibilities to all human beings and Winch’s idea about the possibilities of different ways of doing things and different possibilities of making sense of human life that I discussed in the preceding section.

Even so, comparison may not be considered a sine qua non for understanding other people and their culture, that is, for grasping the meaning, significance, purpose, and worth of their beliefs, values, and practices. And Taylor seems to contradict himself when he says in the paragraph immediately following that from which the above quotation is taken: "People can only be understood against the background of their (presumed) world."57 If this is so, then comparison is not necessary; it is not basic. I myself think that we do not have to compare the values or practices of an alien culture with our own before we make the effort to understand them, for there may not be a basis for making the comparison. As I said earlier, we may not have in our own culture a corresponding belief or practice that we may encounter in another (i.e., alien) culture, and vice-versa; in that situation, there would be no overlap, and thus no basis for comparison. Or, at best we may notice some practice or value in the alien culture that merely resembles, or appears to be a variant of, something in our own culture.