(May 09, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The definition of culture encompasses "just about everything which is not genetically transmissible", as Terry Eagleton observed in The Idea of Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). Thus it is not surprising that culture and tradition are used interchangeably in everyday conversation, and nationalist politicians around the world justify tradition by invoking respect for culture. They maintain that it is a requirement of patriotic duty to be proud of one’s culture. That requirement makes little logical sense because nationalism provides no guide to reconciling traditions with ethics. Nationalists simply demand unquestioning loyalty to traditional practices. Consider some examples.
The French parliament passed a resolution last November that foie gras is an icon of French culture, "part of the cultural and gastronomic patrimony, protected in France". The declaration was an invitation by parliament for patriots to stand up to the defence of the method of production of this French delicacy. According to animal rights campaigners abroad, especially in the United States, to produce foie gras, geese have to be force fed to enlarge their livers to 10 times their normal size. The process of force feeding is allegedly akin to ramming pipes through the throats of the birds. The parliamentary resolution did not dispute these allegations. Instead, the declaration was a rallying cry for the defence of "cultural and gastronomic patrimony" as an act of patriotic duty.
The problem of the view of culture implicit in the above resolution is that this view conflates normative statements, statements about right and wrong, and positive statements, statements about matters of fact. It is indeed the case that there are segments of food and catering industries, especially in France, that benefit from the appetite for foie gras as a delicacy to be consumed without enquiring about the method of production. The fact that foie gras has a long and distinguished list of devotees past and present amongst the connoisseurs of French cuisine is not in dispute.
It also appears to be the case that the most virulent forms of recent criticisms first originated abroad. It may also be the case that some of the critics may not have been motivated by animal welfare but by their dislike of certain aspects of French politics. These are matters of fact. I do not challenge them. In this article, I do not even comment on the rights and wrongs of force feeding geese for our culinary pleasure.
I do not examine the motive of the critics. The point I wish to emphasise is simply this: facts in themselves, no matter how they describe deeply rooted tradition, cannot become the ground for holding the opinion that the facts manifest desirable values.
Let us take another example of patriotic appeals to culture. A woman named Roop Kanwar was burnt alive in 1987 in a place called Deorala in the Indian state of Rajasthan. She was forcibly thrown into the funeral pyre of her husband. This incident was an act of defiance of laws enacted in British times outlawing the practice of sati, whereby a widow would be burnt alive during the cremation of her husband. There was an outcry in the country, except amongst sections of Hindu nationalist political circles. For example, the late Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia, a leading light of the Bharatya Janata Party and, prior to that, its predecessor the Jana Sangh, led a march in defence of this appaling cruelty. She was reported in the press as having argued that sati was "very much part of our [Hindu] tradition", and thus deserving of respect. Whether or not this particular form of misogyny is indeed a dominant feature of the Hindu tradition, as alleged by Mrs Scindia is not the issue here. The point is that appeals to tradition to justify practice is an affront to rationality. These appeals, apart from their demagogic nature, conflate facts and opinion.
What is and what ought to be are two different questions. The former is simply a matter of fact that can be ascertained by examining evidence. The latter is a question that has to be debated in the context of values that we hold. For example, the Upper House of parliament in Britain, the House of Lords, has traditionally comprised, amongst others, the descendants of ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ children of monarchs and the heirs of those who have benefited from patronage of rulers for performance of acts some of which are now considered unacceptable. The doubts expressed in recent times over whether a House of Lords thus composed can command respect as a decision making chamber in a democracy cannot be resolved by appeals to tradition. The question of the desirable composition of an Upper House has to be answered by reference to the evolving idea of democracy.
The author is a professor at the School of Business and Regional Development at the University of Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2DG, UK
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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