Ask All The Questions: Cultural Relativism and Intentionality

Okay, it’s time to expand a little bit on intentionality: part of my big question from my last post.

Intentionality, for me, is about being an active participant in determining the course of actions one takes in any given situation. At first glace, intentionality looks pretty simple, but it’s foundation lies on some principles that give some additional depth that’s not always apparent.

Being an active participant in one’s own life seems inherent at first. After all, we make decisions every day that determine the direction and amplitude of our day to day lives: big things like where to live, what job to pursue, who to be in a relationship with; small things like the groceries we buy, what time we go to sleep at night, what pair of pants to put on in the morning, the words we share with our family. There’s rarely someone making these decisions for us as adults (even if we might want there to be) and, yes, we can float through some of these decisions without putting in much thought, but ultimately it's easy to acknowledge that we’re responsible for the direction in which we’re headed.

There is, however, another layer of depth that affects our decision making process at a more subconscious level: the influence of our culture. For the sake of this conversation, let’s say that our culture is the set of parameters in which we live our lives - things like the political landscape, the relative wealth we experience, the neighbourhood we grow up in, the friends and family that we have. All of these contribute to an underlying belief system that influences our own perspective and what we hold to be true.

I’ve referred to this concept before as “mother culture”, a term from Daniel Quinn’s book Ishmael. His use of the term in the novel really helped cement for me that this cultural influence isn’t inherently negative or manipulative but very pervasive. It’s much like a mother’s love. It tries to help us navigate the complexities of being alive. It tries to show us what’s acceptable from within the perspective of our culture. It guides us, it encourages us, it provides a context or framework about the world in which we exist.

A problem comes, however, when we can’t see this cultural influence for what it is, and instead take it to be a set of absolute truths. Cultures differ across times and spaces, so to assume that one’s own cultural context is THE ONLY context is both dangerous and damaging. Failure to acknowledge cultural relativism (the idea that mother culture speaks differently to different people in different cultures) creates a breeding ground for racial oppression - the belief that ones own cultural context makes them superior to others who exist in a different cultural context. The reality, of course, is that we are all humans whose reality is shaped by their own experiences and cultures, but no human is superior to another: just different.

Okay, back to cultural context and intentionality: if we can acknowledge that our culture is responsible for shaping our existence, decision making needs to happen with this in mind. Intentionality needs to include this idea at the very core.

Let’s go through some of those decisions that we make every day.

Big decision: getting a job.

Without exploring the significance of cultural context, one might make a decision based on a natural aptitude or potential salary. Those factors are important but when we start to explore outside the limiting cultural context: do I need to have a full time job? My culture tells me yes but other cultures have people doing different types of labour to contribute rather than just paid labour. Does my potential job contribute to the environmental devastation of the planet? My culture tells me that that isn’t my job to worry about and I should leave those problems to my government or large corporations. But how do I feel morally about doing work that harms the planet and it’s inhabitants? Does the world need more of the widget I’m producing or selling? My culture tells me that endless growth is vital to the economy, but what if we were to exist outside our current economic paradigm?

Small decision: what am I going to have for lunch?

Probably whatever is in the fridge or on the menu. Maybe whatever is affordable. Definitely whatever food tastes good. But widening the lense to include cultural context: is the food grown locally? How much processing has it gone through? Is it something that is going to help me thrive or damage my health over the long term? Is it sustainably produced? My culture tells me not to worry about these things: that we can trust big box brands and regulations to keep me safe, but they place emphasis on profits over the well being of people and the planet. My culture actually encourages me to buy and eat foods that are both unhealthy and unethical: fast foods that disconnect me from the process of growing and preparing the food that I eat and make me dependent on the capitalist system, taking away food sovereignty.

From these examples, it’s easy to see how the loving guidance of mother culture can lead us astray. And this problem, then, lies squarely on the cultural context in which we live: western colonial capitalism.

Questioning this context is vital to living intentionally. If we only make decisions from within the cultural context, we are still being pulled into the clutches of a self-perpetuating machine that values efficiency over all, profit over people and planet.

I’m ranting about this today because I believe that asking these questions is one of the most important parts of dismantling broken systems, not just when making decisions in our personal lives, but when determining beliefs that we hold true. Right now there is a massive tangible propaganda campaign taking place across western culture regarding the genocide of the Palestinian people. Questioning the words of mother culture has never been more important than it is right now. Presently we can actually see the attempts by governments and mass media to create bias and we need to be able to recognize the influence of the western colonial capitalist context and separate that influence from what’s actually happening. We need to be critical of what we read and hear and see that is being passed down by this cultural narrative.

This is the core of intentionality: not just being active in our own decision making processes, but critically analysing the lense through which we form our own beliefs that influence our decisions, especially as our culture continues to head in a more and more dangerous direction.

So, the first step is to identify that culture from which we exist, the next step is to ask ALL THE QUESTIONS about why our culture is sending us the messages that it does, and the last step in this ongoing process is to make decisions free from the confines of our own cultural context.

This is what I mean when I say “swimming upstream” - mother culture is a strong voice and it’s hard to make decisions that go against the flow of the dominant cultural narrative. Keep asking questions; keep making decisions with intentionality, and keep on swimming.