Apparently (all my citations come from the article I am about to link),
most of the time this experiment has come to the same end: most people offer around 50% and most people reject anything less than 50%.
This article though tell the story of the anthropologist who first began conducting this experiment outside of the Western world -- and the results that surprised him. Perhaps my high school anthropology teacher did an exceptional job teaching cultural relativism, because I was not surprised.
Overall, I am not terribly impressed with Watters, the writer of the article (he seems to have the anti-Western bias of the perpetually privileged), but I am fascinated by the results he discusses. It makes sense that different cultures are different -- that we have different conceptions of fairness, or ways of categorizing the world, or notions of self and community. To have research to give us some idea of what these differences are and how they are drawn is fantastic and I need to follow the rabbit holes to some of the original studies.
Despite his bias, Watters does hit on one very insightful note:
That we should welcome and celebrate people of all backgrounds seems obvious, but the implied corollary—that people from different ethno-cultural origins have particular attributes that add spice to the body politic—becomes more problematic. To avoid stereotyping, it is rarely stated bluntly just exactly what those culturally derived qualities might be. Challenge liberal arts graduates on their appreciation of cultural diversity and you’ll often find them retreating to the anodyne notion that under the skin everyone is really alike.Ignore everything else he says about liberal arts students, but hang on to that one. It is the peculiar contradiction present in the public discourse of cultural diversity and sexism: are we all the same and thus deserving of equal opportunity, or is there some greater advantage to the world for seeking out and celebrating diversity?
This was a really interesting article (can you tell I'm catching up on your blog this afternoon?) - two thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. I'm curious whether the "Western" worldview accounts for class - here's a quick blurb from Stanford about a study that found the poor are more generous than the wealthy (a finding that absolutely matches my own experiences growing up) - http://bit.ly/1gC3qmd
2. I was drawn to the quote you highlighted for a slightly different reason - it speaks to the insidious idea of diversity as pure value-add, with the foundation (the body politic) remaining unchanged...because it doesn't NEED to be changed. It's not a healthy relationship if one person's attitude is, "I enjoy when you enrich my life, but when you actually require sacrifice from me, I'm out"; I think that's a concept a lot of people (myself included!) struggle with around diversity.
3. I'm curious about your questions - I think it's interesting that you (perhaps subconsciously) separated "deserving of equal opportunity" and "celebrating diversity" into two separate options. I guess the ideal would be both, right - acknowledging differences, but believing/acting on the belief that the differences don't make anyone better/worse. Except when they do (FGM, polygamy, better test scores among Group X, etc. - don't worry, we [the media elite/academia/this year's crop of Jezebel interns] will let you know what to think).
1) So one of his flaws (maybe accounted for in the actual, you know, scientific research, it what is counted as "Western," and what about those people who aren't cut off from the Western world, but still are not part of the "Western" mentality.
Delete2) I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here; could you say it again but differently?
3) I do think those are distinct facets (not options) of how we understand diversity/why it is classed as a moral good (especially fascinating in a society that pretends to shed the idea of moral goods). So yes, ideally they come together -- I think if most [Western, middle-class] people were pushed hard enough they would admit that either on its own would be deficient.