Culture comparisons are a notoriously touchy topic. For some people, the topic itself is a taboo. I believe that's why the poster you're replying to had that reaction. For others, it's a topic to discuss and learn from.
It is important that we stop taking people who treat this topic as a taboo seriously at all
This modern mentality of "all cultures are equal and valid and none are superior to any other" is just ridiculous
Culture is something we are always looking to improve on. In this way, we are comparing our existing culture against hypothetical future cultures and deciding that one of them is more desirable
If we can compare a real culture with a hypothetical culture, then we can certainly compare two real cultures using similar criteria
Yes but these comparisons of real cultures become very gross very fast.
Japanese culture is orderly, neat, autonomous and their children are taught to wait at an early age. That's awesome! We should emulate Japan, clearly their culture is superior. Nevermind the salary-man trope, misogyny, Hikikomori, and rigidity that comes with it.
Instead of thinking about cultures in terms of ranking, try to understand the history of why a culture is a certain way and appreciate why other cultures are not like that.
We don’t need to “rank” cultures to recognize that individual aspects of culture are better adapted to current environments.
My dad always says that “Bangladeshis don’t know how to name kids.” We don’t have surnames, but instead two given names. And everyone uses a nickname anyway that’s unrelated to the legal names. That is just inefficient and unwieldy in a modern world where social circles are larger than a village. So I have my dad’s last name and so do my kids. None of us like the name and it has no historical value but it makes things more efficient going forward.
My parents adopted the western practice and gave us his last name, which he doesn’t share with anyone else in his family. It’s Arabic not Hebrew, but I imagine the words are related.
My wife’s last name is in the Domesday book, and they have extensive record of their family’s activities in the U.S.—which is a cool thing you can do when you have surnames! I feel somewhat guilty that the west coast line of the name will die out in favor of a name that has no family significance to anyone, but oh well.
I think this is a good example demonstrating why it becomes taboo: If you reduce cultural differences into a "good/bad" or similar simplification, then the comparison loses value, and triggers defensive responses.
Yeah, we can definitely judge anyone's behavior, we just should not do it blindly and we can despite or love someone for their actions, too, like why not? I despise cheaters, but I do not care, it is their life.
I'm probably further left than most people you've met, and even I've come around to the idea that cosmopolitanism isn't the zenith of culture, but the negation of it.
If all cultures are forcibly considered equal, one corollary to that is that a culture itself can also never improve, or fail, because then a comparison to itself from a different age would also be forcibly considered to be equal.
In that spirit, I welcome your dissertation on how the Germany of 2024 is equal to the Germany of 1944.
