Anthropological Insight 3

I began this short series with a modest proposal, to wit: “Make a friend who sees life differently than you do. Build the friendship slowly. Test the waters gradually. Explore their view of life, seeking to understand why they think that a particular stance towards LGBTQI+ is important, or what they think we should do as we respond to homeless people on our streets, or any other subject important to you. Don’t try to ‘convert’ them. Try to understand them.”

In this episode, I will apply this proposal to a recent event in the life of the larger church to which I presently belong, the Mennonite World Conference. Every six years, MWC meets in a grand assembly hosted by one of the member churches of the conference. The next scheduled assembly was set for 2028 in Ethiopia. Last month, the Meserete Kristos Church (the host church) withdrew their invitation because of their understanding that Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada have embraced the LGBTQI+ lifestyle and agenda.

This perception is, I think, mistaken, but I will not address it further. My purpose is not to give the truth of what MC USA and MC Canada have actually said or done, but rather to explore the assumptions driving the responses of both sides in this particular case.

First, an impression. My impression is that members of the Meserete Kristos Church see North American progressives as profoundly unfaithful to biblical Christian faith. Further, I suspect that North American Mennonites see Ethiopian conservatives (I am using the labels as a kind of shorthand) as bigoted and reactionary – or as unduly influenced by American evangelicals. I believe that neither characterization is true or helpful.

Consider North American progressives. My experience of North American Mennonites (of whom I am one) is that they generally are wrestling with difficult social and biblical questions and have arrived at differing positions (conservative and progressive) out of a desire to be both biblically faithful and socially relevant. Although I am more conservative myself, I recognize in my brothers and sisters a deep desire to follow Jesus faithfully within a society that marginalizes many people. Progressives see that marginalization occurring especially within the LGBTQI+ community. I think myself that their analysis is perhaps too simplistic, but they have engaged far more within that community than I have. I do not question their good faith. As I listen to their voices, I hear a deep desire for justice and for respect for God’s image in all people. I embrace that desire whatever I think of their conclusions.

Consider African conservatives. The impression that they are simply parroting American conservatives is almost insulting. The colonial process is a reality of their and our history, but even at the height of the colonial era, colonized peoples were active agents in forming their own faith and culture. At this point in time, dismissing their views on the basis of Western influence can be a kind of reverse imperialism: We think we know what they should think and say and seek to impose our views on them.

Why then do they see sexual purity as so important? One commentor I read (on Facebook) after the Meserete Kristos disinvited MWC suggested that the Ethiopians were stuck in a kind of purity culture. The comment is (it seems to me) a mixture of accurate perception and false sophistication. Conservative cultures in general do think in terms of purity, but that way of thinking does not make them less sophisticated or modern. Jonathan Haidt (whom I have referenced before) suggests several foundational themes for morality. Progressives prioritize care for others and equity; conservatives add several other themes, including purity and sanctity. (You can read more about the work of Haidt and others in this area in the article on Moral Foundations Theory in Wikipedia.)

In short, then, conservatives value purity (as well as honour) in a way that progressives don’t. Progressives value care for the individual and equity (i.e., equal rights) more than conservatives do. Conservatives may well value fairness and equity, but they also consider other factors (such as purity).

Apply this to the decision by the church in Ethiopia. North American demands for equity for a marginalized community run into deeply held cultural beliefs about purity and honour and sanctity. Conversation about these clashing positions is hard, especially when we are speaking across ethnic boundaries and when we (in North America) have a history of imposing our beliefs on others. But such conversation remains necessary, and “curious listening” is an indispensable part of continuing in relationship with each other.

I grieve for the disinvitation, because it means we are stepping away from such conversations. The loss of this particular forum, however, can also be a step towards taking each other completely seriously and reengaging with our brothers and sisters across ethnic and cultural and political divides. We need each other, and we need to learn from each other. Which requires “curious listening”.

I repeat my modest proposal: Find someone who stands in a different place from yourself and listen to them, really listen to them -- not to convert them or to prove you're right, but to understand and grow yourself. 

31 December 2025

An Anthropological Insight for Living Together

The divide between left and right in North America is well-established. The political antipathy that renders the Senate and House of Representatives unable to function has penetrated families, churches, and educational institutions. We are locked in a battle that threatens to consume us.

Many people have observed this divide, and many have made recommendations to bridge the divide. My suggestion is not unique or better than others. Rather, it is my effort to think through how I can live in a divided society.

I am conservative, but I find attractive many causes espoused by liberals. I have progressive tendencies, but I find that tradition gives me a firmer foundation than simply following the most recent cause in our society. I value personal responsibility, which aligns me with conservatives. I value justice and equity, which aligns me with progressives. I hold traditional values, which aligns me with conservatives. I seek a full life for marginalized peoples, which aligns me with liberals.

I suspect that I am not unusual in this blend of conservative and traditional on the one hand and liberals and progressive on the other. This blend means that I cringe when progressives demean conservatives, and I am wounded when conservatives demonize liberals. I believe, as Solzhenitsyn said, that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. I do not believe that either the left or the right has a monopoly on good or evil.

What I want, then, is a way for left and right to hear each other and to back away from the abyss of division. The following comments explore a path drawn from the discipline of anthropology.

A Basic Insight

I studied anthropology over 30 years ago. The discipline has grown and changed, and I have grown and changed – not necessarily together. I remember, however, a basic stance within anthropology, one that is still (I suspect) relevant to the discipline today. Anthropologists tend to be cultural relativists. They seek to explore each culture on its own terms, rather than compressing the culture being studied into the observer’s own categories.

We can call this exploration an emic or insider’s view of the culture – as compared to an etic or outsider’s view. The fact that I refer to culture and ethnicity is a sign of the kind of anthropology in which I was trained. I know that these concepts are disputed and perhaps outdated, but that fact does not alter the basic point I am making: We seek to understand others on their own terms, not judge them by our ways of seeing the world.

My background is in working with the global Christian church. Therefore, the anthropology training I received might be called missionary anthropology. Missionaries assume that the culture of the people to whom they have gone with the gospel needs correction, just as their own home culture needs correction. But missionaries also must suspend judgment when they approach a new culture. The outsider does not know the host culture and has no right to judge it. In fact, judgments by newcomers to a culture are often misplaced.

An example from missionary experience. Brethren in Christ missionaries in the early 20^th century came from a North American context in which evangelical Christians fought against any use of alcohol. Most BICs would have approved of the temperance movement and the prohibition of alcohol.

They arrived in a culture where traditional beer was brewed from maize or sorghum. Unlike North America, beer was as much food as it was drink. Sometimes, people did become drunk, but more often they used the beer drink as an opportunity to socialize, exchange news, and strengthen the bonds of community. The first missionaries who came to Zimbabwe – including Robert Moffat and David Livingstone – accepted traditional beer as an appropriate drink to participate in at the end of a long journey.

When BIC missionaries arrived in Zimbabwe, they assumed that the traditional beer drink was a replica of the worst they knew from bars in the USA. Prohibition was the only stance they could imagine as possible for Christians, so converts had to cut themselves off from one of the basic community-building activities in their culture. Later missionaries (such as Fred and Grace Holland) noted this loss, but the cultural intervention remained as a basic part of Christian faith. Today, prohibition remains the church position in Zimbabwe, long after the North American church has moved on to a more nuanced stance.

Another example. When missionaries arrived in Zimbabwe, they found monogamous and polygamous families. Older men of means would often take a second or third wife. The missionaries came from a culture in which such an action was interpreted as unfaithfulness and lusty – they assumed that the older men had tired of their older wife and wanted someone younger and more desirable. Human nature suggests that this analysis was sometimes correct, but culturally one discovers it is also incomplete.

In traditional cultures, polygamy serves a variety of functions. One is to provide shelter and security for childless widows, as was also the case in Old Testament Hebrew culture (see Deuteronomy 20). Another is to ensure that childless women have an opportunity to bear children (also true in Deuteronomy 20). In traditional cultures, to be childless is a great grief, and an unmarried woman faces real loss.

The missionary response typically was to rule that the polygamist must give up all his wives after his first wife (adding divorce to the sin of polygamy). What happened to the additional wives was a necessary tragedy. As missionaries contemplated this situation, they recognized that the issues were more complex than they had first thought. BIC missionaries in Zimbabwe petitioned the home church at General Conference for direction on how to handle these difficult situations. (The home church sent the issue back to the church Zimbabwe and said, “You deal with it!”)

African views of polygamy were complicated by the testimony of Scripture. As they learned to read the Bible, African Christians discovered that not only does the Law accept polygamy, but Ruth and Boaz are held up as examples of faithfulness, Abraham was a polygamist, Jacob’s wives and concubines combined to aid in the formation of the Children of Israel, and David – the man after God’s own heart – was a polygamist in the grand fashion of a King.

In short, the missionary approach to polygamy would have benefitted from an anthropological stance of cultural relativism. Missionaries could usefully have bracketed their initial judgment of polygamy and waited for African Christians to give direction to the church.

The Basic Insight Restated

Let me restate the anthropological insight. Anthropologists explore new cultural situations through the methodology of participant-observation. They bracket their own cultural understandings and enter the host culture as fully as possible (seeking to become participants), and then they record their observations in as neutral a manner as possible, allowing the host culture to indicate what the elements of their culture mean and how they should be understood.

In my own teaching as a missiologist (student of mission, specializing in missionary anthropology), I have emphasized the priority of the host culture in establishing church structure (the indigenous church), understanding Christian teaching (contextualisation), and preaching the gospel. Missionary outreach struggles to adapt fully to new cultural settings, and the task of communicating the gospel cross-culturally requires a constant stance in favour of the host culture.

This does not mean that the outsider can never speak against elements of the host culture that have gone wrong. It does, however, mean that the right to speak out is earned over a long period of time. Outsiders routinely misunderstand what is happening within the host culture. We must always be ready to accept correction and renew our engagement with our hosts.

This critique of missionary practice resonates within our contemporary society. When I was young, many people in our society admired missionaries. People like my parents were assumed to be good people, respected for their willingness to make personal sacrifice for the benefit of others. Today, many people in our society assume that missionaries were complicit in the colonial project, part of an imperialism that we now see as misguided at best and tyrannical at worst. As a missionary myself, I hear the voices questioning our right to think that we can go to places like Zimbabwe and tell them what to believe.

There is truth in this critique. Missionaries have sometimes acted in ways that betrayed the gospel they preached. The gospel assumes an essential equality between all God’s children; missionaries have sometimes acted as though “all people are equal, but some people [we] are more equal than others.” The critique fails (in my view) at two points: 1) I know from my own experience and study that many missionaries broke this stereotype – missionaries were an essential part of undermining the colonial project; and 2) where the stereotype holds true, it is a human problem rather than a problem with the gospel itself.

Pursue the second point. Human beings tend to evaluate others based on their own understanding of the world. This is true of missionaries, because missionaries are human. It is true of people in general – including progressives and conservatives. Therefore, if the perceived missionary tendency to judge others by their own standards is wrong (as a demonstration of colonialism), the actual practice of conservatives and liberals alike judging others is equally wrong.

In the political arena, we see this tendency worked out routinely. As I type these words, President Trump has said that he will withhold funds from Honduras if its citizens vote for the candidate he opposes. This threat is a clear example of imperialism. Some years ago, some liberals pressured President Obama to withhold aid from Uganda because of Ugandan laws that punished homosexuals. Their effort to make Uganda conform to their standards was an equally clear example of imperialism. People on both the left and the right are inclined to practice the kind of imperialism they condemn in others (such as missionaries) – or worse.

What About the Political Divide?

This brings us to apply my basic anthropological insight to the political divide in Canada and the USA. To state the application is straightforward; to carry it out is extremely difficult. We begin by stating it. Just as the anthropologist and missionary enter a culture as guests and suspend judgment on that culture, we seek to enter the political arena of the left or the right as guests: suspending judgment and allowing our hosts to define what they say and what they mean.

As people wrestle with the political divide in our country, they often say how important it is for us to begin to speak with each other and seek common ground. I am suggesting that the anthropological method gives us a tool for such conversations: We recognize that our hosts (liberals hosting conservatives and conservatives hosting liberals) are in charge of what they have to say, and we seek to understand them on their own terms.

A remarkable effort to do precisely this is Jonathan Haidt’s work on moral philosophy (for example, The Righteous Mind). Haidt began life as a self-described atheist liberal who became a political centrist. As part of his doctoral work, he entered a socially conservative Indian family, seeking to understand how conservatives came to their moral positions. He did not become a conservative, but the effort to understand has transformed his life.

We can’t all do the kind of in-depth study that Haidt did, but we can all take a stance of suspending our judgment of the other side. Liberals can stop referring to conservatives as racist and conservatives can stop referring to progressives as communist. (I omit the stronger epithets intentionally.) Instead, we can see each other as coming from different worldviews and seek to understand the other’s culture.

In the process, there will be culture shock and there will be times we retreat to the relative comfort of our own cultural group; but the longer we persist – neither judging nor condemning – the more likely we are to understand what energizes people who support choice rather than a blanket right to life, or people who are suspicious of government help for the disadvantaged.

It is easy to say, “Don’t judge.” It is far harder to continue to engage while withholding judgment. It is also a necessary step towards healing the divide between left and right. We will not all end up in the middle as political centrists; I see no reason why we should. The best result would be that we become able to speak with each other again so that the political leaders of our country can draw on the best of progressive thinking and the best of conservative thinking. A winner takes all attitude only seeks to destroy, and we are already on the path to mutual destruction.

A Modest Proposal

So, a modest proposal. Make a friend who sees life differently than you do. Build the friendship slowly. Test the waters gradually. Explore their view of life, seeking to understand why they think that a particular stance towards LGBTQI+ is important, or what they think we should do as we respond to homeless people on our streets, or any other subject important to you. Don’t try to “convert” them. Try to understand them. Keep voting for the leaders who promote your view of the world. Vote against leaders whose personal style is to divide and destroy. Vote for leaders who have clear convictions combined with a real ability to connect with the other side. (I have no idea who these leaders are!) Decide today that those you oppose are worth listening to. You are God’s image-bearer, and so are they.

I don’t expect my proposal to solve all the problems we face. I am too old to expect the kind of miracles I thought were possible in the 60s. But I hope and pray that we can learn from anthropologists and missionaries to act wisely in our own sphere of influence.

Daryl Climenhaga

30 November 2025

Reading History

The Question

Recently in my history of missions class, one of my students said, “I hate stories.” I am not sure what fuels his dislike of stories, but I suspect that many in our society would echo, “I hate history.” That being the case, one can reasonably ask what benefit there is in reading history. Since I am presently working on a history of the missionary enterprise in my own church of origin (the Brethren in Christ), this is an existential question for me. Am I wasting my time?

The Case for Travel

Allow me to move towards a response by way of reflections on the benefits of travel. What benefits do we derive from travelling to other countries, or even better from living and working in another culture? The International Volunteer Exchange Program (IVEP) sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee believes there are real benefits. On their web page, IVEP states, “During your IVEP year, you will make new friends, gain work skills and have new experiences — you will see your own culture from a new perspective. You’ll also grow in your faith as you meet and worship with Christians from around the world and learn what it means to be a peacemaker. See how a year with IVEP will transform you. You will learn new things and grow in ways you may have never expected!” 

Similarly, the VS (Voluntary Service) program run for many years by the Brethren in Christ provided young people with two years of cross-cultural experience, broadening their horizons. The experience of living in another culture opens participants’ eyes to new ways of thinking, which in turn helps them to see their own culture and worldview more clearly. A truism states that the best way to discover what is at the heart of one’s own culture is to be transplanted into a new culture with different worldview assumptions. 

Living in another culture does not guarantee such growth. It is possible to travel through Europe and Asia and Africa and South America with one’s eyes metaphorically closed. David Livermore specializes in helping short-term workers develop the ability to learn the new cultural contexts through which they move. He seeks to help them “serve with eyes wide open.”[1] His books and web site are devoted to helping people improve their cultural intelligence by keeping their eyes and minds open to the sights and sounds and ideas around them. 

To put it another way, living in another culture can broaden our perspectives if we approach our hosts with open hearts, open minds, and open eyes. If instead we measure everything and everyone by our own cultural understanding, we demonstrate ethnocentrism and become the kind of American described in the 1958 book, The Ugly American.[2] This term “ugly American” has entered popular culture as a depiction of Americans overseas and measuring everything by their own standards. The term is not intended as a compliment. 

Jonathan Haidt has described his own experience as an academic moving to a conservative highly religious part of India to pursue his academic research. He writes about the struggle he felt as an American liberal atheist, committed to the principle of the complete equality and autonomy of the individual, but now living in the state of Orissa, India. “My first few weeks in Bhubaneswar were therefore filled with feelings of shock and dissonance. … I was immersed in a sex-segregated, hierarchically stratified, devoutly religious society, and I was committed to understanding it on its own terms, not on mine.”[3] Haidt here describes the necessary commitment that makes it possible to broaden one’s perspectives. In his own case, it led him to discover an unexpected appreciation for the worldview perspectives of his hosts. Such appreciation is basic to living well with people whose cultural perspectives differ from our own. 

To summarize: Living and working overseas can broaden one’s perspectives, making one’s life fuller and richer. This truth comes with a caveat: It requires open eyes, an open heart, and an open mind. Livermore describes this attitude as being mindful.[4] Mindfulness is being intentionally aware of what is going on around oneself in a new culture, suspending judgment on these experiences, and seeking to understand them as one’s hosts do. 

Travel in general can have a similar benefit, but it is easier to travel with one’s eyes metaphorically closed and requires more deliberate intention to learn from travel as a tourist. Similarly, short-term experiences require greater intentionality than do long-term experiences. The practice of such learning is, of course, well worth the effort it takes. We develop into fuller human beings, better able to negotiate the increasingly multi-cultural world in which we live.

What about Reading?

These thoughts bring us back to reading history. When we read historical accounts, many of us, many of us are like thoughtless tourists travelling with their inner eyes closed, or like someone who works in another country for a three-year stint but experiences nothing of that culture in the depths of his/her being. We read about the period of the Civil War in the (dis)United States and measure the choices people made as if they were our contemporaries. Similarly, we read about the events of the first generation of Americans as if our cultural standards of morality were the same as theirs. 

This attitude is a kind of chronological colonialism or imperialism similar to the attitudes of Western settlers and missionaries during the period of high imperialism in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Anthropology has taught us to evaluate varying cultures from within, rather than imposing our own categories on the host culture. For example, the first missionaries in Africa often condemned polygamy without considering its function in society. Such condemnation marginalized the additional wives, who now were cast out of the security of family provided within their own culture. Missionaries had to learn to listen to the people within society and to acknowledge their right to determine acceptable practice within their own culture.[5] 

Similarly, many people today are ready to judge attitudes towards slavery held by the first generation of people in the new United States of America. Thomas Jefferson, we are told, was clearly a racist because he owned slaves. This evaluation may in fact be correct, but it must measure Jefferson by the ethical standards of early America. We can only provide such judgment if we have learned how the first Americans thought and lived – if, in short, we have entered their culture as guests and learned from them what their thoughts and practices mean. 

This does not mean that we accept polygamy or slavery. It means only that we evaluate people’s attitudes towards these issues by the standards and practices of their own culture and time. Such evaluation is aided culturally by living and working cross-culturally and historically by a close reading that enters the story with open eyes, open hearts, and open minds.

A Closing Synthesis

How do we bring these observations together? My basic point is that reading in general and reading history in particular resembles travelling and living in another culture. Lack of reading history, then, narrows one’s view of the world, just as lack of travel narrows one’s perspectives. Reading history is a form of time travel, taking us to different places and different times where different worldviews and life perspectives await us. Entering these worlds, like entering another culture in Africa or Asia, broadens and strengthens our worldview, which in turn helps us analyse and strengthen our own life perspectives. 

The practical results of such broadening require another essay. Here I note only that most North Americans have fairly narrow and rigid worldviews. (I recognize that this is a subjective judgment and that others may disagree with me.) Conservatives and Progressives alike have clustered into tribal silos. Reading history is one way to help us begin to see what is of value in those with whom we otherwise radically disagree. Provided that we read with open eyes, open hearts, and open minds, we discover the good and worthwhile contributions made by people whose attitudes initially repel us. We can learn from them without abandoning our own fundamental convictions, but only if we enter into their lives accepting the times and worldviews within which they lived as valid for their time. To do otherwise is to practice a form of chronological imperialism, a sad failure for people whose rejection of imperialism and colonialism is fundamental to their identity.

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[1] David Livermore, Serving With Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions With Cultural Intelligence. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006. See also Livermore, Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009. Livermore has a web presence at https://davidlivermore.com/cq/

[2] The book describes a physically ugly American who was in tune with the people of the country in which he lived, in contrast with the well-dressed Americans with money and influence, who had no concern for the host people. They were truly “the ugly American” because they cared only for American interests.

[3] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Pantheon Books, 2012, pp. 217f.

[4] Livermore uses the term “mindfulness”, which comes from Buddhist practice, where it is a necessary trait for moving beyond the illusion of reality to see what is really true. It has been appropriated by a variety of academic disciplines in Europe and North America, such as psychology and anthropology.

[5] See, for example, Eugene Nida, Customs and Cultures (Pasadena, CA: William Carey, 1954) and Charles Kraft, Anthropology for Christian Witness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996) and Worldview for Christian Witness (Pasadena, CA: William Carey, 2006).

Ashwell and the Radio: A Different Perspective

I told Ashwell’s story in my last blog. I told a simple story of a minor offence – Ashwell entered my house and borrowed my radio while working on our high school soccer team’s equipment: without my permission. I noted also that Ashwell might have a different memory of this event than I do. I want to explore briefly some reasons that his memory might differ from mine.

I told the story as though the power differential between us was straightforward: I was the teacher and he the student. Of course, the setting was Rhodesia of about 1973, Smith’s Rhodesia. I grew up as a White Rhodesian. I went to boarding school at Hillside Primary School in Bulawayo at age seven, living in a hostel mostly populated by the children of White farmers. The school was segregated; Black Rhodesians (Africans, as we called them) had their own schools.

I went as far as Form Three in that system (studying at Hillside and then Hamilton High School) and then returned to Pennsylvania with my parents for Grades 11 and 12. In 1967, I went to Messiah College where I studied maths (not so well) and English literature (better). After graduation, I returned to my boyhood home (Smith’s Rhodesia) in January 1972 to teach at Matopo Secondary School, a high school for Black children.

This colonial dynamic – in which I was part of the system run by a White minority government – is missing from my original telling of the story. It is not just that I was a teacher and Ashwell a student; I was also a White Rhodesian (American) and Ashwell was a Black Rhodesian.

I acknowledged this dynamic in the original telling by saying that I lived in Zimbabwe. It was called Rhodesia then, but I named it Zimbabwe to acknowledge that all of us – Black, White, Asian – belong to something larger than the colonial reality. I miss Rhodesia; that is where I grew up. But Rhodesia was fundamentally flawed in its inception. A minority ranging between 2 to 4 % of the total population cannot control the lives of everyone in the country. I do not pursue the question of what we should have done in the 1950s through the 1970s; I simply acknowledge that the colonial reality could not continue.

But when I confronted Ashwell about using my radio, I do not know what that meant to him in light of the fact that I was (in his eyes) a White Rhodesian – by upbringing, if not by citizenship. I was also a missionary, and that is part of the equation; but the relationship between Black and White at that time involved a power dynamic much greater than our relationship as coach and player or as teacher and student.

That is the reason I say I don’t know what Ashwell’s memory of this event is. I do not understand the Black Zimbabwean experience from the inside. I have lived enough with that experience and with its consequences to know something about it, but it was not my lived experience.

I am fortunate to have returned to Zimbabwe as a teacher there before Mugabe’s excesses brought so much suffering to the country. I loved Rhodesia, and I love Zimbabwe. I grieve her current distress, the fruit of corruption and cruelty, and I love her people and my memories of her people. Including my friend, Ashwell the soccer player.

Colonialism Lives! (Part Four)

Parts one, two, and three preceded this conclusion. Here I bring my thoughts together, and the meaning of the title of the series becomes clear.

Part Four

To summarize my argument so far:

Colonialism in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries included the assumption that the values of the Colonials were absolute, and that all subject peoples could and should be judged by them. We rightly rebelled against such totalitarianism and also rejected the idea of absolute values. [I think that these two steps moved in tandem, but I am not arguing that case here. I welcome the insights of those who can combine the field of social change with the field of philosophy and tell me if I am right or not – and to what extent.]

This relativism works when we apply it to the use of language. We must take the meanings of the speaker and hearer into account in order to communicate successfully. Such relativism does not work when we apply it to values, because we tend to elevate our own values to an absolute standard for all people. This is the movement that I have been describing with the image of leaving by the front door and re-entering by the back door. [I did not make the case for this elevation, except by implying it in the example of “Baby, it’s cold outside”.]

The song banned by the CBC serves as a case study of this failure. At one level, it is a simple miscommunication. It is caused by hearing the lyrics as if they were written in 2018, with the meanings that would apply had it been written today. At one level, it is as trivial as someone imposing the meaning of homosexuality on someone 100 years ago referring to a gay time. If all that happened was that people misunderstood the song, I would not have written this column. It is the further colonial move of imposing our values that leads to these reflections.

The odd thing is that postmodernism seeks to set us free from such impositions of one group's values on another group, but it has actually served to force the values of the politically strongest group on the whole of society. Colonialism returns under the guise of doing away with colonialism.

I will not analyze this problem further here, but rather I make a few suggestions of what I would like to see (whether or not it ever happens).

1. I believe in absolute values. I suggest that the best way to establish what they are is to look for the values that cultures and religions in general have accepted. [What C.S. Lewis called the Tao, in his essay The Abolition of Man.] TheJosephson Institute of Ethics has worked at this kind of project for many years now.

2. Such a project will not validate any one culture. Our own society’s conviction that individual rights trump all other rights will not make the cut. A society such as China’s conviction that the right of the collective trumps individual rights will not make the cut. The bedrock shared values of societies in general – what we can call the Dao (to use a modern form of Tao) – is more basic than the specific forms people use to construct their own societies. [I add here that my own understanding of these absolute values relies also on reading and interpreting the Christian Scriptures. I do not make the search for Dao rely on any one religion, but acknowledge where I stand among the religions of the world.]

3. A general relativism that looks for what things mean in context is generally good. Making absolute values too broad is a quick road to totalitarianism. Chinese collectivism and Canadian individualism can both express the general values of the Dao.

4. When we condemn the words or actions of another person quickly, we are likely to have taken a colonial-imperialistic action. The problem with the conversation around “Baby it’s cold” is not the questions it raises – those questions and concerns lead to interesting and fruitful learning. The problem is rather the way that some people shut down both the song and conversation about the song by appealing to “Me Too” and date rape. Both issues are serious issues, and they deserve better treatment than restricting DJs from playing a 1940s song about sex.

5. Rather than condemning quickly – whether the conversation is about transgender rights, or Me Too, or missionaries in Africa, or Black Lives Matter, or any other of our current issues – our first step should always be to understand. There is a strong likelihood that when we dislike the other person’s statement (and therefore begin to dislike the person as well), we have not yet really understood the other. Miscommunication is amazingly easy, and imposing our values based on that misunderstanding is one way that colonial lives today.

In the above comments, when I refer to “we”, I mean all of us. We – all of us – engage in this kind of behaviour, and the winner gets to be the biggest colonialist. Which means that the winner loses along with all the rest of us.

Colonialism Lives! (Part Three)

Part One recounted my own beginnings in the colonial era and wander into the present). See part one here.

Part Two noted how miscommunication happens between cultures quite regularly. See part two here.

The problem, I argue, is that we carry the necessary relativism that applies to language over into values at the level of our stated philosophy, but then act on the basis of a new absolutism in practice.

Part Three

I have been considering these reflections for many years. A recent controversy sparked me to put these brief reflections in writing.

This past week CBC announced that it would not include “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in its Christmas play list, following the lead of a number of other radio stations. “Baby” is a call and response song, in which the woman sings and the man responds. Here are the lyrics, with man’s voice in parentheses:

I really can’t stay (but baby, it’s cold outside)

I’ve got to go away (but baby, it’s cold outside)

This evening has been (been hoping that you’d drop in)

So very nice (I’ll hold your hands, they’re just like ice)

My mother will start to worry (beautiful what’s your hurry?)

My father will be pacing the floor (listen to the fireplace roar)

So really I’d better scurry (beautiful please don’t hurry)

But maybe just a half a drink more (put some records on while I pour)

The neighbors might think (baby, it’s bad out there)

Say what’s in this drink? (no cabs to be had out there)

I wish I knew how (your eyes are like starlight now)

To break this spell (I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell)

I ought to say, no, no, no sir (mind if I move in closer?)

At least…

Heard today, the lyrics are problematic in several ways. I highlight two:

1) She said “No”. No means No. In the era of “Me too”, the man’s voice is asking for trouble.

2) “What’s in this drink?” sounds creepy in the aftermath of so many date rape situations.

A bit of internet surfing, however, turns up women’s voices, warning us that in banning the song we may have overstepped the bounds of reason. They point out that she appears to have surprised him by dropping in on him in his apartment. They observe that her protests sound a bit like someone covering themselves from “slut shaming”, even as she makes it clear that she is as willing as he is. As one column [not by a woman writer, at least I don't think so] put it, “These legends of song skillfully and melodically wrung such laughs out of the song’s doth-protest-too-much dance of foreplay that it was surely clear even to a 1940s listener that these two characters were about to have a long night of fireplace-hot and — yes! — deeply consensual sex.” (From Variety)

The problematic line “What’s in this drink?” turns out to be a common line people used when getting ready to do something they weren’t supposed to do. (Although I heard another explanation: that women were often served alcohol-free alcohol and might protest at what is left out of the drink.)

Slut-shaming is bad, and I do not advocate consensual sex outside of a lifelong committed relationship. Those values, however, speak against a great deal of popular music, both from the last century and from our own time. Not to mention much-loved madrigal music from Elizabethan England: “Now is the month of maying, when merry lads are playing ….”

Where did the instant condemnation come from, leading CBC to ban the song from its playlist? I suggest that we have fallen into a habit of judging others by our standards – and, fatally, assuming that our standards are absolute. Colonialism and Imperialism redux. We expelled them through the front door, and they have returned through the back.

[To be concluded.]
Part Four brings a preliminary conclusion to these musings.