Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
What I particularly notice is how you avoided my first question. Perhaps there is no difference? Are all Americans blunt? Ah, may. We all may say something, anything perhaps if we preface it with may. You mean to say that truth telling is not superior to lying? By what ethical standard? ]
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I didn't answer your first question because there is this thing called "culture". Culture means that even though not every single person in a society may exibit trait A, you can still make a generalization about the population, as compared to others. Culture. Pretty self-evident. So your question was... not worth addressing. But if you insist that is my answer.
Regarding truth telling versus lying. Suppose a young child on the subway says, "Mommy, why is that man fat?" He is telling the truth, but mommy says, "Shush child". Sometimes its better to be quiet. Sometimes there is a higher truth. It's called keeping your mouth shut, and exhibiting self control (even when the other party may not be). Perhaps this value is prized higher in Asian cultures than in Western cultures. Just sayin'.
If you read the link I provided, all this seems to be addressed better than I can do so here. In fact I think that's why he wrote it. Because it isn't simply "society X is full of cheats and liars", but there are issues in society X that maybe society Y doesn't have, and misunderstandings might be avoided if we at least become partly aware of them.
When you see the issue of "face" for example, you can better understand Titus Chu v/v the Blendeds, and also Dong Yu Lan. Those 2 ministers would defer to Lee (in fact I witnessed TC being publicly shamed by WL) but not to the Blendeds, not because they suddenly became uppity or arrogant after Lee passed, but because their culture demanded the first and deterred (they might even say forbade) the second. Culture is a very powerful force in human behavior. If we don't examine it critically we miss a lot. Because WN & WL sold their schtick as if it were apart from human culture, they avoided scrutiny. And this led to great loss for many.