A remarkable UN-sponsored publication is the Human Development Report 2004, which focused on various aspects of culture. Such reports are annually commissioned by the UN Development Programme, inviting eminent academics to present their views on human progress in various fields at a global level.
The first chapter of the 2004 edition, written by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, is entitled “Cultural liberty and human development.”
The author embraces cultural diversity, but problematizes its concept if taken as a value in its own: Some cultural practices, as we know, can be — and sometimes are — quite nasty. Any culture therefore “must be assessed for what it does to the lives and freedoms of the people involved,” Sen wrote.
Moreover, cultural practices must not restrict the right of individuals “to choose how they would live and to consider alternative lifestyles” — cultural liberty trumps cultural diversity.
Cultural liberty is a human right. It stipulates the right of adults to freely choose one’s cultural expression for all human beings. Unfortunately, fundamental human rights worldwide are curbed not only for political, but also for cultural purposes. Invoking “culture” can easily turn into a suppressive tool for nasty political or personal ends that benefit those with power.
China is one of the leading countries with such a record as its present leader considers the Chinese Communist Party as “loyal inheritor and promoter of China’s outstanding traditional culture” that, among others, defies Western individualism, blending totalitarian communism with authoritarian Confucianism as the perfect cocktail for the oppression of universal civic rights.
A recent example of this dubious cocktail is the introduction of a social credit system by which authorities are entitled to deprive citizens of basic (human) rights, such as access to public services or choosing one’s profession if they morally or socially “misbehave.”
Obviously, they hope that this Orwellian political measure will turn China’s citizenry into authentic Huxleyan Brave New World residents — the ultimate educational goal, as it seems, of the so-called Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) Thought.
The private industry follows suit: Some companies in China — I am not making this up — fine their employees for not making a prescribed number of steps that would supposedly benefit their health. That is a good idea, you might think, but only if you also think that the production of what Huxley calls the “Epsilon-Minus Semi-Morons” — bioengineered creatures conditioned to develop a positive attitude toward their allocated social role — is also a good idea.
Political systems are able to impose such moral prescriptions only within paternalistic cultures where people are used to being permanently guided by someone else whose authority must not be challenged: politically by governments, educationally by teachers, economically by bosses and socially by parents.
Human rights have a different political and cultural agenda. Their basic provisions can be found in the most important human rights document in modern history, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on Dec. 10, 1948, which is now commemorated annually as Human Rights Day.
It stipulates rights that individuals have vis-a-vis state authorities, the “right to equal access to public service in his country” being one of them (Art. 21, 2), the “right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community” (Art. 27, 1) being another.
Understandably, China is not a friend of human rights.
Those rights can be truly respected only within functioning democracies. Taiwan, unlike China, is one of them. Political and business leaders from other democracies should honor this fact whenever engaging with Big Brother across the Taiwan Strait and asked — or threatened — to make a certain choice.
Human rights are constantly challenged, even in established democracies, and Taiwan is no exception, but challenges here derive from a widespread mentality labeled “cultural” that undermines a central concept of modern human rights: their presumed universality.
It is culture that codifies the local moral value system, not values with a universal claim that would neutralize some not-so-nice aspects of local cultures. Culture in Taiwan is like a magic word, a religious formula, a fetish that explains nearly everything of moral relevance. Questions about what is morally right or wrong soon turn into questions about what is culturally correct or incorrect behavior.
However, there is a problem. Usually it is the elderly who are generally seen fit to authentically represent Taiwan’s rather conservative culture. Therefore, they feel that, on the basis of their own long experiences, they are entitled to impart — or rather impose — their moral codes upon the young and unexperienced. Long life alone, they seem to think, sanctions such impositions, and young people are subsequently conditioned through their education to accept this conclusion.
However, what about the quality of such experiences? In many cases the mental horizon of a traditional person growing up in a traditional society is rather modest compared with that of a younger person with a more open and global perspective.
A life’s experience with a closed mind-set is an experience without life; it just perpetuates itself, regurgitating the same views in the name of culture a million times, no matter what the situation outside is. Why would someone wish to listen to it when they are young?
“Culture,” therefore, is one of the most misused terms, misused by self-proclaimed chief interpreters who miraculously always profit from their own interpretation of what life is “really” about. It is the daddies, teachers, bosses, authoritarian politicians: They are the privileged in this unfunny cultural game. Core elements of this culture are utterly unfriendly to the young; it is a rather gerontocratic culture.
However, “culture” is a vague concept; nobody knows what it is. Who would have the authority to accurately define, say, Taiwan’s culture, apart from mentioning a few folkloristic manifestations? Grandmothers? Governments? Teachers? Textbooks? Dictionaries? And if so, which ones?
There is no binding definition — any such definition would solely be an expression of a personal opinion, a personal lifestyle preference if pursued by the interpreter, with no legitimate prescriptive power over others.
It is true that in traditional societies it is usually the grandmother who incarnates the wisdom of a given culture, but what would such a wisdom mean for a young adult’s life in modern, open societies? That he or she should live along their (grand)parents’ ideas without experiencing life in own terms? That is a rather unpersuasive perspective for a young person.
Such backward-looking traditions frequently hamper a young adult’s human right to “free and full development of his personality” (Article 29, 1).
Young adults, like others, have a right to live on the basis of their own ideas, their own values, their own experiences and their own mistakes from which they can learn, and with which they grow up.
Young people with an open mind should patiently explain to their — in this aspect — often inexperienced parents or grandparents how modern life, including cultural liberty, works. Parents can also learn from mistakes.
Herbert Hanreich is an assistant professor at I-Shou University in Kaohsiung.
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