Culture and race are not synonymous, except of course to those cultures that make them synonymous.
Who made race a major factor in a society in the first place?
Must be nice to have it both ways: racism and rationalism, to play either card when it's convenient. To enjoy both racial majority discrimination as well as indiscriminate tolerance.
"My country is not racist. We only have one race." I have heard this many, many times, from sincere people who feel above accountability when it comes to discrimination against their own minorities. They swallow the self-serving narrative hook, line and sinker.
Convenient. There is such a thing, though, as making cultural observations, but how do you do that with a race-based society without being accused of the same racial bias the society clearly embraces?
Racial factors are "implicit", for some ab initio reason.
Projecting "egalitarian rationalism" on societies with deeply-rooted racial histories somehow misses the mark, I think. Not every culture shares enlightened racial egalitarian values - whether they invoke them when convenient and discard them equally conveniently. May I say, people in such societies may not even want the well-meaning liberal defense. You see - "they" identify with race. "They" value racial bias. Wrap your brain around that!
If you want to point out racism, travel around the world and enjoy your new full time job!
Not defending the OP. Just clarifying that rational tolerance and egalitarianism are not values embraced as often as they are invoked. Sorry if I also find it hypocritical to enjoy rational, egalitarian tolerance for a clearly racially-biased society that may or may not be moving toward rational egalitarianism in deed to go with the word.
Also, I understand what the OP was getting at. Problem solving is one factor of cultural differences among many. Nothing to do with race, and everything to do with cultural heritage. Not synonymous except to those who cannot or do not make such distinctions. Assuming all cultures have about the same values is a worse kind of racism, because it claims to be rational but it is bias.
Liberal idealism fails to recognize the actual tolerance for cultural differences - and there are differences - because it assumes its own value system is "optimal" and "universally valued." "We tolerate all races and creeds at our democratic convention, except those damned religious regional idiots." Prejudice in its rawest form. Only the adjectives have changed. "My way is the best way" is still the narrative? The creed to be evangelized? No tolerance of difference? No understanding of cultural nuance?
Cultural relativism can tolerate almost anything - children working in brick factories, whole swathes of population being decimated by an economic majority, rampant environmental destruction, ad nauseum.
To not realize the influence of western culture on rationalism is to not appreciate your own cultural heritage. Reverse racism and equally offensive. But forgivable, because it's usually the product of a lack of worldly experience.
Still - caution everyone all the time about every possible evil. That kind of heroism is always needed and never smugly self-deluding. Lecture a firefighter about the evils of fire. She'll thank you for it. (And obviously, she must be some kind of a pyro, right)?
"Parrothead."
Is what I would call myself.
