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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2016-07-14 17:17, William Flynn
Wallace wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CAO+xQEYeORWfzuXeagjWXPiEo-4Ayh0aoLFkKXA+A3cJM=i1HQ@mail.gmail.com"
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic
sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Douhat
is right and wrong at the same time. I have no problem
seeing the intellectual elite as a tribe, as long as my
tribe is not insular or dismissive of others or afraid of
them. My tribe shares the ideal of, for example, double
blind studies as best in many researches, a standard not
shared by some other tribes, or maybe not even
understandable to some. Egalitarian does not mean equal
in all things. </div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic
sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic
sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">And
some things in some cultures, including our own, can be
just wrong.</div>
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<br>
I don't think Doutat claims every culture is as good as every other
culture. Rather, that real cosmopolitanism means moving out of one's
comfort zone and experiencing other cultures through interaction. <br>
<br>
I am very comfortable dealing with fellow academics, no matter from
where: they are actually quite similar to me, even if they are
Argentinian psychoanalysts or Chinese economists: there is a
globalized academic culture that helps us interact (and maybe allows
us to focus on research issues rather than each other's
strangeness). Maybe I am missing some radically different academic
cultures from Subsaharan Africa, Arabia or Mongolia, but I doubt it:
it is an internationalized culture and to a degree a tribal
affiliation. But trying to explain some of our stuff to a
politician... ugh. Suddenly there is a barrier in culture, mental
toolkit, and sometimes tribal affiliation. I found it easier to deal
with Japanese senior civil servants than a Swedish politician. Yet
interacting with the politician may have given me more cultural
understanding than the chats with the Chinese economist.<br>
<br>
David Brin suggested that the unique aspect of Western culture was
not just fascination by other cultures (that can be found elsewhere)
but a deeply ingrained idea that other cultures might have figured
out things we haven't, might have better solutions we ought to pick
up on, or that we need to reinvent ourselves to avoid being bad.
This is very unique (and not even particularly popular inside our
culture). I think it is tremendously important, a key reason we got
not just modern science and technology but also significant moral
improvement (from abolition to human rights frameworks to gay
rights) and transhumanism from this culture. <br>
<br>
This memeplex of "we could be different" is to be cherished and
protected. Being cosmopolitan does not mean one becomes relativist,
but rather that one has enough experience in the world that one
becomes a connoisseur of ideas, life patterns and alternatives. <br>
<br>
This might be why I am not entirely happy with just being pretty
good at networking within a large chunk of global civilization: I
want to be able to network with the rest of it too. <br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University
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