Is Morality Relative to Culture?

[Mr S]

A discussion topic in my masters degree class, I thought I would share my answer and open up the topic for anyone else who might be interested in answering it...

Morality is more so a fabrication of humanity, there really can’t be any kind of truly outlined criteria of what defines morality as it is subjective to time, culture, environmental pressures and so on. One just has to travel to varying countries with differing cultures to notice the difference. One can even see the differences traveling to different parts of the United States.

Of course we can look upon other cultures and use our culture as a defining point of what is acceptable behavior or not. However that cannot truly justify whether a social action is truly valid or not as the observer may not understand the true significance of doing something we in the western world might find abnormal.

For example, if we were to be able to observe the Spartans culture first hand I’m sure much of it would be considered disturbing to say the least to the average American. However, at one time in their history the shaping of their culture provided them the best means of survival and prosperity and thus what we know today about their culture flourished until its justification as a social cornerstone began to crumble and cease to provide long term stability, thus they eventually vanished as a distinct prominent culture. Many people look back at their culture and glorify it but they have never truly experienced it, only in historical legends, so they may have an entirely different opinion about it if they had to live it first hand rather than through books or movies.

I recently just came back from India. I had initially wanted to go there because I am personally interested in spirituality and the roots of religions. I had read that many supposed ‘enlightened’ individuals had lived in India and I wanted to experience for myself what India had to offer that would perhaps be different than other countries. Well I was quite shocked after a few days concerning the living conditions of the average person. Considering I had traveled to many previous countries and seen many documentaries and movies that featured India, personally experiencing it was a mind-altering experience. Their sense of morality is entirely different from the west and you can see it in their everyday living conditions. Sure, I can blend in and deal with it for a few weeks but if I had to live in that culture permanently for the rest of my life, I’m not sure I would want to do that. Moralities of a particular culture are just one cornerstone of a civilizations success and I’m not so sure India can move properly forward into the 21st century with the western world without modifying its cultural traditions that hold modernization back. I understand some people find comments like that offensive but I personally believe moral virtues do help move civilizations forward or backward over the long run. They either eventually fester from within and die a slow death or grow and blossom outward, extending the positives of their virtues to influence their immediate surroundings.

I believe America at one time behaved like this and established itself as a proper role model for the world. However, with world stage power came higher levels of political and economical corruption; it’s been slowly whittling away at the traditional moral fabric of America. I understand that all societies have to evolve and change. However, I do not think the average morals of Americans are getting stronger or better, but worse. The morals of the protestant work ethic really shaped America to what it is today, but there are forces that are introducing conflicting morals which I believe are causing the great divide that Americans face in politics and other facets of American life. Perhaps it is a long planned point of attack on the American people to weaken traditional American mores so that a new pre conceived culture or pockets of varying ones can dominate future generations and eventually push out traditional ones that once placed America at the peak of world reverence.

Personally. I do not support the importing of foreign morals to mesh with traditional American ones. Over time it disrupts the social fabric of unity and people start becoming distrustful of particular groups and cultures. I think once one decides to become American they should lay aside their traditional culture and not let it interfere with what it means to be an American. I know the average American has been brought up to tolerate all cultures, religions and all that. However, it’s one thing to tolerate it and another when they are superseding our own traditions because of political correctness, frivolous lawsuits or ‘possible’ offence. I would go a step further and eliminate automatic citizenship for babies born on American soil as well as dual citizenship. Either you're an American or you aren’t. Dual citizenship causes conflicts in cultural loyalties and I don’t see the point in keeping citizenship of your old country if you truly want to be an American. But I know this will not happen anytime soon, if ever, cause it's a political bomb and would be too controversial to discuss in public.

Most people feel that religion or spiritual practices are the true determiners of morality. I beg to differ because typically religion or spiritual experiences are initially brought upon by some kind of external or internal experience within an individual or group of individuals. Thus, religion itself is created by varying outside sources, which initially stem from some kind of unexplained beginning. Since the experience is being interpreted by man within a preconceived environment constricted by events that will perpetuate survival or extinction, the morals that eventually succeed to become part of the culture allow that society to grow and prosper. When this is not the case anymore, the morals will change and alter to fit a new form thus attempting to continue prosperity for the culture. If the new morals fail then the society will eventually crumble and cease to exist in its present form.

How can humans lay claim that God or the source of creation has morals? Morals are defined by humans, which are fallible beings. God would be supposedly infallible thus not needing or having morals to continue existing. Humans create morals in an attempt to be as close to God or source, but inevitably fail because the Earth plane was always meant to be a contradiction of the truth of reality. Thus, those who understand this do not subscribe to human delineated truths; they seek their own morals and truth from within that work for them in conjunction with their environment in the present. Morals are subject to ones own life experience. If one is free from social conformities and niceties and broken free of human tribalism whether, it’s in the form of nationality, religion, race, politics… then one only has to work around the morals of a culture to obtain ones own personal salvation from them. Only by moving inward and then outward does one command what would be considered morals in line with God or the source, which in turn dictate how your personal morals will affect you and those within your immediate surroundings.

If you study all enlightened spiritual masters from the past they all broke from traditional cultural norms and lived life the way they needed to, often defying the cultural norm of that time and place, thus enabling them to spread their spiritual message the way they intended. Their message was often theirs alone with little previous and current cultural influence or they would never have become known as a prophet, saint, holy person, enlightened one, etc.

Anyways that’s what’s on my mind about the topic of morality…

[globetrotter]

Morality
Ethics
The Law

Ethics suppose to and aspire to a culturally neutral stance.

For example it is always unethical to kill millions of people just because of their race, religion, etc.

Morality is culturally relative and changes with the times.

The law is just a rule book.

[Contrarian Expatriate]

Yes indeed, although many people disagree.

What is moral in the USA, is not necessarily moral in other countries. For example, revenge killings (Think Hatfields and McCoys) are considered immoral in our culture. However, in some countries like Albania, blood feuds of this nature are indeed considered legitimate and moral responses to certain transgressions. Their "Code of Lek" spells out specific circumstances when you can avenge your family with blood.

Although some religious people would say otherwise, there is no great tablet of morality in the universe that establishes innate right and wrong. Many countries have adopted similar codes of law prohibiting murder, rape, theft, et cetera which gives the impression that morality is universal, but upon closer inspection, killings and other atrocities often lapse into moral territory until the international community intervenes to reestablish western order (Serbia, Kosovo, Rwanda, etc.)

[AsianBill]

Their sense of morality is entirely different from the west and you can see it in their everyday living conditions.

What exactly did you see in India? I'm just curious how what you saw there compared to what one sees in the Philippines.

[momopi]

Words like morality has such broad defination, it's difficult to pin down a short answer.

How I was taught was, morality is defined by good vs. evil, ethics is defined by right vs. wrong, and civil/common law originated from customs and community standards.

To further elaborate, the Ten commandments is the moral foundation of the Abramham religions. This religious value system was exported to Europe and beyond. As a monotheist religion, it's less tolerant of other beliefs and where you have conflicts with local culture, the religious morals is usually considered superior.

In East Asia, the traditional moral cornerstone was a mixture of ancestor worship, heaven worship, folk religions, and filial piety. When Buddhism was introduced from India, the religious morals had to be modified because Buddhism didn't value filial piety as much, it's about detaching yourself from family & ancestors in pursuit of nirvana through individual salvation. In order for Buddhism to be accepted, it was merged with existing local beliefs (syncretism). In Chinese temples you can observe the merger to ancestor worship, Taoism, and Buddism. In Japan you have a merger of Shinto and Buddhism, where celebrations are held at Shinto shrines, but funerals are held in Buddist tradition.

Although Chinese folk religions have "The Supreme God' and the Japanese Shinto has Amaterasu, these religions are not monotheistic with strict commandments that read "You shall have no other gods before me" and "You shall not make yourself an idol". Thus, the conflict resolution method used in E. Asia to reconcile contrary beliefs is a merger of ideas through syncretism. This is also why so many ancient folk religions survived in Asia, versus Paganism in Europe was effectively wiped out from being of any relevance after 1000 AD (Iceland).


Ethics as a philospphy defines what is right (proper) and wrong (improper). Western ethics is influenced by Greeks (Socrates-Plato-Aristotle), and East Asian ethics by Confucianism (Confucius-Mencius) merged with legalism from 200 BC to 19th century. Both Socrates and Confucius believed that man's nature is neither Good or Evil, but is influenced by latter upbringing and enviornmental factors. With proper education, man would gain knowledge of what is right and wrong, and thus act with virtue. When people disobeyed authority, East Asian rulers applied the practical elements of legalism to punish them.

Many people confuse "what goes around comes around" as ethical teachings. This is actually religious, same as the Biblical "As you sow, so shall you reap", or the Indian religious concept of Krama in cause and effect. To believe in such concepts requires a leap of faith (religion) and is not logic or philosophy. Such beliefs are often held by those with victim mentality with no realistic means of changing the status quo, thus, they succumb to the fantasy that some supernatural force will go out and punish people for their deeds.


The Law exists because there is no supernatural force that reincarnates bad people to ants in their next life. However, a society that solely depend on punishment to enforce proper behavior would treat its people no different than animals. Thus, from a ruler's perspective, it's much better to have the trio of religion-ethics-law to govern the people's behavior within acceptable limits.


A century ago, people lived in the same village or town where they were born, raised to accept local moral and ethical standards as the norm, and went to the same church or temple as everyone else in the community. Today we live in a very different environment. The internet and rapid transportation has made the world a far smaller place, and travel is now much more affordable. Many different churchs and temples exist in the cities and you can pick and choose your own faith -- or lack of.

I'm reminded of an episode in Babylon 5, where the question of religion came up in a cultural exchange. Every alien race had their only dominate religion represnted, except the Humans, where the Babylon 5's commander brought in a whole line of people, each representing a different religion. I think the answer to the question of morality being relative to culture today, is the freedom and available of choice, assuming that you don't live in Saudi Arabia.

On ethical philosphy, I think we're very fortunate to live in the present century. People talk about the lack of freedoms, but they don't take a historical perspective on things. For example, in China, the last time when people had real ideological freedom was 2,200 years ago when the Hundred Schools fourished, and people like Yang Zhu taught Hedonism, Hui Shi taught Sophism, and Gangsun Long taught Logician-Sophism. Most of the original teachings were destroyed in the Qin book burnings, which was repeated during Mao's cultural revolution. Today we have the freedom to look back and rediscover what was once lost, and look forward to developing new schools of thought. The stagnation under State-imposed Confucian-Legalist ideology from 220 BC to 19th century is now in the past.

[Mr S]

Comment from a fellow student:

I find your ideas of spirituality and a connection with the divine fascinating. Do you think it is getting harder, with increase technology and world distractions, to "unplug" ourselves and take the appropriate time and meditation to understand our true spiritual self?

And as science continues on a path away from spiritualness are we, as a culture and civilization, getting further away from that understanding? I think if you suggest the paranormal to most people you will get a very mixed reaction, but the trend is moving toward disbelief. I really appreciated how William James did not discredit people who felt they had been in the presence of a spirit or God, instead what was important was that they believed it. Granted, science has uncovered many natural truths that earlier cultures used superstition and religious magic to explain, but you are right in suggesting there is so much we don't know. Unfortunately, in our on the go, mocha latte, work harder drive has left little time for self meditation and I think further from finding true spirituality.

My reply:

I don’t think it’s any harder or easier than any other points of human history, it’s just the environment and circumstances of existence have perhaps become more complicated than previous human environments. Every civilization or people have had their own issues to deal with and if we think about it, they were probably just as challenging in their own way as our trials and difficulties are to us in the present. Being born into the human condition, one is immediately exposed to cultural conditioning, so it doesn't really matter if we are talking about the past or present being easier to obtain spiritual awareness. There will always be physical external distractions on the path as that is part of being human. One of the reasons to be born into the human condition is to be initially completely unaware of our true divine selves. Those who can bypass the distractions though out a lifetime or many, will eventually come full circle and realize the original source of their existence is not with their Earthly physical birth, but prior to that in another vibration. However, present physical existence on the Earth plane does not mean that one does not still inhabit the other, it’s more of a continuity of the same being existing on multiple vibration dimensions. Thus, the lower physical form (us) generally cannot perceive the higher forms of the self unless somehow one is able to find a way to vibrate in tune with the higher levels while on the Earth plane. Obviously, this is easier said than done and one major reason why it is difficult for modern science to explore this, because they are using physical earth made equipment to study phenomenon that does not follow the same rules as what we perceive them to be on the Earth plane (having distinct physical laws of the universe is questionable also now that we know consciousness can manipulate sub atomic structure simply by observation) The overall majority of human consciousness based on Earth is unaware of their potential to understand and personally experience their connection with the divine. Thus, it is a long-term struggle for individuals to break away from the preconceived physical environment of the masses and enter a world that bends to their intuitive will. Eventually, enough humans will reach critical mass to change the overall perception of realty on Earth and that will then potentially change the physical laws that manage the Earth environment at present. I personally don’t believe that biological evolution is created by just external physical sources but rather in conjunction with the internal ‘will’ of the life being, desiring and willing the change internally then it eventually manifests externally into the physical environment.

The larger question is if time does not truly exist in a linear fashion but all at once, then our higher consciousness already knows what it’s Earth life will do and thus we must ask: what is the point of incarnation if our actions are already predetermined? Well, once again we could go into the subject of multiple vibration dimensions. It could be that our higher self is experiencing every alternative choice using multiple dimension theory. The ‘experience’ of living choices on the Earth plane is true experience. It’s no different than the difference between gathering the same information through a book or actually doing it. I believe our true selves desire to ‘experience’ the truth, thus the physical plane was created to do that. One cannot experience in an environment that is perceived as perfect, thus the purpose of the lower physical plane or existence. Whatever happens on the Earth plane feels real to us, but it is no different than playing a character in a video game. You experience the ups and downs of attempting to win the game but if you win or fail it does not really matter in the end. You have experienced playing and can take that knowledge with you without any permanent damage to your true self (no true death). I know this sounds crazy to the average person but this is what I have gathered through personal research and experience. I am still learning and experiencing and believe the more I learn the less I truly know. However, as I mature in my years I wish to do more research in this area and possibly share with the masses (begin with a related PhD and move on from there) All this info I share is not really any kind of new revelation, its just most people aren’t aware of it. It’s really too self-empowering for the people in power to disseminate to the masses. Most of our leaders are abysmal examples of leadership and have ignored or abandoned their connection with the divine, thus the reason behind all the many idiotic problems in the world that could be corrected quite easily if they had the will and desire to do so. However they embrace fear and thus it rules their consciousness, passing it down through their genes and collective consciousness, generation upon generation. These individuals perceive power as a means to ever lasting divinity and name recognition for themselves and their lineage of future generations. The fear is if they lose their power they will cease to control their destiny over themselves and others. However, in actuality the more one controls the less freedom they have over their own lives and others. It’s a trick of the mind. Take for example living in the United States. Material possessions define the average person. The more ‘stuff’ one has the more ones life has meaning and supposedly is in control. If we have a relationship, friends, wife/husband, children, house, cars, furniture, clothes, pets, consumption bills, various living expenses, etc; how free are we really? Once one becomes an adult and begin amassing physical property and relationships, they tend to bind one more then they set one free. The more property one has the more responsibility one has and thus the finer line one must walk to balance everything in proportion to their life’s goals. I’m not saying possessions are negative in any way, I am saying our obsession with extreme wealth and materialism has pushed many away from discovering their true selves rather then finding it. There must be balance in ones life. When I see millionaires buying multiple houses or cars and the like I think does that really make them happy? How can they be that egotistical? I would find greater joy paying for a poor child’s education and receiving their gratitude and love that lasts forever than some car that is only an impermanent toy to play with. I suppose though that's why I’m not rich cause I don’t pursue wealth to fulfill the needs of my ego, I find other means to do so. One thing I would like to mention is that once one disconnects from a fear based life and fully embraces their true divine heritage, they will never have to worry about material world matters. There is unlimited sustenance for everyone to survive comfortably. Scarcity is a myth perpetuated by those in power to control the masses, but that is another discussion.

I believe there are many people ‘searching’ for something more to life than the traditional consumer mentality that has permeated the United States and the Western world. The reason why it appears that less people are interested in spirituality or religion is because the traditional religions do not fit the needs of the modern, evolving man. Man is evolving spiritually whether the ‘establishment’ is willing to admit it or not. Because the many alternatives to accepted, organized religions are not as well organized or known as traditional ones, its difficult for the masses to embrace a revolutionary spiritual change unless each individual wishes to explore alternatives to spiritual enrichment. When a society is self-inducing drunken or drugged stupors upon themselves on a fairly consistent basis, it’s not necessarily a cry that those people are dysfunctional, rather they lack proper guidance and leadership to bring forth their true, untarnished selves. They are thus attempting to find the divine and a sense of love and belonging through artificial means hoping it will give them life satisfaction. However, it usually just brings dysfunction into ones life and inevitably creates more difficulties to overcome. There is also an ever-encroaching disregard for life; especially human that has slowly been permeating throughout human society in an increasing fashion in comparison to the past. Obviously, we do not know specifics in regards to how ancient peoples dealt with each other on a daily basis; we only know what has been recorded mainly regarding mass conflicts like wars or social rebellions. We really don’t know if the modern amount of kidnappings, suicides, murders, rapes, manslaughter convictions, etc are comparable in numbers to past civilizations. I believe all these ‘crimes’ have been a part of man for a long time but I’m not so convinced that they were as epidemic as they are now. There are ‘forces’ at work who are deliberately attempting to bring the human condition down to a lower vibration level and keep it there as it enables the powers that be to control people easier. However divine intent is stronger than these people realize and anything they do will inevitably fail in the long run. Humans have an obsession with time and especially when ‘salvation’ or the ‘end of the world’ will take place. Well I don’t think that is possible. The Earth experience is meant as a training ground and always will be. To assume that humans have been banished to Earth to then be redeemed sometime in human history to a ‘heaven’ or whatever is quite preposterous. The higher true self is already part of the divine and is ‘saved’ or however you wish to define it. The Earth is just a way to discover the true meaning of facets of existence in a manner which the connection with the divine is reestablished through personal physical experiences associated with what is known as love. Every human action is based on wanting some form of pleasure or love, rather than fear or pain. What we define as ‘crime’ is in many ways a wrong way to express ones desire and longing for pleasure and love. It’s quite a complicated subject to get into, but I think you get the basic point of what I’m trying to say.

The two following video clips help to explain what I’m saying a bit more concisely. I wouldn't say its 100% correct or believable but if you are open minded and can perceive a new way at looking at reality I think it might really get you thinking and challenging what your current belief paradigm is. I recommend downloading and watching the entire movie if you can. (The Esoteric Agenda) If your interested in alternative topics and scientific research Coast-to-Coast AM is a great radio program. You can download podcasts and listen via mp3. Makes it more convenient since it usually airs late at night in US markets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqWfca9fCsw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfNvGIAGxU0