Are people in other cultures equally unable to criticize us?
We must ask first. Does the isolating barrier work both ways? Are people in other cultures equally unable to criticize us? This question struck me sharply when I read a remark in The Guardian by an anthropologist about a South American Indian who had been taken into a Brazilian town for an opera- tion, which saved his life. When he came back to his village, he made several highly critical remarks about the white Brazilians’ way of life. They may very well have been justified. But the interesting point was that the anthropologist called these remarks ‘a damning indictment of Western civilization’. Now the Indian had been in that town about two weeks. Was he in a position to deliver a damning indictment? Would we ourselves be qualified to deliver such an indictment on the Samurai, provided we could spend two weeks in ancient Japan? What do we really think about this?
My own impression is that we believe that outsiders can, in principle, deliver perfectly good indictments— only, it usually takes more than two weeks to make them damning. Understanding has degrees. It is not a slapdash yes-or-no matter. Intelligent outsiders can progress in it, and in some ways will be at an advan- tage over the locals. But if this is so, it must clearly apply to ourselves as much as anybody else.