everything is not culturally-mediated (rough draft)

one viewpoint i have become acquainted with recently is the idea that everything is culturally-mediated (argued by a friend who is a phd student in geography with a master's in sociocultural anthropology). although the argument for this seems to be self-evident upon first glance, i stumbled upon a key issue that i disagreed with and compelled me to examine the argument further (the argument is listed in steps 1-6 below upon the conclusion of this paragraph). the example was finding a person who had been isolated from any contact with people, and thus culture and attempting to study this person. it seemed quite obvious to me that this person did not possess any culture and that our culture did not prevent us from examining the non-cultural aspects of this person accurately. however, the person who espoused that everything is culturally-mediated ("everything" being all human interactions with other humans and everything else in the universe, "culturally-mediated" being that there is some cultural connection or element involved with all human interactions with other humans and everything else in the universe) maintained that this person probably possessed culture (depending on if you defined traits of culture as being sharable as opposed to shared) and that if he/she did not possess culture, that there was no way for us to assess these non-cultural aspects of the person because everything we do is culturally-mediated (the former coming from a viewpoint that theoretically everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated, and the latter coming from a viewpoint that everything is culturally-mediated, and because of the latter, whatever the "everything is culturally mediated" viewpoint espouses is the correct one and the "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" is incorrect -- the "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" viewpoint is thus a devil's advocate stance of sorts). with that in mind, let me outline the main ideas of this argument (keep in mind that there are other versions as well that i am not going to address here, so this is by no means all exhaustive, all-encompassing rebuttal to the position that everything is culturally-mediated):

1) everyone has culture (definitions of culture vary, but they tend to include -- although they are not limited to -- language, symbolism, artifacts, etc. -- evidence of social interaction)
2) even alone individuals isolated from the rest of society have culture (thus, culture is defined by *sharable*, not necessarily shared traits; obviously, an isolated person would not know about language unless he/she had somehow created his/her own language, which is highly unlikely, so one's definition of culture for this person would have to be narrower than the definition for people in #1)
3) if there are people without culture, we can't study them through the lens of culture (this is a contestation of #2, a contestation that the remaining steps refute; the refutation shows that "everything is culturally-mediated" here means that metaphysics is dependent on epistemology, whereas the possibility that there are people without culture is based on the idea that "everything is culturally-mediated" is solely epistemic -- an alternative version of the "everything is culturally-mediated" that is ultimately disproven. the "lens of culture" being an epistemology that is shaped by cultural influences, and thus is biased and cannot be objective)
4) everything is studied through the lens of culture, and since the lens of culture can never completely determine whether there are people without culture, these people whose cultural status is uncertain are designated as "cultural status unknown" and continue to be studied through the lens of culture.
5) all people who have culture can be studied through the lens of culture. people whose cultural status is "unknown" (this coming from a perspective that "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated") are also studied through the lens of culture (and hence we return to the "everything is culturally-mediated" viewpoint). there is a closed loop at work here: we can never invent a test that can perfectly conclude that a person does not possess culture because tests are inherently culturally-mediated. as such, until proven otherwise (which will be never, according to this framework), we will continue to treat a person whose tests indicate that he/she does not possess culture as a person whose cultural status remains unknown, and therefore remains a viable object of study through the lens of culture. and because of this, we do not have to ever worry about studying non-cultural human things and a possible incompatibility with the lens of culture. thus, in practice, there can never be people without culture, so everything can be studied through the lens of culture.
6) in theory, there can be people without culture, in which case the lens of culture is inapplicable. but since the "purest math" is culturally-mediated -- thus, theoretical scenarios are subject to cultural mediation and not free from cultural influence -- these theoretical scenarios are just extensions of culture and are not reflective of a perfectly abstract, ideal, eternal truth. as such, there are no theoretical non-cultural people, and as a result, everything can and is culturally-mediated.


so the prevailing theme here is that culture pervades all human thought and interaction to the point that even pure abstraction does not possess a truth independent of culture. in this sense, culture seems to be an all-encompassing universal of sorts (the exactness of this will be examined in the remainder of this paragraph), but it can't be a static one for obvious reasons. so basically, the argument implies that culture constitutes both a metaphysical ontology ("everything") and epistemological indicator (the "lens of culture") and that culture's limits are defined by the boundaries of those two. what goes on -- culture -- within the limits of culture is always evolving, and thus in a state of flux, capable of change within them and consisting of an infinite number of possibilities (infinite from a static perspective as well as one of change). what does this mean, exactly? an analogy would be it's like saying that culture (from the static perspective only, for this example) constitutes all real numbers between 0 and 100 instead of all real numbers from negative infinity to infinity (there is still an infinite number of real numbers within each domain), and thus "everything" can be defined in both sets of 0 to 100 and negative infinity to positive infinity. thus, because infinity is equated with encompassing "everything", then by this standard culture encompasses, through what its ontology delimits, "everything" (for example, the infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 100) even when "everything" is not really *everything* (*everything* being all real numbers between negative infinity and infinity). of course, culture is not only defined quantitatively (in fact, little of it is), but quantitatively as well. so, to try to demonstrate how the quantitative analogy can be used for qualitative elements, from an "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" viewpoint, if culture constitutes everything between 0 and 100 (thus all real numbers between 0 and 100 being "cultural"), then all real numbers outside of that set are considered "non-cultural" human things. however, from an "everything is culturally-mediated" viewpoint, 0 to 100 constitutes "everything" and there are no numbers outside of that set. so one problem is that culture assumes that it views things correctly (epistemology) in order for things to be correct (metaphysics). so, coming from an "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" viewpoint, this means culture must either 1) make an arbitrary distinction between what is cultural and non-cultural based on a cultural perspective, or 2) base its distinction on some sort of evidence or information that transcends the cultural perspective. #2 is dismissed because nothing transcends culture (not even reason and empiricism, according to cultural perspectives, anyway), so we are left with #1. a major problem created by #1 is that in making an arbitrary distinction, besides the fact that it is not justified except for the reason that it is cultural, its capability of being made compatible with reality (returning to the "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" viewpoint, i'm assuming there is an "external reality", and that reality is not just something we are creating in our minds) leads to a fork in the road, neither of which is desirable. both possible results of #1 are damaging to the case of culture: either the domain of culture metaphysically is virtually everything (in which case culture basically amounts to a worthless term since it is so vague and broad; it only possesses worthwhile meaning if "everything" is framed epistemically) or in claiming something distinct (which is arbitrary, remember), it arbitrarily eliminates another sizable domain simply due to that domain consisting of "non-cultural human" material and thus has unnecessarily prevented us from studying things we could study.

this, however, is dismissible if one denies the existence of an independent reality; if reality must be culturally contextualized, then culture assumes that it views reality correctly (epistemology) in order for reality to be correct (metaphysics) -- this is different from before when there existed the assumption of an "external reality" because denying the existence of reality results is believing in a form of idealism, that nothing exists as real substances "out there" and that the universe is all functioning or reducible to our own consciousness which consists of its own metaphysical properties. of course, this is assuming that there is one universal "culture" for all of mankind that is a common currency among different cultures. if different particular cultures differ on their views of reality, then reality differs from culture to culture because it lies in the eye of the beholder. we now reach another crossroads: either 1) reality is contestable even though reality is not assumed to exist per se because different cultures have different ideas about what constitutes reality, or 2) the "correct" view of reality stems from which culture is dominant and thus, in forcing more people to think of reality through its cultural framework, has reduced reality to power relations. both of these definitions are forms of irrealism, and both derail the idea of reality as independent, neutral, and objective. for #1, if views of reality differ so that there is no overlap among cultures, then there is a complete communication breakdown since no aspects of reality are shared. but if there is a complete communication breakdown, then people of different cultures cannot communicate their differences in order to accept them and acknowledge each culture's particular power over creating reality. as such, different cultures cannot communicate and as a result, they fight over their definitions of reality as each culture attempts to control more people and thus exert more power in the fight to attain cultural supremacy regarding reality. but this points to a dominant, unified, single idea of defining reality as being dependent on power relations. ultimately, epistemology is subsumed by metaphysics, and the case is no difference here. a single culture possessing a unified idea of reality can be realized by one culture conquering all others -- this is the final outcome of lopsided power relations wherein the dominant conquers the dominated and there is no distinguishable difference between the two as they become one. thus, the endpoint of power relations (which are supposed to be the source of subjectivity) in the metaphysics -- a culture conquering all and uniting them as one culture -- actually results in a uniform epistemology -- one way in which people of the single culture perceive and interpret reality. however, in having only one culture, the subjective nature of epistemology in power relations -- power causing different people of different cultures to think differently about reality because of their culture -- is eliminated because there is only one way of viewing reality. so, even though from a theoretically objective standpoint these people have a subjective view of reality because of their culture, to these people who are unaware of their own cultural bias, their idea of reality, in being the only view of reality, is the correct and objective view of reality to them. as such, while these people do not possess an objective view of reality per se (although they think they do), they do possess and conceive the idea of objectively defining reality. now, one culture hasn't yet conquered all other cultures, so until that happens, can we objectively say that this argument is correct in theory, or does it have to be actualized in reality in order to be fully realized, thus meaning that we cannot currently overcome our inherent cultural bias involved with any form of thinking? this is the part of the argument that someone advocating that everything is culturally-mediated can interject that we can't overcome our cultural bias in conceiving this whole idea and win based on a technicality. however, i would counter with the following simple argument (this part really deserves a separate blog entry by itself for deeper philosophical inquiry): by saying that the argument can only be correct if realized and not just if conceived, then one is assuming the use of "culture-free" reasoning to support the idea that only "cultural" reasoning is correct. in simpler terms, this means that the "everything is culturally-mediated" advocate is attempting to use pure abstraction with language to the fullest degree possible in order to refute my idea that we can use language to think objectively along the lines of pure abstraction and to justify that culture prevents language from being able to be used successfully in such a fashion. so, this person has essentially refuted himself/herself in order to intellectually justify his/her position. now, a seemingly easy way out would be to say that everything is culturally-mediated, which means that my argument is not able to be conceived completely abstractly to begin with, but that there are different shades of communication possible within cultural context. this is a resort to relativism, which would allow him/her to simply argue that some arguments are more intellectual than others, but they are all culturally-mediated (this stands in contrast to the binary from my perspective that you either have a non-culturally-mediated ability to communicate (which doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility for culturally-mediated communication in addition to non-culturally-mediated communication) or that if everything is culturally-mediated, then all shades of communication have degrees of obfuscation to the point that even the shade with the least amount of obfuscation cannot sufficiently conceive of something in abstraction to the degree necessary to satisfactorily communicate the idea). relativism is a fundamental philosophical topic that dates back to debates in antiquity, so obviously there have been a multitude of ideas by a number of philosophers over the years addressing the validity of this topic. from my philosophical background (which i guess you could say is loosely analytic, but definitely not "postmodern"), i have chosen to reject relativism. perhaps i will write a blog entry supporting my position, but for the sake of this blog entry, let's assume relativism is incorrect, and thus the aforementioned relativist rebuttal is also flawed.

so if we accept my idea of conceiving a single culture overtaking all other cultures to form a single, unified culture, we reach another crossroads, this time with irrealism pointing back in the direction of realism: if we have an *objective idea of **defining** reality*, then it should follow that we can have an *objective idea of reality* itself unless something non-cultural prevents this from occurring. the only way this could happen is if realism (for a definition of realism, look it up on wikipedia or see how searle defines it) is espoused and this comes into some beliefs of the culture that are irrealist. but either way the situation is resolved: if realism is espoused, then it can correct the irrational beliefs of culture and allow reason and empiricism to prevail (both being non-cultural), but if realism is not espoused, then irrealism prevails and therefore an objective idea of defining reality and an objective idea of reality are congruent in that culture's belief system and thus even though everything is culturally-mediated, since it is only done by one culture that views its belief system as being objective, then the epistemology of that culture does not believe that everything is culturally-mediated, and in an irrealist paradigm, that is all the counts as to whether everything can be considered to be culturally-mediated or not. otoh, if we take #1 (going back to the beginning of the previous paragraph) so that there is overlap between cultures regarding views of reality, then unless these are coincidences (in which case, true communication cannot take place and thus the seeming overlap among cultures is illusory and not actually there), then there is some agreement over the existence of a commonly-accessible independent reality, just not 100% agreement over what it constitutes. so, if there is an agreement cross-culturally of the idea of the existence of an objective reality, then it follows that the notion that culture assumes that it views reality correctly (epistemology) in order for reality to be correct (metaphysics) is incorrect, thus bringing us back to the following dilemma: either the domain of culture must cover everything in order to account for attempting to explain all of reality (in which case culture is not a confounding lens between reality and our interpretation of it) or in claiming something short of everything (which is an arbitrary distinction, remember), it arbitrarily cuts off our ability to inquire about reality. as such, saying that things are culturally-mediated is either not a worthwhile idea (instead of culture being the predominant currency under which everything else is subsumed, now culture is on an even playing field with language/symbolism, psychology, physics, etc. so that whichever lens you decide to view the world with is arbitrary or interest-based) or if it is worthwhile, then it is at the expense of us being able to attempt to examine all of reality using methods that transcend culture (for example, pure abstraction) for no good reason (since we have established the idea of an objective reality, then it should follow that we have tools for examining that objective reality that are not limited by culture). since the latter does not make sense (it makes sense that if we have established the idea of an objective reality, then we should be able to examine it using methods that transcend culture), we are left with the former, which is that the idea that things are culturally-mediated is not a worthwhile idea insofar as 1) culture is not the prevailing currency through which human thought and interaction occur (language/symbolism and other things are just as important), and 2) we can still have objective knowledge about objective reality in spite of cultural influence as objectivism and culture can co-exist without culture having the final say over matters that objectivism is concerned with, but since culture is just a lens that is now on the same playing field as, say, physics (for example, saying that "everything is physically-mediated") or other subject lenses, since the lens we are using is objective, the cultural lens, although it exists, is not employed. since cultural mediation is no longer an issue and we can have objective knowledge about objective reality, it also follows that we can form objective truth from this, and so on (this is something searle has espoused regarding objectivism and the existence of an "external reality"). furthermore, this helps establish that even isolated people who are presumed not to possess any culture can be thoroughly and successfully examined from the perspective of our culture as our culture does not present a barrier between us and the person of study, but rather, has provided the tools necessary for objective inquiry about this person. so in this sense, i suppose everything is culturally-mediated in a latent manner, but ultimately, the process by which we inquire about things can be objective, and thus has detached itself from its cultural origins much like a certain species becomes distinct from previous species after a certain point even though it can be traced back to them. in detaching itself, the process of inquiry has become objective and universal instead of subjective and relativist.