Morality, Abstract thinking, and Culture

[2046]

A friend linked me an article written by an American philosophy professor in Africa describing his experiences teaching ethics in various places in Africa. I should warn you that the site it is posted on is the one linked to me, which appears to promote racism, white supremacy, and general anti-mind propaganda and falseness, but I would like to hear Objectivists respond to the article itself. It seems to be missing something in its generalization about volition, but the author does sort-or allude to that at the end.

Morality and Abstract Thinking – How Africans may differ from Westerners

http://whitelocust.wordpress.com/morality-and-abstract-thinking-how-africans-may-differ-from-westerners/

I am an American who taught philosophy in several African universities from 1976 to 1988, and have lived since that time in South Africa. When I first came to Africa, I knew virtually nothing about the continent or its people, but I began learning quickly. I noticed, for example, that Africans rarely kept promises and saw no need to apologize when they broke them. It was as if they were unaware they had done anything that called for an apology.

It took many years for me to understand why Africans behaved this way but I think I can now explain this and other behavior that characterizes Africa. I believe that morality requires abstract thinking—as does planning for the future—and that a relative deficiency in abstract thinking may explain many things that are typically African.

Edited August 15, 2010 by 2046

[DavidOdden]

From a scientific point of view, the guy is just ranting: basically just expressing his personal beliefs and plain old making stuff up. It is true that African languages have no indigenous words for "polygon", and the same is true of English. But so what? The concept was invented millenia ago, so we use the Greek word. Americans are not barbarians because the word "civilization" is from Latin.

The problem of Africa is the same as the problem of other parts of the world that only recently became civilized. That is not caused by deficiencies of language or abstract thinking, it is caused by specific facts of philosophy.

[nativeoak]

Yes, the website promotes anti-mind propaganda. The evil of racism is that it attacks a man's ability to think for himself, attempting to group him into an organic whole with others (supported by pseudo-biology until the mid-20th century, and "culture" in modern multiculturalism). In his words, "Man is a mammal and subject to the same biological laws as other animals. All animals, including Man, have inheritable behavioural traits. The concept of complete environmental plasticity of human intelligence is a nonsensical wishful-thinking illusion."