Stealing Flowers

So Yong wanted flowers. Usually this is one of her easier requests of her life in the West to fulfill. Certainly much easier than her request for “real” Chinese food, which requires a seventy-mile trip to Chicago’s Chinatown.

Unfortunately, things were not so simple here. The flowers she was coveting resided on public land, part of a display of wildflowers a local park had established. My response to her was the same one I offer to my students who request an extension on an assignment. What if everyone did it? If everyone simply turned in the assignment whenever they wished, it would make no sense to set a due date, no grading deadline would be possible, and class would be pure chaos. And if everyone who ventured by was attracted by the flower display grabbed a handful of flowers, there would soon be no more flowers for park visitors to enjoy.

Rule #1: Your wife is not one of your students.

It turns out, however, that my response to this request was not simply the product of a mind steeped in Kant’s categorical imperative. Rather, according to comparative culture research my desire to invoke the “what if everyone did it” standard is in fact a very typical Westerner response.

Consider the following scenario:

You are riding in a car driven by a close friend when he hits a pedestrian. There are no other witnesses and the pedestrian is bruised but not badly hurt. The speed limit in this part of town is 20 miles an hour, but you happen to notice that your friend was driving 35. His lawyer tells you that if you will testify under oath that your friend was driving 20, he will suffer no serious consequences. Would you testify that your friend was driving at 20?

96% of Americans said they would not, while only 34% of Venezualans said they would not.

According to Fons Trompenaars, Riding the Waves of Culture, America is what is known as a “universalist” culture. According to this worldview, “Certain absolutes apply across the board, regardless of circumstances or the particular situation. Wherever possible, you should try to apply the same rules to everyone in like situations. To be fair is to treat everyone alike and not make exceptions for family, friends, or members of your in-group.”

By contrast Venezuela (and China it turns out as well) is what is known as a “particularlist” culture. How you behave in a given situation depends on the circumstances. You treat family, friends, and your in-group the best you can, and you let the rest of the world take care of itself.

Despite being the product of a universalist culture, I have to say the particularists have a point.  Any westerner can see that there are few if any moral rules that do not admit of exception.  We all recognize that even the seemingly simple “do not lie” ought to be transcended if the Nazis are knocking at your door and asking if you have any Jews in your attic—not to mention the numerous white lies that we all indulge in.  Of course the westerner will respond that any exception we invoke must itself be a universalizable if it is to be moral.  I can justify breaking my promise to pick you up at the airport if a family emergency arises but this itself is a universal rule: only break your promises in case of emergency.  In fact the debate between the universalist and a particularist can probably go on indefinitely.  But it is probably a good idea to try to as much as possible to keep it out of mixed marriages.

Yong is no doubt right that the fate of this particular patch of wildflowers in no way hinges upon whether or not I decide to grab a handful.  But realizing this doesn’t make it any easier for me to act against a moral sentiment that has been drummed into me by the culture for most of my life.

So we’re at a standstill, or so it seems.  And while I could explain all this to her ,I somehow don’t think that’s going  make in any better. At such times I invariably recall the Chinese concept of the middle way, and attempt to find some compromise between extremes, in this case, between universalist and a particularist point of view.

So I bend down, make sure no one is looking, pluck out a single flower, and say let’s go.