Cultural competence and invisible culture - "I don't have a culture"

Here's a reflection I shared with the class during my 2018 studies, about regarding cultural competence and "invisible culture."

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So I've been trying to work on my cultural competence, for instance by reading the chapters on Maori and Pakeha culture in the Pro Practice textbook. Anyway, there's this idea (that I've come across before) that Pakeha, as members of a dominant culture, often say things like "I don't have a culture" or "I'm just a kiwi." This has been referred to as invisible culture

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I'm a bit torn about this idea. On the one hand, it makes sense that members of the majority wouldn't feel defined by their ethnicity or culture, and might assume that aspects of their upbringing were "only natural", or universal to all people - when in fact some of them might vary from culture to culture. But on the other hand, I've often said in the past that I don't "identify" as a Pakeha. I don't think this is just an instance of me deluding myself into thinking that my whakapapa has left zero impact upon my personality - I'm sure it has and think I could do a decent job of identifying at least some of those influences. 

Instead, when I say I don't "identify" as a Pakeha, what I mean is that I am very liberal. To me, "conservative" is a dirty word. I think all traditions, the world over, are imperfect. There's always room for progress - for example with human rights, global disparities, etc. Looking at my ancestors, I see a bunch of poorly educated, thoughtless and selfish brutes - I imagine I'd struggle to tolerate the presence of a European from 1840. There has been monumental moral progress in Western culture (I'm not denying non-Western progress, I'm just not familiar enough to assess it). There's plenty of evidence for this progress - e.g. as collated by Stephen Pinker in Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now.

In this respect, my culture is extremely "Western" - I hold the ideals of the enlightenment (e.g. science,  humanism, secularism) very close to my heart. But this means I value people over "peoples". I don't think cultures should have rights any more than corporations should (people should be positively enabled to practice their culture freely, but this is a right of the person, not of an ideology which should have no rights). I value moral principles over laws, which are merely imperfect expressions of those principles, not authorities in and of themselves (for example I think basic human decency undergirds Maori rights, not te Tiriti o Waitangi; if the Treaty resembled Deuteronomy, for instance, I think we'd all rightly ignore it).

So what is the point of this rant? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't buy into what the literature is telling me. There's a reason I say "I don't identify as Pakeha". It's not because I'm blind. It's because if there's one cultural imperative I do follow, it's to not be satisfied by what has come before, but rather to move forward and improve the human experience. As said by Meera Nanda (1998):

Modern science will remain “morally relevant” to non-Western societies, and also to Western societies, as long as it threatens the traditional legitimation of ideas, as long as it helps people stand back from, critically reflect on, and lose their faith in the ways of their ancestors. This is why modern science is, correctly, perceived as a threat by all defenders of the traditional worldview. And this is why all the “radical” critics of science who purport to show that in principle and practice, modern science is “no different” from traditional legitimation based on authority, faith, and material rewards are wittingly or unwittingly serving the interests of traditional authorities everywhere. (pp. 302-303)

So, I don't know... I guess I'm just a white male rapidly approaching middle age, and therefore likely to be viewed as a conservative, just trying to defend my privilege, despite any protestations to the contrary (FWIW, I voted Greens, for their social policies, right up until the last election where I voted Opportunities Party for its universal living allowance policy). But a lot of what I'm reading honestly seems epistemically and ethically stunted.

I'm going to nip this rant in the bud right here. But I don't know. What do you all think? Especially if you disagree, please comment :D






Nanda, M. (1998). The epistemic charity of the social constructivist critics of science and why the third world should refuse the offer. In N. Koertge (Ed.), A house built on sand: Exposing postmodernist myths about science (pp. 286-312). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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I did get one helpful comment from another student, for what it's worth. The lecturer's comment struck me as very "hand-waivy". I'll leave these out for reasons of privacy.