In Reply to: Biased or unbiased? (long) posted by Skep on March 30, 2006 at 07:43:30:
In trying to figure out whether there are organized groups of pacifist Muslims in the world who practice nonviolent resistence to injustice, I realized that searching for websites wasn't getting me very far. I thought, well, I just don't have the right search terms. If I knew Arabic or the English language words that Muslims use to talk about these things...
But I simply don't know the words or the conceptual categories that apply to the practice of pacifism and nonviolence in Muslim cultures! How can I assume the people I'm looking for don't exist when I don't even know how they talk their talk? If they're in a western country, they know how to talk my talk.
I finally found the site I was looking for: http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/08-2003/Article-20030823-2ff91a64-c0a8-01ed-003d-9de3cb2d9c42/story.html
It has occurred to me more than once that I tend to judge other groups by my own categories of meaning.
In some cultures, people have only one word for colors that range from green to blue. Talking to such people about the difference between blue and green can be very frustrating. It's not that they don't see differing hues, only that they place no value on making the distinction and can't understand why someone would go to such great lengths to name all the differing hues.
I think it's possible to understand the cultural perspectives of other groups up to a point, and you're correct to point out that true understanding comes from actually being a part of the group and constructing your social reality in their terms. To do that, you have to know how to speak their language.