America: Media, Violence and Milgram

Ok so I was just typing away in my office and I heard a very loud conversation about the middle east going on outside. A guy was explaining to a woman that the middle east is not as homogenous (ethnically) as people make it out to be, and that there has recently been an increase in men "importing" women to marry because they have "run out" of women in their own countries. This is true and a complicated issue, but the woman's response was gross and I think it was ignorant and derogatory.

woman:"well isn't this just about dowries? I mean, dont all those arabs pay dowries for their women?"

guy: "well dowries generally make having a wife more expensive, but its something that is becoming less common in urban areas, so its not really relevant"

Woman: "No, but arent't the men marrying women outside their own countries because the women in poor countries are cheaper? Why don't the arabs just abolish the dowry system, anyway? Those people should just abolish it, its just silly"

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Ok so. This is not one of the most ignorant things I have heard, but it annoyed me anyways, and I would like to hear what you all have to say about it. It upset me for two reasons:

1) I don't like that there is a mentality in america that disrespects the cultural practices of other countries/societies by considering those practices to be dispensable and therefore seeing it okay to obliterate culture through regulation (as though dowries = a legal offense such as stealing). I also think that such an idea is neo-colonial in a way. By its nature, the notion of regulating, or "abolishing" certain cultural practices suggests that those practices are seen as being trivial, thus divorcing those practices from their cultural history (say like 1000 years worth of dowry-giving), or even worse, assuming that the cultural history itself is trivial.

The reason I attribute this to America is because I find that the "mixing pot" mentality that is required in order to become a legitimate member of American society requires the disposal of non-american cultural practices, or the relegation of such cultural practices to the shadows of American society. I'm sure the reasons for this is are complicated, but it annoys me anyhow and I think it leads to this weird dualistic view of america where in reality it is full of people form a gazillion countries and cultures but at the same time it is viewed by many as being a very culturally ignorant and even xenophobic society despite the plurality of its members.

2) I think the conversation is indicative of the effect that the "anti-terror" campaign, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Palestine-Israeli conflict and overall media coverage of the middle east "crisis" is having on the American public as a whole. This has led to the U.S. population being conditioned to have a disparaging and derogatory view of people from the middle east because they are depicted on a regular basis as being violent, abusive, quarrelous and threatening. Because of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, people from these regions are also commonly depicted as victims and targets of violence, leading to a view of them as being helpless and inferior. I'm sure you guys have heard about the Milgram Experiment (the one where people shock other people), whose architect Stanley Milgram states: "the systematic devaluation of the victim provides a measure of psychological justification for brutal treatment of the victim and has been the constant accompaniment of massacres, pogroms and wars". Althought Milgram is referring to a more extreme example (Rwanda), his studies centre around the idea that the voice of an authority (i.e. media or government, in this case) that devalues a precific group of people on a regular basis will eventually lead to a view among thos who listen to that authority that those peoples lives - or culture, in this case - is also unimporant and expendable.

I think this is entirely true and it saddens me that the US's close relationship to military violence and a mentality of force vs. fear/terror in media and government has encouraged a generalistic and prejudiced view of specific people around the world as victims and enemies because they are considered acceptable targets of violence. My focus here isn't on bitching about americans, but its a genuine concern of mine that media and government policies genuinely affect the way that the populace thinks. (This post more about American society - not about individuals necessarily. I know its bad to generalize and I'm trying to refer to a phenomenon rather than coming across as suggesting that "all Americans do x, y, or z") And this happens all over the world, not just in the U.S.. That being said, there are sociology studies that show that obedience to authority in the U.S. is very high (like the ones done by Michael Adams, University of Toronto sociology professor and author of "Fire and Ice") which affects the influence of that authority on social mentalities and leads to the "Milgram effect". The only exception to this might be the US public's view of Israelis, as they are commonly depicted in the media as 'good guys'.

On a related note, an article from Common Dreams today describes a study by BBC and PIPA that surveyed random groups of people -28,000 ottal- in 27 countries on their view of 12 subject countries. Overwhelmingly, the most disliked countries were the U.S., Iran, and Israel, BUT, relating to my point above, the country polled that had the most positive view of Israel, second to Nigeria, was the USA.

The study links negative views to "countries whose profile is marked by the use or pursuit of military power" - though it doesn't talk about how the populations within those countries (the ones who use military power in such a strong way) view the countries against whom that power is directed, which would relate to the Milgram issue.

The reason all this bothers me is because national politics and the media that broadcasts those politics necessarily affect anthropological views - i.e. the views of people to people, leading to generalizations and bigotry in the way that the individuals in one population treat and view the individuals of another population. It's a trickle-down effect that is unsettling, to say the least and I don't like how it's closely tied to military action. Did I mention that the G8 nation with the smallest per-capita military, Canada, garnered one of the most favourable views (along with Japan) in the BBC/PIPA survey?

To read more on the Common Dreams article, go to: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0307-04.htm

To read more on the Milgram Experiment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment (there's acutally a lot more about the implications of Milgrams experiment in wartime and for social prejudice. )