The way Anne Fadiman develops the ethics and values of the Hmong in “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” is enlightening and convicting. In chapter sixteen “Why Did They Pick Merced?,” Fadiman has a mental breakthrough concerning the ethical vs. unethical nature and actions of the Hmong community. One night, while debating whether or not the Hmong were ethical or unethical, Fadiman realized that they are neither ethical nor unethical, rather that they are ethically different. The reason their ways conflict with ours is not because they are opposite, or lesser, it is simply because they are different. Once the situation is viewed in this way we begin to plainly question what the ethics of the Hmong are, rather than how the ethics of the Hmong are good or bad by our standards. We become deductive learners, more open to understanding and communication than to judgement. This makes the most sense. Deciding, for instance, that a Hmong’s ways are unethical does nothing. You telling him or her that they are unethical does nothing either because they won’t understand you. Your accusation is on your terms. On the other hand, if we are to learn how the Hmong are ethically different, we can more easily accept them and compromise with them, possibly learning something ourselves.
Last fall, the senior pastor at Buckhead Church, Andy Stanley, made a similar point about Christianity in his series “Judgement Call.” Stanley revises the question Christians often ask when judging other people: are they being moral or immoral. Rather than figuring this out though, and condemning others for their immorality, Christians should be first asking what the person’s morals are. When a person has a different set of moral values, they can not be held to the judger’s same distinctions of moral and immoral. Thus, a Christian should not judge a non-Christian, but should love them and seek to better understand their differences rather than labeling them according to terms that they have not agreed to.
It is interesting how Fadiman takes something as “unethical” as cheating on a driver’s license exam, and shows it as evidence that the Hmong highly value family. By understanding that the reason they are cheating is not because they desire to be rebellious and unethical, but rather that they desire to see their relatives, we can further respect the Hmong’s intentions.
1 comment:
I was very interested in your post because this is one of the aspects of the book that struck me the most. It is an incredibly difficult to recognize that someone has inherently different ethical views. It is one of the most common assumptions that people make and this is because ethical differences are not immediately apparent. Other differences such as race, gender, religion, and sexuality are immediately noticeable and as we have seen come with their own sets of stereotypes and automatic assumptions. However, since the majority of people view the world from only their perspective they never consider that people could have different ethics. This is fascinating because of course ethics change according to religion, education, and family upbringing. I think this is a very important lesson to take with us, that we can't judge people's actions based on our own set of beliefs because our beliefs are not universal.
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