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"...the strength of family bonds differs from society to society; it also varies relative to other types of social obligation. In some cases, there appears to be something of an inverse relationship between the bonds of trust and reciprocity inside and outside the family: when one is very strong, the other tends to be weak. In China and Latin America, families are strong and cohesive, but it is hard to trust strangers, and levels of honesty and cooperation in public life are much lower. A consequence is nepotism and pervasive public corruption." (Francis Fukuyama, "Social Capital" in Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress)
I love the word nepotism. I always forget it when I want to use it in sentences. Also, I went to a high school where there were multiple teachers and administrative staff who were married or related. This made it quite difficult to bring grievances about a teacher to the principal - who happened to be her husband.
This is a continuation of what I was trying to look at in the last post. Is there a link between how family-centered a society is and how corrupt they are? As a disclaimer (Ailsa), I don't believe that the two could ever be directly connected. But I'm wondering if the same cultural idea that puts a high priority on family also builds a distrust of those who are not family, which is bad for society in general. For a society to run well, there needs to be a certain level of trust between strangers.
Again, with the balance. We must (obviously) value our families. This is an interesting idea, and I want to see where it goes.
abby loves that word too!!! it was a huge problem with the day camp we worked at so she got to say it frequently.
ReplyDeleteHaha, thanks for the disclaimer.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting he uses China as an example (I'll ignore Latin America this time). Similar to Latin America though, why would any of the billion Chinese people ever trust the Chinese government? How could they possibly have any grasp on what is going on in their government when journalists are executed for printing the truth, and the internet is so heavily censored you can't get results for "Tiananmen Square incident" if you search for it in China.
It seems that people are executed in China for just about anything that seems even vaguely anti-China, so it's no wonder people are distrusting and maybe stay in smaller circle of close friends.
Even if Chinese want a more free, open society (they can't say if they do) - they'll never get one as long as we're basically giving China everything it wants (and all our money) and therefore the power to maintain an oppressive society.
A question popped into my head today: where is this model society that is trusting of strangers and has a corruption-free public sphere? Cause is sounds, well, utopian in the literal sense: imaginary.
ReplyDelete