Primer on Genes, Language, and Culture

Of Genes and Culture

Genes and Culture

The language, literature, music, and art of each society often reflect the physical characteristics of the people or peoples whose culture and language give rise to them. Who would be surprized to find a portrait of a Norwegian town depicting people with blond hair glistening in the sun or a novel written by a young Swede who describes a pretty maiden whose eyes match the color of the sky. Nor should one be surprised to hear about people with black silken hair, large brown eyes, and warm chestnut colored skin when listening to Latin music coming from Mexico, Venezuela, or Brazil. Because culture often contains imagery depicting the physical characteristics of those whose thoughts and feelings it expresses, one can make the claim that racial make-up determines culture.

It is believed that the physical differences that we find among different populations of the world reflect the geography and climate of the areas inhabited by these populations since ancient times. In warm climates where one's skin is often exposed to the sun genetically produced melanin serves as a useful protective barrier. Those populations who have inhabited colder regions of the world for long periods generally have more body hair than those who have occupied warmer climates for many thousands of years. The short stature of many East Asians is believed to be caused by dietary limitations brought about by scarce land, technological constraints, and large extended families.

Although technological advancement allows us to enjoy similar standards of living in just about any climate, there was a time when technological limitations constrained our mobility and thus confined human populations to particular habitats for long periods. In this sense the racial differences that we know today were determined by our technological development -- an important part of culture.

Much of what was and is today is not the same, and the connection between our genetic make-up and cultural and linguistic differences is becoming increasingly less important. Technology is only a constraint for those populations which have yet to acquire it, but their day is coming. Not so long ago, few people in the West barely knew of places like Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore; today there is hardly a place in the world where these countries' products are not sold and purchased. On the one hand lasting cultural and technological change is far more dynamic than its genetic counerpart; on the other one can find people from all identifiable races living in the same society and sharing the same linguistic and cultural traditions. As the racial compositions of modern societies change, so too will the artistic expressions used to describe these societies. The world is becoming more similar, and many cultural distinctions are disappearing, this does not mean however, that cultural distinctiveness is a thing of the past or that new cultural distinctions are not constantly generated. Within national borders the ways in which people interrelate are becoming increasingly numerous, and cultural expression ever more diverse and complex.

Today, rather than being imposed upon by another culture politically and militarily, we learn about other peoples, cultures, and languages in the market place and mass media, where we voluntarily choose as individuals what we want or do not want to incorporate into our personal life styles and immediate cultural milieu. Surely there are firms and governments who are more aggressive in the sale of their products and the spread of political propaganda. Surely there are others who would prefer to limit our choices. In the end, however, it is the consumers of the recipient countries who make the final decision about what is purchased, believed, and utilized -- no matter the filter that governments sometimes impose.

Among those who seek to shield themselves and others from products and ideas that they consider dangerous the stated and true motivations are often different. Self-interest on the part of the "protector", rather than an attempt to maintain or improve the quality of life of the society or individuals whom the "protector" seeks to "protect", is often the case. In Japan, for example, US manufactured tobacco, cinema violence, and alcohol can be found just about everywhere; these are hardly things that are particularly beneficial to any society. In contrast many other US products such as medical equipment, agricultural products, and electronic equipment are kept out. Of course these protective impasses are not limited to commodities. Important factor inputs such as highly skilled labor are also met with severe social barriers in Japan. Few instructors, for example, can find permanent posts at Japanese school in fields other than their own language and culture, and even fewer are ever permitted to teach in Japanese.

The decision to exclude people of other racial and cultural traditions from one's own society, be it conscious or subconscious, is not genetic; rather, it has to do with individual citizens' attitudes towards those of other nations and cultures. Certainly governments can play an important role in setting the rules and even influencing a nation's people, but in the end it is the individual citizens in corroboration with other citizens who make the ultimate decisions about who is accepted and who is not. In short, one cannot point the finger of blame solely at the Japanese government for Japan's hesateki (characterised by closedness) attitude. Japanese who believe they are more special than people from other cultures are not likely to receive people from other cultures readily, and if readily than only superficially.

Racial Differences and Racial Blindness

Foreigners can be easily overwhelmed by the small number of widespread differences that characterize the racial make-up of the people or peoples of their host nation. Because these few, but widespread differences are often accentuated by a very large number of small cultural and linguistic differences, many of which are unfamiliar, the overall experience can be very intimidating, as well as interesting and fun. Unfortunately, however, the problem of adjustment does not end with the foreigner, one must also consider the adjustment of the host culture to the foreigner, that from a racial standpoint is far more difficult.

Unless the foreigner is always in front of a mirror when he is with members of his host nation, he will rarely see himself in their company. As a result, it is relatively easy for him to place his own image aside and think of himself as though he were racially the same as those whom he sees. Unfortunately, the situation is not so simple when viewed from the other side -- namely, an individual of the foreigner's host nation, who often sees his guest in the context of others who are racially similar to himself, but different from his guest.  For example, someone with a light complexion in a society in which most everyone else is dark-complected is likely to command the visual attention of other group members. Like a man or woman who is particularly good-looking or especially ugly by the standards of the society in which he or she lives, or like a woman or a man in a group of all men or all women,  the racially different foreigner holds a special place in his group by mere virtue of his or her genetic make-up. In effect the additional attention -- either positive or negative -- that racially different individuals receive because of their genetic differences is largely unearned, as genetic endowment is not something acquired either by choice or effort on the part of the endowed. Moreover, whether these genetically determined feature or features are prized or scorned by the group, they are likely to serve as important identifiers of the individual within the group.

As social animals human beings tend to be gregarious. As such, each member of the group will want to view every other member of the group as more or less equal about certain things that are important to the group. In addition, important differences among individuals of the group will be fairly well-defined through formal procedure and/or scrupulous role maintenance. Thus, even a foreigner who knows the language, customs, behavior, and thought patterns of his host culture well, is likely to be treated differently from other members of his group, if the group places important emphasis on the racial make-up of its members. This is not say that such treatment is inevitable, because it depends on the attitudes and judgments of each member of the group.

In any case once the individual becomes wary of this perceptual asymmetry, he can adjust for it by helping other to appreciate those features -- other than race -- that make him different and those qualities that make him the same and thus worthy of his group membership. In addition, there are many ways to change one's overall appearance that help one to blend into one's social environment.

Modern nations tend to be particularly complex, and racial identity is only one feature among many that can easily be overlooked when the foreign individual brings with him other qualities of a special sort. This is especially true when there are many racially different individuals already living in the society.

When the foreigner first enters his host culture he is unable to distinguish easily among the many less blatant differences that make each individual of his host culture different from every other. In effect, the foreigner is blinded by the few, but widespread racial features that characterize his new racial environment. In time, as the visitor becomes accustomed to these differences and adopts them as part of his own perceptual understanding, the fear or attraction that they once offered disappears and they become a part of his natural social and physical surroundings. It is at this point that he is able to distinguish easily among different individuals of his host culture, in the same way that he is able to distinguish among the individuals of his native culture. Unfortunately, unless members of his host culture have shared a similar experience, it is unlikely that they will be able to adapt nearly as well.

In a society such as Japan's where there are so few foreigners, distinguishing among them is unlikely to pose an important problem for most Japanese; the foreigner simply becomes the foreigner of his neighborhood and is easily distinguished from other neighbors. However, in areas where the ratio of foreigners to Japanese is higher, the inability to distinguish among foreigners is likely to increase. Since Japanese tend to avoid strangers in general and are often reluctant to speak to foreigners unless both have could command of the English language, many Japanese are likely to spend their entire lifetime confronted with the same problem that individual foreigners face when they first come to Japan.

Most foreigners who come to Japan do not stay for prolonged periods, and are generally speaking just as racially blind to their hosts as their hosts are blind to them. Just as it takes time for the eyes to adjust to light after having been shut for a long period, so too does it take time to overcome racial blindness. Of course, there are those Japanese who prefer to remain blind, and many more who simply have little opportunity to overcome their perceptual handicap. There are also those who go out of their way to overcome the racial barrier, but these are far fewer, and are often so apologetic for the behavior of their fellow citizens, that one is sometimes left with the impression that they are public relation officers for the Japanese government.

Because a few commonly shared racial differences are so widespread and so concentrated within the same culture, one is easily led to believe that each culture is genetically very different from every other. This is unlikely the case, however.

Just how many different genes go into the composition of the human body is difficult to know, but the number that we share in common as members of the same species must be many orders larger than those that distinguish us from one another in terms of racial variety. The human body is simply to complex and too uniform across human populations to believe otherwise. This despite the enormous amount of genetic variation among individuals of all racial groups. Moreover, the number of genes that separate us into different racial groups must be only a tiny fraction of the total number that give rise to individual differences no matter the human population. Similarly, it is unlikely that the features separating human populations from one another are nearly as important as we sometimes believe them to be. In fact there is hardly a distinguishing feature of any racial group that cannot be found at least in part in other groups. I for one have found very few racial features in Japanese society, that I have not been able to find elsewhere, and there are many who are better traveled than I. In the end what makes one group racially different from another is the relative proportion and conentration with which certain physical features, shared by at least some human beings the world over, appear in each population -- not their presence or absence.

In conclusion, it is much easier for an individual to perceive himself the same as everyone else, than it is the for the group to perceive the individual as a member of itself, but overcoming these differences is not impossible, if both sides are willing.

Racial Pedigrees: on Kings and Queens and Royal Families

Although some people imagine racial differences in populations to be very much like those found among pedigree dogs and horses, the analogy is likely very poor. Whereas dogs, horses, cats, and other animals are carefully selected and interbred so as to capture particular physical traits, the motivation for marriage in human populations has traditionally been very different. Among older societies marital partners were often chosen to establish friendly relations among different lineages of the same tribe, insure peaceful coexistence between neighboring tribes, and provide a smooth passage of family estates across generations. Even among royal families that can trace their family lineages over many centuries, one can find rare instances of marriage with an individual from a family not of royal birth. Indeed, social rank was a far more important determinant of who married whom than particular genetic features. In most cases genes and family connections went together, simply because genes and family were inseparable.

Some cultures went so far as to develop a systems of castes in which marriage outside of one's own ethnic and racial group was forbidden. Although the original motivation for this separation may have been familial in nature, as time passed castes became a way to solidify an already existing social organization based upon an entirely different set social parameters including religion, language, economics, and politics. In short, most racial distinctions are the result of socially motivated causes having little to do with the genes that provide the physical features for demarcation.

The Japanese primogeniture system that once compelled many Japanese parents to adopt sons from other families, so as to insure the presence of a son to carry forward the family estate, suggests that Japan has always been, genetically speaking, a relatively fluid society. Indeed, one out of every seven marriages in Tôkyô today is with someone who is not of Japanese origin. Moreover, the large physical diversity that one finds among individual Japanese today suggests that Japanese have a very diverse racial background. When the land bridge between North America and the Asian mainland still existed and Asian populations migrated to the Western hemisphere, many groups from diverse populations are likely to have found their way onto the Japanese archipelago.

When one compares the physical stature of North Europeans with that of East Asians, one may be led to believe that they are genetically very different. When the heads of state of the G7 stand together for photographs at regularly scheduled summit meetings the Japanese and Italian prime ministers are with few exceptions always the shortest. Are these difference truly genetic? Or are they determined by dietary habits, economic, and environmental conditions related to their respective cultures? Surely, one can find short and tall people in all societies; moreover, recent evidence shows that postwar Japanese have grown in stature over prewar generations. Was this genetically determined? It is unlikely.

With so much unknown about the relationship between genes and human society in general, it is difficult to understand why societies would want to protect their gene pool in the same way that they seek to preserve the integrity of their languages, religious rites, legal codes, cultural traditions, and political and economic systems. Many people born and raised in cultures of mixed races, place very little importance on genetic differences extending beyond those of their immediate families; in such societies geography, language, education, and social status play far more important roles in determining one's social success or failure. Nevertheless, unlike other social identifiers racial differences are determined by blood, and families are important vehicles of cultural information across generations.