Page 55 - Culture Technology Communication

40 Charles Ess

as contrasting them with other ethical approaches, likewise accounted for
from a multicultural perspective (1999, esp. 36–41). For a more extensive in-
troduction to ethics from cross-cultural perspectives, see Gupta and Mo-
hanty (2000), Part 3, and Hooke (1999). May, Collins-Chobanian, and Wong
(1998) is a useful anthology of ethical resources from diverse cultural
sources, as applied to specific ethical issues.
31. The point that “culture” does not refer to a fixed, monolithic en-
tity is made humorously by Ralph Linton (1937), as he describes a “One
Hundred Percent American” whose daily life in fact involves a rich collage of
cultural inventions and developments, e.g., from East India (pajamas), Asia
Minor (bed, wool, milk), India (cotton, steel, umbrella), China (silk, porce-
lain, printing, paper), ancient Egypt (glass, shaving), the Near East (glazed
tile, chair), Turkey (towel, coffee) ancient Rome (bathtub, toilet), the ancient
Gauls (soap), etc. Linton notes that the “authentically American costume of
gee string and moccasins,” while more comfortable, is not likely to be a
choice of attire. And, “As he scans the latest editorial pointing out the dire
results to our institutions of accepting foreign ideas, he will not fail to thank
a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred per-
cent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Americus
Vespucci, Italian geographer).”
Similarly, Joseph Needham’s monumental investigation into the de-
velopment of Chinese science and technology demonstrates that what West-
erners think of as a distinctively Western natural science is in fact rooted in
significant ways in China (1954–). Finally, in their anthology of primary
sources, Tweed and Prothero (1999) provide a detailed history of the cultural
interactions between Asian religious traditions and American culture from
1784 to contemporary interreligious dialogue and legal disputes. Along
these lines, see also Eck (1997).
32. One of the central themes of subsequent CATaC conferences will
be just that of developing meta-theoretical overviews and syntheses which
further the sorts of interdisciplinary projects and dialogues represented
here. Perhaps a sort of “super-science” (“Super-Wissenschaft”), for example,
as envisioned by Wunberg (1999), will emerge. At CATaC ‘98 our first con-
versations about such meta-theories recognized a range of possibilities—
from a (modernist) model of a single meta-theory which organized diverse
disciplines from a single center to a (postmodernist) model of theoretical
fragments held together only loosely in constantly changing, decentered,
and ad hoc fashion.
Indeed, as Halloran (1986, 55), reminds us, the natural sciences do
not (as yet) enjoy such theoretical unity: it is perhaps unrealistic to hope
for—much less, hold dogmatically to—a single theory. In a middle ground
of theoretical pluralism, multiple models and theories may be taken up—
including a model suggested by biological colonies (say, those of corals)
which consist of stable structures open to new growth and development (cf.
Porra 1999).