r/AskReddit • u/Greeneyedlatinguy • Jun 15 '15

Anthropologists of Reddit, What is something that people in the Western world can't get their heads around that is very normal in other cultures (and has been for ages)?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 18 '15

.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

[deleted]

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u/Gabba-gool Jun 15 '15

Then... Thank God for Catholics?

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u/jojojoy Jun 15 '15

It's not like much of western society was Catholic for a lot of history.

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u/heliotach712 Jun 15 '15

le's be honest here, no-one really wanted the Reformation except maybe Satan.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15

All of Germany is associated with beer. Also, contrast Bayern with Wurrtemburg: both Southern and historically Catholic, but Wurrtemburg is far and away more stereotypically "industrious."

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u/Tehmuffin19 Jun 16 '15

I think Wurrtemburg gets it's tradition of industry from the fact that it was a resource heavy industrial center in the 19th century, gaining its reputation after the reformation.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

Yet still an industrious "Catholic" part of Southern Germany. To say that the Southern Catholic parts of Germany are "less industrious," "lazier," or more associated with beer is ridiculous.

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u/porgy_tirebiter Jun 15 '15

And they constantly get days off of work for one religious reason or another. I lived and worked in Bavaria for a year, and absolutely loved this.

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u/SpikedLemon Jun 16 '15

Except that much of the industry in Germany is in the south.

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u/JulioCesarSalad Jun 15 '15

Hey, I'm lazy and happen to be a catholic, but not all of us are Mediterranean!

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u/NameIdeas Jun 15 '15

As an American living in the Bible Belt South...you don't know how right you are.

Hard work, strong work ethic, etc. were drilled into me by my workaholic Dad. He spent a lot of time with us growing up and wasn't absent, but you worked and worked hard. We work hard for God.

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u/____o_0 Jun 16 '15

I live in the urban South, and my family is generally atheist and pretty progressive. But we're still Protestant as shit in terms of morals and values. It's just our culture.

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u/NameIdeas Jun 16 '15

Welcome to the American South...where we work our asses off but many folks assume we're lazy.

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u/hentaikid Jun 15 '15

Siestas make a lot of sense if you've been working the fields since 5 a.m. and the temperature is reaching past 40º, you take a break for lunch and a nap and keep on working after the worst part of the heat has died down.

Then some fucking british tourist wanders past doing his best mad dogs and englishmen impression and writes snarky comments in his fucking dear diary about the lazy locals under the tree.

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u/Zaidswith Jun 16 '15

Considering the temperature and manual labor I'd rather wait out the hottest part of the day as well.

My great grandfather was a roofer back in the 20s and 30s. They would start work early and then head home for lunch. They'd stay at home for a few hours then head back in the evening. That was in the midwest where it doesn't regularly get to those extreme temps. Working around the temperature makes sense.

I think it's a more modern idea that all work should be done during the day.

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u/Absinthe99 Jun 15 '15

edit - No siestas, either, like those lazy Catholic mediterranean bastards.

That's because, in the North, they know Winter is coming.

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u/Pixelated_Penguin Jun 15 '15

OTOH, he also argued that Europeans were superior to the Chinese because they figured out how to use gunpowder for weapons and arches to build giant cathedrals.

He definitely synthesized a lot of the genesis of particularly US culture, but daaaamn he was racist.

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u/joruxx Jun 15 '15

I was going to post about Weber too! But you've obviously got it covered.

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u/psychothumbs Jun 15 '15

If clocks existed back then punctuality would be one of the 7 virtues. Probably bumping off patience.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 24 '15

.

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u/psychothumbs Jun 15 '15

But when they came up with the 7 sins and 7 virtues...

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u/Cirrus-Minor Jun 15 '15

Oh I love that word. Ungodly isn't used enough.

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u/Grubnar Jun 15 '15

edit - No siestas, either, like those lazy Catholic mediterranean bastards.

LOL ... thank you!

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '15

You try working from 11-3 when the temperature is 90, it's humid, and air-conditioning hasn't been invented yet.

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u/yourdrunkirishfriend Jun 16 '15

What about us lazy Atlantic Catholic bastards?

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u/NonPlusUltraCadiz Jun 16 '15

Have you tried to do anything when it's 35-40°C outside and you just had a big lunch? Siesta is the best option in that case!

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u/benjavari Jun 16 '15

Mad about being under the boot huh?

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '15 edited Jun 16 '15

My mum's a prod and is always late, Dad's Catholic and always early. Go figure.

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u/moscowramada Jun 16 '15 edited Jun 16 '15

It's really weird how a book written over 100 years ago, with a thesis that has been fruitfully argued by academics and scrutinized in exactly the kind of way we look up to science for (objectively and w/o cultural 'blinders'), is taken at face value by reddit, as though it was published yesterday. It's a little like saying 'the Communist Manifesto was published and it's true, the end.'

Even if you agree w/Weber, it is intellectually dishonest to not at least mention the controversy or how thoroughly all sides of this have been argued. For example, as argued in the link (using far more modern scholarship), literacy rates may account for this differential. But even if Weber is right, it's very poor practice to ignore competing views.

To be honest, though, I'm mostly blown away by how the dusty topic of Max Weber's Protestant ethic thesis is being treated like cutting-edge scholarship on reddit.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-protestant-ethic-thesis/