Like the common bell curve, all cultures have both their extremes and their "normal" in the panoply of human abilities. IMHO, there is no reason to assume the humans of one culture are superior to another. Exchanging babies at birth produces no significant results. It's a matter of cultures. Cultures evolve mostly as a matter of survival and growth just like toe fungus. Life in all it's glory. LOL
Among the world's cultures, I'm most familiar with my own and Asian in general, with Japan being my strongest area. Specifically Eastern philosophy although I claim no expertise. Despite growing up in a world dominated by death by Soviet nukes and adult military training, my strongest areas of knowledge about the Russians are their weaponry and understanding they are very good at Chess...along with cheating in the Olympics.
Some people used to talk about "
the inscrutable Orientals". The more I studied Asian culture the more scrutable they became.
Although I've read a lot of sources, mostly military and mostly including Marines, my favorite source of understanding Eastern philosophy came from a Brit Episcopal priest,
Alan Watts. He expanded Zen across America.
Going back to Russia, I know little about Russian culture. It's not Western European/Hispanic. It is clearly as foreign to the West as Asia or multiple regions in Africa.
What the US needs is a Russian version of Alan Watts helping Americans understand another culture. Probably vice versa too but, frankly, I'm more worried about my own country than the fucking Russians.
When I was working on an International Relations degree, a particular professor's comments stuck with me. One of them was his first words in a Political Geography class:
"If you want to understand a culture, you must study both it's history and it's geography". Then he spent the rest of the quarter proving why. LOL
Good class.
