Cultures Are Not All the Same
Differing cultures and differing morality:
If you are getting to be a bit older – like I am – you might have had experiences similar to mine. When I was a child, my parents were not concerned that I might be out playing all day – who knows where. I had no smartphone to call them about any emergencies. Emergencies were rare back then anyway.
If we took our bicycles somewhere, we did not lock them up. If we went for a walk and returned, we found them where we left them. If we went somewhat far from home, stranger danger was not really an issue. People did not approach us wanting to sell us drugs and the like.
We could leave our homes unlocked at night. We could leave our cars unlocked during the day. We could leave our toys out on the front lawn. We could trust leaving money outside our homes for the milkman or the paper boy. In other words, things were pretty safe and secure.
But not so today. The West has been radically transformed over recent decades, and mass migration has certainly played a role in all this. Consider but a few examples. When my wife and I were missionaries in Amsterdam for several years, we had three bikes stolen – all by drug-dealing African gangs. Amsterdam was not always like that.
Speaking of Holland, just moments ago I came upon a video posted on the social media introduced with these words: “NETHERLANDS: Christians on their way to church were attacked by a coalition of far-left pro-Palestinian activists and Muslim migrants for being considered ‘fascists.’ After coming for the Jews, they ALWAYS come for the Christians.” https://x.com/realMaalouf/status/2081002739010560474/video/1
Simply looking at some of the regular videos being posted every day on places like X is shocking enough. Migrants are running amok in so many European and English cities. We not only have the UK rape gangs, but crimes against Europeans and tourists are spiralling out of control. How many videos do we have of Africans and Middle-Easterners bashing innocent persons who are simply passing by?
And of course here in Melbourne we have the ever-present machete gangs causing chaos and bloodshed on a daily basis. Melbourne is now the crime capital of Australia with carjackings and home-invasions happening every single day. Sudanese youth gangs are often behind this out-of-control crime wave.
And we have seen the mess California is in under the “leadership” of Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass. Crimes, homelessness and drug use are skyrocketing, and the Democrats are happy to flood the state with more and more migrants – often illegals. Shoplifting is out of control now that California law states that stealing merchandise worth $950 or less is just a misdemeanour. So the law is not really enforced any longer, and prosecutors just let these cases go.
Of course this is not to say that the West experienced no crime before this era of mass migration. But the old adage holds true: ‘Import the third world, become the third world’. Back when I was young, crime occurred, but it overwhelmingly was condemned by ordinary people, and it was punished by the law. Not so today. Crime is now routine and accepted as the norm, and far too often the police, courts and judges seem to side with the criminals and not the victims.
I say all this to preface some key thoughts from a book by Vishal Mangalwadi that speak to this. It has to do with morality and different cultures. It comes from his 2011 volume, The Book That Made Your World. I actually have just discussed this book in a recent piece: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/07/09/the-bible-and-restoring-the-west/
And I reviewed it when it first appeared: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/09/28/5981/
On differing cultures
The book just arose in conversation this weekend. I had a couple staying with me and out of the blue the husband mentioned an incisive part of the book. So I thought it was worth writing about – thanks Mark! I found the book on my shelves and handed it to him, and he located the relevant section for me. It comes from Chapter 14, “Morality: Why Are Some Less Corrupt?” Here is the relevant portion:
[T]he traditional morality of the West, easily evident in small towns and villages, is incomprehensible to most non-Western visitors.
For example, in 1982, I was traveling to England for a conference on economic development. Leaving New Delhi after midnight, I was sleepy, but the Sikh gentleman next to me talked nonstop. He was returning to England after visiting his parents in a Punjab village in northwest India. He could not comprehend why I was living in poverty, serving the poor. He took it as his mission to persuade me to settle in England. Doing business in England, he argued, was easy and profitable. After being harassed for more than an hour, I began to lose my patience. But something intrigued me. He could not speak a single sentence without making a mistake. How could someone who spoke such poor English succeed as a businessman in England? So I asked, “Tell me, sir, why is business so easy in England?”
“Because everyone trusts you there,” he answered, without pausing for a moment. Having not yet ventured into a business, I did not grasp how important trust was to success in business. I pushed back my seat and went to sleep. After the conference, Mr. Jan van Barneveld hosted me in his home at Doorn Holland.
One afternoon Jan said to me, “Come let us get some milk.” We walked between gorgeous moss-covered trees to a dairy farm. I had never seen anything like this: a neat and tidy dairy farm with about one hundred cows but no human beings. The cows were milked automatically, and the milk was pumped into a large boiler-like tank.
We entered the milk room, where Jan opened the tap and filled his jug. Then he reached out to a windowsill and pulled down a bowl full of cash. He took out his wallet, drew a twenty-guilder note, and put it into the bowl. He helped himself to the change from the bowl, put it into his wallet, picked up the jug, and started to walk out. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Man,” I said, “if you were an Indian, you would take the milk and the money!” Jan laughed. But in that instant, I understood what that Sikh businessman had been trying to tell me.
If this were India and I walked out with the money and the milk, the dairy owner would need to hire a cashier. Who would pay for the cashier? I, the consumer, would; and the price of milk would go up. But if the consumer were corrupt, why should the dairy owner be honest? He would add water to the milk to make more money. I would then be paying more for adulterated milk. I would complain, “The milk is adulterated; the government must appoint inspectors.”
Who would pay for the inspectors? I, the taxpayer, would. But if the consumer, producer, and the supplier were corrupt, why should the inspectors be honest? They would extract bribes from the supplier. If he did not bribe them, the inspectors would delay the supply and ensure that the milk curdled before it got to me.
Who would pay for the bribe? Again, I, the consumer, would pay the additional cost. By the time I paid for the milk, the cashier, the water, the inspector, and the bribe, I would have little money left to buy chocolate for the milk—so my children would not drink the milk and would be weaker than the Dutch children. Having spent extra money on the milk, I would not be able to take my children out for ice cream. The cashier, water, bribe, and inspector add no value to the milk. The ice-cream industry does. My corruption keeps me from patronizing a value-adding business. That reduces our economy’s capacity to create jobs.
Some years ago I shared this story in a conference in Indonesia. An Egyptian participant laughed the most. As all eyes turned to him, he explained, “We Egyptians are cleverer than these Indians. If no one was watching, we would take the milk, the money, and the cows.” The gentleman was too charitable toward us Indians. (pp. 249-251)
The point Mangalwadi is making should be clear: not all cultures are alike, and that can be seen in terms of basic morality. And things are now really getting worse in the West. As I mentioned, the social media is now awash with one video after another of gangs of young men – usually from Africa or the Middle East – who are assaulting people willy-nilly: https://x.com/Raeubertochtah/status/2080948784050344357/video/1
They might just attack some young white girls in Europe for no reason, as in this clip from Sweden – laughing and filming it as they do it: https://x.com/SaP011/status/2081092923978879453/video/1
Or they will rape and sexually assault young girls. Here is one such tragic case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWNWzseRsEg
Or they might push an old woman down a stairway, or shove an elderly man onto the tracks of an oncoming train. Here is one such video: https://www.facebook.com/NewsXworldofficial/videos/a-disturbing-incident-caught-on-camera-shows-a-man-pushing-a-woman-down-a-stairc/1404626491129905/
And there are so many short video clips of these folks going into stores, filling shopping carts full of goods, and just walking out without paying for anything. Sometimes they do not steal the stuff – they just destroy it, as in this alarming video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXaRrSmDOFU/
These cultures are not alike. We are not the same. Sure, not all migrants behave like this. But as the West gets more and more secular and more and more de-Christianised, and as it imports – legally or otherwise – countless migrants from non-Western nations and Muslim nations, then things change radically.
The West was once overwhelmingly Christian. Even if not every Brit or Frenchman or German or American was a Christian, they lived in overwhelmingly Christian cultures. Thus if crimes were committed back then, most folks knew they were wrong. They expected swift justice and punishment. The majority of people readily condemned anti-social and illegal activity, and most people lived on a basis of trust and respect for one another.
All that has now changed. Now we all have our houses locked – day and night. Now many stores are locking up basic goods such as various foods, and the customer needs items given to them by staff members unlocking the cases. Now we have more and more people choosing to live in walled communities.
Now security systems and security guards are all the rage. I believe that most of the people on my street now have security cameras affixed to their homes. I might be one of the few not to have them yet. And I DO go to bed each night worrying that I might become the next crime statistic.
Even a few years ago I would leave the doors and windows open on a hot summer night to let some cooler air flow through. I have not done that for several years now. Better to be hot and miserable during those nights than to give an open invitation for gangs to come in and make me their next victim.
The times they are a changing. And they are changing for the worse. I encourage you to get and read Mangalwadi’s important book. He compellingly makes the case in some 440 pages that the Bible and Christianity really did change the world, and as we jettison Scripture and the Christian faith, we are clearly returning to an ugly new dark age.
And allowing those from the non-West to flood the West with no questions asked is not helping matters either. That is because various cultures are not equal.
[1947 words]
Bill, Great example showing corruption doesn’t just transfer money from one person to another, it destroys economic value. Even what seems like minor corruption, when repeated across thousands or millions of transactions, snowballs and gathers into a significant drag on a country’s prosperity. And this can be seen spiritually and boy, aren’t were seeing it now!
Yes quite right right Anita.
Very thoughtful article, Bill.
Let me relate my experience overseas. I visited China last year, and twice, one of my family members left his bag in two different restaurants.
Twice, it was returned to us by the staffs even BEFORE we realised we left the bag behind. Twice, staffs went rushing to look for us to return our bag.
Once, I lost my sunglasses in an amusement park. The staffs helped me locate my sunglasses by sweeping through the carriages in the ride and its surroundings. They did that while simultaneously operating the rides for other customers!
And I get a different vibe in my visit to China. I felt safe on the streets, and certainly the vast number of facial recognition surveillance camera is a strong deterrent to crime.
15 years ago, when I visited before, roads in Shanghai were chaotic and people were breaking the rules by smoking everywhere. Today, smoking is eradicated, people obey road rules like people in Australia do, and the roads are orderly.
Fights on the streets no longer happen, people appear to be in much better mood than people in Australia, who appear more likely to be sullen. Customer service at the shops are better in the sense that staffs are more genuinely willing to be helpful. I also saw a foreigner being guided and helped by a young policeman on the street.
But I get the sense that there is some kind of positive change in China in terms of trust levels in society. China used to be a low-trust society for quite a long time. But something positive changed over the past couple of decades, which is quite rapid. Usually, such change in public behaviour requires at least a couple of generations to happen. I can’t help but notice that in China, it happens in terms of half a generation!
Meanwhile in Australia, I worry that the trust levels in society is heading the opposite direction, and the consequences are already being felt.
I have my own theories.
Back then, when Australia was a high-trust society, there is no strong need to have robust enforcement of the laws and regulations. People and corporations simply obey the law. Australia was much easier to govern and society flourished.
But today, as society move towards a lower trust levels (arguably caused by changes in culture caused by mass migration), our governing system did not adapt and adjust to more robust enforcement of laws and regulations. So, people, corporations and even politicians break laws, regulations and norms without consequences, which in turn lower the trust levels, which in turn have a corrosive effect on society by encouraging more law and norms breaking. It certainly did not help that as society abandon belief in God, moral restraints got loosened, which encourages more rebellion and rule breaking.
I worry about the future of our country.
Thanks Terence. Well, with over 700 million surveillance cameras in Communist China, I guess that is one way for people to feel somewhat safe. But of course at what cost? As Benjamin Franklin once put it: “They that can give up on essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Or as Ron Paul more recently said: “Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risk, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place.”
As Charles Colson used to say, we can either be ruled by conscience or by cops. When the former weakens in a citizenry, the latter becomes the main way to maintain social order.
And like you, I very much worry about the future of our country.
It’s a mystery to me why people can believe all cultures are the same, when you could easily refer to several dead civilisations which would be unthinkable for a modern Western person to live in. The child sacrificing of Carthage, the Aztecs, Incas and the Shang Dynasty in China are but a few. For all of the Roman Empire’s achievements, mass crucifixion, torture, suffering as public entertainment and of course slavery itself (with high rates of mortality, dying in Rome at an average under 18, when the free population had an average in the mid-20s) are the dark underbelly of a society that was clearly diminished in its view of basic human rights applied equally to all.
Mangalwadi’s discussion of trust impressed me because it connected a straightforward everyday experience – like doing a friendly deal with a neighbour for milk – similar to many things we take for granted in much of the Western World, to our blessings and yet the secularists somehow want to credit dignity, respect and truth to their own moral frameworks. No, there are vital cultural markers that come directly from the assumption of Imago Dei, and they ultimately serve to make ice cream and other nice things more publicly accessible. No great tech innovations are currently coming from North Korea or Venezuela which has governments ignoring basic decalogue moral principles, and their development was always slower in the old atheist Soviet State. Also compare the Trabant in East Germany to West Germany’s BMW or Mercedes-Benz.
Incidentally, in respect of ice cream, one could cite the famous incident in September 1989 where Boris Yeltsin’s visit to the USA and Houston, Texas was marked by an unscheduled stop at a grocery store with his entourage. Photos capture his amazement at not just the quantity of the stuff available in the freezer, but the wide selection to suit just about any taste. Of course, it wasn’t just ice cream, but all manner of canned goods, cereals, drinks, cheeses, fresh meat and fish etc. – and importantly, the shelves full.
The contrast to what his own country offered – even to their elite – was so stark that after his delight died down at seeing the range, quality and amount on offer, he felt sick.
“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people.”
We have to remember poverty is our default condition and our great material blessings come through God’s moral framework; ultimately we are condemning future generations back to that poverty if we do not acknowledge Him as He deserves within our governance and laws, but individually as well. Not that material blessings are the end game – of course, God’s glory should be the chief goal – but they do tell a tale, as their diminishment or absence tells a cautionary one.
Well said Mark and well thought out. We are NOT all the same, and cultures differ in many ways. And thanks for reminding me of this passage by Vishal in the first place a week or two ago.