I Don't Believe in Culture, I Believe in Right and Wrong

When I taught English in Taiwan (in about 1999), I met some jerky guy from Oklahoma state one day while eating at KFC. This dude eventually got himself a job as an English language editor at a major Taiwan newspaper in Taipei. At first, I was impressed.

Until... that is, he told me how he'd gotten the job in the first place. He said he had simply "followed the culture" and FALSIFIED HIS RESUME!!! It's a long story, but suffice it to say that he soon got himself into a whole lot of hot water in his new job, because he actually had no experience whatsoever in any kind of journalism or graphic design, and he obviously did not deserve to land that position.

Nor was he able to handle it once he got the job. But given that so many Chinese (Taiwanese) had told him that that's how "everybody" gets a job, I guess we could say that he was gullible (or just plain dumb?) enough to buy into all that BS.

So I say, to hell with "culture." Because CULTure cannot supersede morality. Because right is right and wrong is wrong. And "race" or "culture" should never automatically give anybody a pass. Not anybody.