Culture and ethics are among the words which are often misused. Among the social sciences words which define themselves in ambiguity, culture would be among the top ones. For many, anything which one does not fully understand, it becomes a ‘cultural’ issue.
‘Culture’ is seen sometimes as the grey area between truth and falsehood. Truth is the truth because it can be annotated, it has evidence, it has its footnotes, and it is self-evident.
The opposite of it is falsehood. But between truth and falsehood is a huge grey area where interpretations come in, where postures come in, where styles come in and above all, given the human nature, ‘convenience’ comes in. Nobody wants to be on the losing side.
So, one has phrases like “No, what I really meant was”, or “I’m being quoted out of context”, or “That is not my intention, let me restate it” and then one goes ahead to say exactly the opposite of what one said the first instance. So, culture is a defining perspective of one’s...
