To give a very brief explanation, cultures and societies can be understood through three different lenses: justice/guilt, honour/shame and fear/power. A member of a society strives to avoid guilt or fear or shame and aspires to the opposite value of justice (innocence) or honour or power, depending on their cultural worldview.
Western cultures can be primarily understood through a justice/guilt mindset that applies on quite an individualistic level (though there are elements of both honour/shame and power/fear in Western cultures too) - a sense of right and wrong is deeply ingrained. A person's standing depends on how guilty or innocent they are perceived (or perceive themselves) to be. We can see this clearly in children - from a very young age Western children tend to have a very strong sense of justice ("that's not fair!" or "I didn't do it") and are usually taught to follow the rules, with the warning that if they break the rules there will be a punishment. We see this in presentations of the good news as well - "imagine you are in a courtroom, everything wrong you have done is presented to the judge, but although you are guilty, the judge decides that his own son should take the punishment instead of you!".
A fear/power culture tends to be found more often in animistic contexts (often tribal contexts). Fear of evil or harm (often originating from supernatural spirits) leads people to seek power over the spirits (and so in doing so, often over other people) through magic rituals, incantations, curses etc.
An honour/shame mindset usually goes with a more "collectivistic" culture. A person's standing is based on their level of honour. Actions that do not meet society's expectations bring shame. Shameful acts committed by a person not only bring shame on that individual but also bring shame on their family too. Actions can be taken by that individual or another member of the group (family) unit to restore honour.
To be clear, most cultures and societies combine elements of all three worldviews but will typically have one predominant one. These three worldviews are not 'right' or 'wrong' in and of themselves, they are just different ways of looking at the world. As mentioned, most Western countries are predominantly justice/guilt based. However, Turkey is more honour/shame based. Of course it has justice/guilt and fear/power elements too, but honour/shame is prevalent.
To give an example, I was watching a Turkish drama the other day in which a senior police officer was berating some junior officers for a serious mistake they had made. The strongest way in which the officer could reprimand his subordinates was to call them a Turkish word which translates as 'dishonourable' or 'without honour'. There is no equivalent in English that I can think of that conveys the depth of emotion attached to it - it is not a swear word but it's a very serious term to use. As the watcher, you are meant to feel just how angry that officer was. Calling someone that in the street would be more than likely to start a fight. The honour/shame concept is important in Turkey!
That's a very brief introduction to the three worldviews concept - if you want to know more, I'd recommend googling. There are lots of resources available.
So I was talking with my language helper about honour and shame in Turkey. I love this country but, as with any country where the honour/shame mindset can be found, sometimes (illegal) actions are committed to restore honour that both my language helper and I struggle to make sense of.
I've been pondering this the last few days, trying to de-Westernise my brain a little bit. As a foreigner here, coming with a Western mindset, I cannot fathom the depth to which honour and shame is embedded into a person's psyche and into society here. It would be very easy to pass quick judgments on this culture or make comparisons to a Western culture.
But as I thought more, I realised that before I call out the speck in the eye of Turkish culture, perhaps I'd do better thinking about the log in the eye of British culture. It's easy to be blind to our own cultural failings or compare every culture we experience to the benchmark of the culture we know best. Yet it didn't take long to start making a mental list of the brokenness of British culture. Over 180,000 unborn children aborted in England and Wales in 2016 alone. A culture in which girls and young women are bombarded with the message that their worth is based on their sexuality while the message broadcast to boys and young men is that women are merely objects for sexual gratification, to be used and discarded at will. A culture in which people pursue their own self-fulfilment and happiness regardless of the cost to those around them.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
The good news is that there really is good news! To look at cultural logs and specks is profoundly depressing. But we can lift our eyes up, to someone who was stripped of his clothes and in his nakedness was shamed so that we can have our honour restored. Who came to destroy the work of the devil and conquered every power, with that mighty power now at work in us. And yes, one who took the punishment we deserved upon himself so that we, the guilty ones, might be declared innocent. This truly is good news! And it is relevant and sufficient for every culture.
