Essay: Culture of Justifying

Tomoya Hagiwara
Sylvan Payne
ARW Section AC
12 November, 2007

Culture of Justifying

A term of culture is used in many senses in many places. It can be used in a situation that people would like to explain to their friends who are not from their country that what they do is common behavior in their country, which was not common behavior in their friends’ country. Also, it can be substituted for or equal to moral. When people do things in a way, which is neither legal nor illegal, but is not good, they justify their behavior because they know they have to be moral persons. Justification of moral wrongs is universal, but differs from culture to culture.
It is important to first define culture. Kroeber et al. stated that Tylor first defined the word “culture” as a modern meaning in 1871. Tylor said in his book Primitive Culture that “Culture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
It is a common misconception that culture can be substituted for or equaled to custom. However, especially in sociology, culture is used in many more places. One example is in morals. Morals are standards of behavior (Oxford Dictionary of English). As stated above, people’s behavior is sometimes in a morally gray area although they know they have to be moral persons. They justify their behavior in order to bridge the gap between their own moral standard and their sub-moral behavior.
One example of justifying behavior is seen in a problem of illegal downloads. It is the problem that music titles, movie titles, comics, and so on (we call them illegal files) are downloaded illegally for free through web sites or P2P (peer to peer) software application such as Winny, WinMX or Share. It is not clear why people use them and download illegal files. Everybody, including those people above who download illegal files, knows that it is illegal to download such files for free and that they have to obey the law.
However, we sometimes stretch the law in our favor selfishly to justify our behavior. Actually, some web pages say that uploading illegal files is illegal but only downloading them is not illegal in Japan. Using this interpretation, we can download them legally although downloading illegal files is not good from a moral point of view. That is how downloaders justify their action. Actually, in some countries such as Holland, it is legal to share and download music files for private use, (p2pnet.net). Hence, they justify their action, using it as a reason that downloading music files is legal in some other countries.
We can also justify using our own interpretation or experience. In the problem, we can use this that regular price is very expensive. Although we want to buy regular product, we do not want to pay lots of money. For example, if we buy an album CD in Japan, we pay about 3,600 yen. In contrast, if in America, we pay about 1,500 yen. Obviously, this is a very big difference. Illegal downloaders use this excuse to justify their action, claiming that the high price is somehow unfair.
This problem that illegal files are downloaded for free through web sites or P2P software applications is a very serious problem not only in Japan but also other countries. In Europe, stated by Jupiter Research, 43% of European between 15 and 24 years old who use the Internet to consume music would rather copy illegal files than buy CDs. In addition, 46% consider that the CD is becoming continuously more irrelevant. This indicates that they do not need any CDs, so that they download music files individually.
Another example of a country in which file sharing is controversial is Canada. In Canada, according to Pollara, people between 12 and 24 years old amount to 78% of illegal music downloading in the country, even though they are only 21% of the population (Canadian Press). The research shows that most of the young people above strongly agree that “artists are too rich already so downloading won't hurt them.” In addition to this, the fundamental cause of “if it's there, it's free” thinking is also their justification.
In conclusion, iustification of moral wrongs is seen in a number of countries, but differs from culture to culture. People always justify their behavior so as to bridge the gap between their own moral standard and their sub-moral behavior.



Work Cited
A. L, Kroeber, and Clyde Kluckhohn. Culture. New York: A Division of Random House, 1963.
“European music industry faces a demographic time bomb warns Jupiterreserch” Jupitermedia 28 Oct. 2007.
Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford UP, 2003.
Pedwell, Terry. “What's with them young whippersnappers?” Canadian Press 29 Sep. 29. 2005. 28 Oct. 2007.
Tylor, Edward B. The Origins of Culture. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958.
“Weedshare and DRM” p2pnet.net 10 Nov. 2007 .