Humans tend to defend their own culture no matter how odd it appears to be. The reason is quite simple. Individual identity stems from groups. Humans are social and selfish animals so by defending the group, they try to dignify themselves. We are nothing more than the reflection of those around us.
When we compare our western groups as more "advanced" and "civilised" we tend to downplay our culture's negative mechanisms. This relates largely to the way our economic endeavours have been shaped over the last millennia or so.
There is a reason stereotypes hold strong in cultures. Russians, for example, are known to be blunt. Although not all Russians adhere to brute honesty, this underlying cultural tone holds strong. The political and economic events of the last century in Soviet Russia where resources and money had little power, tunnelled extreme value towards trust. Two generations later and we can still witness the trend. In contrast, in our capitalistic culture, abundance and variation created a society that does not adhere so much to values of trust and strong personal relationships. We rather care more about keeping appearances. You see, If one holds enough monetary value, they can transform and shape the relationships around them on a much faster and frequent pace. We treat humans like we treat our material possessions. If it's broken, we change it and don't bother fixing it.
No wonder we consider deception a perfectly normal and acceptable act. We are taught in schools how to deceive people in order to sell them products. We study extensively what mind tricks work on the human mind in order to get people to adhere to our principles and we are perfectly fine with it.
Heck, our choices in politics might in incite war mongering with thousands of people ending up dead but we don't have any guilt since we didn't actually take the gun and shoot somebody. We might choose to shop at a supermarket, rendering the local shop obsolete — and the owner and his family starving but we came to believe that this is completely normal. When we are told though that other societies do cause direct harm to their members by not following the "common good" (such as chopping one's hands if they steal) we consider them to be barbaric. We have even come to believe that prison and isolation are much better than death but those who have been in prison for some time wouldn't necessarily agree.
This is also evident from another gruesome part of our culture. Our family values are more superficial than our counterparts. We are first in divorces and abandonment of children. When it comes to our parents, we tend to throw them in elder care centres. For many cultures this is unacceptable. For us, well, it is Tuesday.
Now, consider the Mulsim culture's workings. Immediately what comes to mind is the westrn advertisement in regards to their 'inhumane' treatment of women and how violent they generally are with their religion. Are they THAT different from us though? Most people tend to forget that when it comes to male/female dynamics (and this applies to every species) the one shapes the other. Sure there are some extreme forms of punishment in Muslim cultures but there is also an extreme level of comfort that women enjoy. This is almost never advertised. Most of them are treated like queens. They don't have to work and can socialise freely in their homes. They also get to enjoy their sexuality and basic primal needs (like having a family) without worrying about carreer and society's judgement about their appearance. What do we see through our sensational news media? But of course the most extreme of violent cases.
When it comes to their religion, they retaliate a lot towards our militaristic advancements. We came to believe that our drones, bombs and pursue of oil is something 'natural' whereas their gorilla warfare and extreme ways are unacceptable. We started the war. Not them. We run our lives on the black fuel that they pump out. We even tried to excuse the whole situation with 'we bring you liberation and democracy' as if democratic mechanisms do not take place everywhere in nature all the time. Hech, our democratic processes have guided our culture into dominating by force the rest of the fucking planet.
We might even take pride in ourselves to be more humanistic, more liberated if you like from the primitive shackles of religion. Instead though, we replaced our existential dread with psychology. Therapists became the new priests. Medidation became medication. We abuse substances that alter reality more than any other culture in the world, yet out counterparts take pride in getting a high just from observing a mass or meditating. We are not all that different. We just tunnelled the same worries, the same needs into another form of illusion.
Next time you try to play smartass on your profile posting religious memes or parading how western culture is superior because X, consider your own rituals. Consider how the norm of socialising has become the act of consuming one of the most lethal substances known to man, alcohol. Consider how much care you put into looking good and adhering to a role that your culture has enslaved you. Perhaps is the dress, the glasses, the new car or the make-up. How about the need to appear smart and intellectual by parroting textbook themes from an overpriced institution that your daddy has financed so you could get a job? How about the inability to construct your own thought process after all those years in that private institution? How is that any different from a religious temple? How many of those 'holy textbooks' have you challenged and how many you just took by heart as the pinnacle of the (current) human knowledge? Even our professors have become like the pope. Teneurship has ensured that privilage. There is no dethroning for our holy masters.
The first step to today's enlightenment is accepting that we are all more or less the same pieces of shit, touring this planet in fantasies that others have introduced for us. Sure, we are 'smart' enough to not buy into the traditional memes of religion and politics that others live by day in and day out but we are the same old fools about 'love','career','success' and more recently, the electronic gadgets we are constantly glued on. Worshipping your favourite actor from a specific tv series narrative is no different than worshipping Jesus 500 years ago. The only difference is the change of the hero. Some people want to live their lives following the example of some guy called Jesus that they read in a book. Others live by the word of actors, adopting their disorders, their 'unique' badass character and try to emulate that story into their own daily narrative.
We chase the red laser dot. Like a foolish cat we believe that "this the only real deal yo". When another fellow from another culture chases a blue dot, we scorn them and at best lose our shit.
Humans have no culture. They defend what they're indoctrinated to believe.
That's pretty nihilistic. Culture is a thing that exists as an expression of a geographical location and its inhabitants.
Beliefs come naturally from that expression.
In a way what we are indoctrinated to believe is what constitutes culture
As always you put a spotlight on some uncomfortable truths.
We all owe to accept them
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
"Culture is not truth. Culture is other people's trash." ~Terence McKenna
Have you ever read "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema", by Horace Miner? I think you may enjoy it.
http://www.ohio.edu/people/thompsoc/Body.html
Thanks for asking us to question ourselves. However, you appear to have conflated human nature and personality traits or ethical shortcomings with culture. Let's be real. Which cultures encourage this kind of questioning in the first place? It is certainly not Islam. Western culture, relying on some breakthroughs made in the East, such as algebra, developed by Arabs, developed the enlightenment and the scientific method. We also owe a great debt to Buddhist philosophy which teaches a theory of consciousness - the observance of the self. But walk into any mosque in Saudi Arabia and demand that the Koran be forensically or logically analysed and I doubt you would leave alive. St. Paul, ironically, sowed the seed of separation between church and state by insisting that we 'give unto Caesar what is Caesar's'. It took about 17 Centuries for the Renaissance to come along and sweep away the horrific superstitions that plagued Europe for millennia. The Koran, and the Bible, for that matter, are full of passages insisting that unbelievers be 'put to the sword'. There is no room for doubt. If you walked into a Christian church in the US, and insisted that the text be forensically and logically analysed, and that you had done so and found gaping holes in it, you would leave alive, but perhaps under arrest for disturbing the peace. But back to my point about conflating human nature and culture. I believe even Buddhist monks can feel envy or hatred and act on that. Humans are ultimately animals, condemned to live with a thin overlay of cortex over a reptilian brain. Don't condemn the West because not everyone has adopted the scientific method and rigorous analysis as part of their daily practice. But Western culture at least gives us that option.