Cultural Sensitivity Essay, Research Paper

Resolved-When they conflict, respect for cultural sensitivity ought to be valued above commercial use of free speech.

Observation 1: The wording of the resolution implies a multi-cultural society.

Observation 2: The resolution implies a capitalist society because there would be no use for commercial free speech otherwise.

My first contention is that cultural sensitivity can be a means for one culture to imply there view of morality on another. This is not extreme for this resolution for this reason; almost all communicational mediums are driven by profit. Movies, popular fictional books, newspapers are all commercial means of free speech. This resolution is not merely limited to commercials. If the resolution is allowed to be implemented it will lead to the restriction of a populations means of economic well being by a fraction of that population under the guise of being culturally sensitive.

My second contention is that the affirmative allows for censorship of business at the most and makes business inefficient at least. The affirmative would make business inefficient because businesses would have to spend extra dollars to make sure any add campaign is not offensive to anyone. A recent example involves a major shoe company. They added a fire logo on the back of their shoes for mere appearance. Shortly after release of the shoe complaints poured in from Muslims who said the symbol resembled and could be misconstrued as the Islamic word for God,which to them is sacred. Since cultural sensitivity was unfortunately recognized in this instance the shoe company lost many dollars because a mere logo could possibly be misconstrued as something it was not. The affirmative would censor all add campaigns as well as movies, tv, and books. Movies and tv especially are focused on making money by entertaining people. They are selling entertainment exactly as a commercial sells a product. So the affirmative denies free speech at all because telling one culture they are wrong in culturally insensitive. This taken to extremes could undermine morality totally. If two cultures are diametrically opposed on a moral issue, and the affirmative is upheld, then the must each be respected in movies as well a tv, books etc…. Then the moral decisions of the society, which are greatly influenced by these mediums, are greatly undermined.

The negative does however allow the culture who has been offended a recourse. The can boycott the product. It being in a free market they are under no obligation to buy that product or watch that medium.

In conclusion moral decisions are undermined because objectivity is eradicated under the guise of cultural sensitivity.