Tuesday, October 03, 2017

Reading "Faith" - Part Three


Lawrence Kohlberg is discussed a lot in this book.  I’d been thinking about Kohlberg and his ways that he examines morality.  I do think of culture in how one person develops and was reminded that Buddhist ideals may be left out of what “morals” may mean.  For example, important Buddhist concepts (the end of suffering and compassion) are not captured in Kohlberg’s model. 
When I was doing AIDS work for the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team, it was hard to apply for funding because not a lot of research had been done on the Asian Pacific Islander communities.  Back then, as well as now, we didn’t even know which Asians or Pacific Islanders were getting what disease because API ethnicities were not aggregated.  We didn’t know who was getting diabetes or who was getting  lung cancer. 
This hits close to home because when I got into a fight with a counselor who didn’t understand the cultural needs of an Asian person in alcohol/drug rehab facilities.  He didn’t think that being an alcoholic wasn’t a big deal—alcoholism was commonly talked about.  I said NOT in the Asian community. 

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