Blame it on, hmm.. let's say, culture

A few months ago there was a discussion about safety recalls by Toyota with some colleagues of mine. I shared an information with them about finding the safety recalls and coincidentally I wrote an article about Toyota's trouble at that time. This lead to an intriguing comment from a colleague of mine who was European. This is what he said "I do not trust Toyota. I don't think they are revealing the real truth as it must be cultural to stay silent" or something along those lines suggesting that the reason for Toyota's remaining silent is related to that country's culture. What he was insinuating is that hiding facts during crisis(I could read it as lying) is ingrained in Asian culture. This is not the first time and will not be last that someone will invoke culture as the cause whenever a negative connotation is to be associated.

A friend of mine narrated a similar incident at his workplace involving a mix of diverse international workforce. Apparently an employee at their company called in sick. It turned out that the guy had actually taken up a new job offer at some other company and used the 'sick' excuse to buy some time to switch. It was very apparent to everyone that the guy had lied about being sick. To my friend's surprise, his European colleague asked him 'Is it common in Indian culture to lie.' My friend and the guy who left his company for a greener pasture were both Indian and my friend's European colleague was linking lying to Indian culture. I have been asked similar questions associating something negative to my culture or some other immigrant's(the guy under scrutiny in the discussion) culture.

The culture paranoia is not limited to regular folks like the ones I mentioned above. In a book titled 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins, the author expresses his concern where culture could be transmitted genetically. He gives the examples of faith, mythology and perils associated with religious fanaticism. Infact he coined a word Meme and Memetics is now studied and researched as a science. Richard Dawkins is a very famous British Ethologist who had published several books, mostly on Evolution. While I am convinced about the evolutionary concepts, I feel the genetic transmission of culture, a little far fetched and based on paranoia. The case against Memetics as a science can be found here.

All the proponents of the culture blame theory, in the examples cited above, were coincidentally Europeans. I do not however believe this is a belief held only by Europeans. I can recite several anecdotes where this association of negative traits to a culture came from my Asian and American friends and colleagues alike. The topic of debate is not who does but rather why they do it. Is it because it is easy? Is it because it is convenient? If they are quick in associating negative connotation to culture, are they equally likely to associate positive traits of other fellow humans to their culture. I do not believe so. The positive traits are ignored because we take it to be natural for humans. How can we explain this dichotomy of association to culture? Are these guys consciously perpetrating the negative association to culture with someone belonging to different culture. I don't think so, but there are times I doubt my own assumption. It is done at a subconscious level?