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This is like someone telling a fish that there are people who live on land, and the fish saying "it doesn't have to be that way". Someone mentions a cultural difference between your group and another, and you say "the other group is wrong, my culture is right".

Instead, what you could do is think about how this is a completely arbitrary thing that the two cultures just do differently, and that maybe people shouldn't be offended by friendly banter that isn't meant to offend.

Someone with background from from the US military (OK, Ryan McBeth) recently commented something along the lines of:

> everyone is picked on. If you don't get picked on that is reason for concern.

By quoting this, do I mean to encourage bullying? No, as the kid that wasn't included during my first years of school, NO.

But there is a difference between everyone calling each other names vs everyone calling someone names etc.

I was in the US military. We all joked, in ways that probably shouldn't have been jokes, that we would "trip" on deployment to the "zone" causing trendily fire accidents for the least like members of our team.

Being US military didn't make it right, we were effectively deciding who we would kill in an effort to make the team more cohesive. That never set right with me, and I still remember the joke (but maybe it's not a joke, joke) to this day.

Don't look to the military as a model of good teamwork. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. One cannot pretend it's the right model to follow.

That’s the thing.

The line is mighty fine between bullying and good natured ribbing, and has a lot to do with group dynamics. Edgy banter can bring a group together, but bullying can do far more damage.

That's very reminiscent to arguments that western culture is just one of the possible cultures and is no better or worse than culture of pre-technological bushmen.
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