Sometimes international intervention is futile anyway. How many times has the UN/Amnesty warned and fined Russia for their protect-the-children, homosexuality-is-comparable-to-pedophilia bullshit? And how effective has that been? I'm not saying we shouldn't try, but sometimes it just falls on deaf years. Didn't Jesus-man say treat others as you want yourself to be treated? Be ready to wear a burkha yourself, if you want your woman to wear it. Have your genitals mutilated to the point you can't feel sexual pleasure anymore if that's what you allow to be done to your daughter. Accept a bottle up your ass and concrete against your face for establishing a consensual relationship with another person. It's not that simple, I know, but sometimes I do wish someone invented a machine that allowed you to walk in your fellow human's shoes. Maybe we'd be happier then, maybe there'd be less suffering and injustice, I don't know.
What would said machine do with the owner of the shoes? What if they don't want to share? No, I'm kidding. But isn't that an interesting thought? Anyway, I do agree. If the shoe were on the other foot and we learned to live from opposing perspectives, we just might treat each other better. We are such a backwards species sometimes. And come on... "Jesus-man"??? That's like the funniest Jesus reference I've seen in a while But yes he did teach that. There is so much good virtue in the Bible for Christians and non-Christians alike if one might have an open mind. The same can be said for many other religions, but that's a discussion best saved for another place and time.
Yeah, while we think it's barbaric to still practice e.g. those manhood rites or tests in some countries, the people who do partake, might as well consider it an honor to sit on top of a pole for three days while the sun shines so hard it flays your skin, vultures pick at your head, and you have a nagging feeling that you forgot to let the cat out before you left but can't go and check. Barbarous, needless torture to some, an important growing experience to others. Of course, at some point someone might stand up and say "this is nuts. Let's all go home to watch the Walking Dead," and little by little such practices die out... and people are actually relieved that it happened. But there are some cases I wouldn't want to wait to pass into obscurity, and sometimes it turns out to be a good decision to interfere, sometimes it makes things worse. There also seems to be something instinctive about resisting whatever morals another country/culture imposes on you -- sometimes just for the sake of resisting. Like EU regulations (perhaps in the US, federal regulations would be a close equivalent). They're even made fun of: It was a Mayday prank a few years ago over here. The local newspaper claimed the EU wanted to regulate the temperature of Finnish saunas. 80-110 C (176-230 F) was considered too high, dangerous, and inhuman while 50 C (122 F) tops was within acceptable limits. Many people actually believed it.
I agree pretty much. It makes me wonder again "who knows what is good or bad?" There is action and there is outcome. There would be resistance, but there may be changed. We have been changing each other's cultures and practices for centuries. Many Africans believe the Eurocentric history of man simply because it was lost overtime be Euro expansion and domination and "abolishment" of old practices... I'm not proposing a new crusade! Just saying it is not so far-fetched a reality considering human history.
First off, let me state that I am American, so now you may persecute as you will. I am not a patriot. I think what our country has done and continued to do it horrible. We extinguish cultures. We eat them alive for breakfast. It's called a melting pot because it destroys other cultures by forcing its own onto others. Look at the Native Americans. Look at the African Americans. Look at the Islamic that want to live in this country... and those who don't. Yes, we've progressed, but we are far from perfect. We have hunger and homelessness, and yet here we are in other countries trying to teach people what we've barely even learned to do ourselves. We have women that are still beat on a daily basis, women who are forced to stay at home. Children who are neglected and starved. Racism runs rampant. The most common thing people have in our nation is DEBT. However, I don't have the proper answer for you. Mutilation and sacrifice are huge things that I feel violate the very basic of human rights. I think how America in specific goes about 'educating' other countries is wrong. If you stomp into a place and say "What you're doing is bad and wrong and immoral!" You're going to get instant resistance. People need to be shown WHY this other way is better. I don't know. I wish I had a definite opinion in my mind, but I don't. Nor do I have any way to make it better.
I just meant how to go about effecting change is a different debate from should one accept a cultural difference or condemn it.
Ah, I wasn't sure what you meant. As I said, I'm not necessarily in the 'shouldn't' camp, because some atrocities are pretty large and hard to ignore. But... maybe we should keep our noses out of other cultures altogether. Maybe we shouldn't do 'how' other than by example. It's up to other cultures to effect their own changes, perhaps? The way our culture did. Without outside pressure or coercion? Changes might be longer lasting and more embedded if they are allowed to develop naturally within a culture. And the seeds are there, same as they were in Europe, the USA, Britain. Force the changes, however, and I fear we'll just breed resentment and backlash. Just a gut feeling. But I hate looking at what seems to be oppression and ignoring it, too. Not easy.
I am curious as to what makes us think we have any authority on the subject. The West, and particularly the U.S has no culture other than self interest anymore... I don't think we have the right to judge others who still haven't sold the spirit of their people.
for the record, i see female genitalia mutilation as a barbaric inflicting of pain and disfigurement on innocent children who are not able to protect themselves from the practice and whose parents allow it on religious/cultural grounds... but then i also have to wonder how the jewish practice of the 'bris' can be any less a painful, mutilating crime committed against helpless infants who have no choice in the matter, either...
There are pockets of culture, but normally from somewhere else. Take New Orleans, for example. That's a mixture of African heritage and European inspired culture. It definitely has a culture, but one that's specific to that area and its descendants. There are also Jewish Communities within the US that abide by their laws. Same with the Amish. But it's not an 'American' culture, definitely not. I'm curious... how do you feel about Native Americans getting back a piece of their land, and then building casinos with it??
Well, that's the point of the discussion, isn't it? Once you start running around the world fixing all the 'wrongs', it gets out of hand quickly. And then what happens if another developed country thinks something we do is 'wrong', how receptive will we be?
A simple thing often overlooked and a reason to be cheerful: we have the same values but weight them differently. The chasm is bridgeable. When other folk are killing babies to placate their gods the knee-jerk response is often: 'These sods do not value human life at all! There's no scope for dialogue here.' Yet this is not quite the case. They are not killing all the babies all the time. We might imagine they have rules against that sort of thing. No, they are sacrificing babies. Note the word. They value human life and their gods and once in a while the needs of their gods take precedence. What to do about stuff that's beyond the pale? Set a good example and do what we can to ensure that others are in a position to learn and flourish.
One example I know well is that, as sad and ignorant as it is, many Serbian people (my native country) are anti-gay parade. LGBT community has all the rights as per European laws, even though it is still ill advised for two men to show affection in public because they still risk being assaulted, verbally or otherwise. Year after year, the Pride parade is booked then cancelled at short notice, due to threats of violence (football hooligans) and very vocal public outcry (ordinary people). The church (Orthodox) is also very vocal in opposing homosexuality on religious grounds. It's a terrible soar on our culture, but a lot of people there see nothing wrong with it, and Russia is the same if not worse, so they have the validation that they aren't alone in their beliefs. So, the EU criticises Serbia every year and is pressuring them very strongly to enable the gay parade. However, France is forcefully deporting Roma people, they have been purging neighbourhoods of the Roma, all on obviously racist grounds. French Foreign minister is leading this, and he openly shares his anti-Roma prejudice with the public, and the policy was the same during Sarkozy. Roma have lived in large numbers in Serbia for centuries. Yeah there are cultural tensions, mainly due to the begging culture, but Serbia has never deported anyone. Relocations if they happen (extremely rarely) everyone is given a new mobile home in a better neighbourhood. As integrated as Roma get, and they aren't very integrated, they manage quite well in Serbia, and we have peacefully co-existed with no problems. Serbs are appalled by what France has done, and by the fact EU is turning a blind eye to this, so they are justifiably asking 'are those the modern values you are forcing us to accept?'
See, the problem is that there is no "black and white" here. France is kindly accepting of gay people, but is very racist toward the Roma. Serbia will take the Roma in, but hates gays. So, who's better? The world may never know.
I would say it depends on where you go. If a woman who grew up in the USA or west Europe would go to one of the eastern countries where women have to keep their head covered - do so. You wouldn't like anyone to walk into your home and violate your rules, so don't do it to them; if you go somewhere you should respect traditions of the people there. Of course it works the other way around too: if someone comes from a country where women are merely a possession of men and migrates to e.g. the Netherlands I think the man will have to adapt and accept that women here are equal to men. When it comes to keeping traditions when you move to another country I think it is about free choice. If a family from a country where women are forced to wear a burkha would to a western society I wouldn't mind if the woman would still wear a burkha, but I would care if she only does so because she's forced to. I don't think anyone should tell what people from other cultures should and should not do; you don't know why traditions are there exactly unless you grew up with those traditions yourself. And there are always two sides to every story; some girls grow up wearing burkhas and others grow up constantly hearing they have to be skinny, pretty and willing, but not in a slutty way. I don't mean to offend people and if anyone thinks I did say something offensive: I'm sorry, it wasn't meant that way. I was just mentioning the extremes here, to kinda get my point across.
There are those who wish to make it a violation of basic human rights to dislike a person or group or have the freedom to hold an alternate belief. This would fall under the non-interventional side of this argument. Unless your basic natural human rights are being violated, you have no issues that require outside interference. Just saying, 'This group over here doesn't like my group.' isn't a basis for wrong, it's just diversity of the human condition.
I disagree. Over the past few years, I've become more and more convinced that there are things that are objectively, factually and undeniably true. The degree of truth might not be 100%, that is indeed unreachable, but I feel that 99.9% true suffices for most, if not all things. We all take gravity for granted, we can doubt that it will last forever, or even doubt that it's there at all, but we life our lives as if it is completely and utterly true. So yes, we might not have access to eternal objective truth, but we do have access to objective truth. Moreover, non-eternal truth should suffice for us since we are finite beings. This is why some people, including me, where surprised by your comment about the WBC. They say so many things that can be proven to be false on whim that they've lost any and all credibility on any matter. Respect is important and should always been shown initially. But love, kisses and rainbow stickers will only get you so far. If our cultures are to have any value to each other, we should be communicate what we perceive in the other culture. It's inevitable that some judgement will be included in those observations.
I agree with this. I believe there are transcendant objective morals we all live by. I once heard it said that if you placed the phrase 'for the fun of it' after an action, it helps to wade through the variables and exceptions for certain actions. Taking the life of another person, for example. There are exceptions when this is a moral thing to do, (self defense, death penalty, etc...) but to take a life for the fun of it, is generally immoral anywhere, in any culture. However, the world is becoming smaller and smaller every day. The shadows that used to hide the hideous, perverse cultures of human beings are being brought into the daylight, and forced to stand on their own weight in public. The more our world is brought together and opened up, the more the whole of humanity can stand as witness to atrocities committed by members of our own species. I would say even the people the do the most horrendous things know deep down inside that they are violating a greater morality than their own.
tessa t... i've lived with the hopi, have met folks from many other tribes, as i traveled back and forth across their lands, and i've seen first-hand the results of the white man's greed and lust for 'easy money' being passed on to them in the form of casinos... all those garish temples to the money god [that are all financed/built/backed by bahanas] do is exacerbate these long-suffering peoples' long-existing curses of alcoholism, diabetes, domestic violence, et al., because whatever money is doled out to the tribal members from gambling profits only brings them more of the same... and/or is lost by gambling either in their own casinos where allowed, or privately where not... i don't fault the majority of 'native americans' or canada's 'first nation' people for it in any way, only the uncaring, greedy whites who are the only ones who benefit from using and abusing those who were here first, as they've always done... i do, however, also assign some blame to the tribal leaders who fall for the whites' offer of the tempting 'apple' since they know better and still accept it... unlike the hopi, who are probably the only tribe in the us or canada whose leaders and members have resisted the tempation, being wise enough to know what ugly evils lurk beneath the attractive surface...
There are examples though, like the financial pressure of the divest in South Africa campaign which had an impact on ending Apartheid. I think world condemnation of the Taliban shooting Pakistani girls' education promoter, Malala Yousafzai, is having an effect on her country. If one thinks intervention is only by force, I can see why you'd be reluctant to get involved. It doesn't work well to try to force social change, I agree. But we have a new opportunity to have an impact on women's rights around the world. The common person has access to the world vis the Internet. I remember a discussion we had in the small (at the time) rural town in Mexico, Tizimín. The only access was via a dirt track, but they had a satellite dish and some people had TV's. There was a commercial at the time for dish soap showing the maid saying how pleased she was the dueña would be able to see her face in the shiny clean plate. The outside world had come to Tizimín. It was bizarre. Now that's expanded so the world has not only come to the backwaters of the planet, people in the backwaters can interact with the rest of the world. This is not the time to excuse outrageous behavior as acceptable because it's another culture. It's still a tricky situation, where to draw the line. Arranged marriages are a common practice, but killing a woman who resists, or marrying off a child? Burning a wife in a kitchen accident so the husband can go after another dowry, or having the husband's family treat the new wife as the family slave? I am no longer as idealistic about other cultures as I used to be. That doesn't mean I'm a bigot. I love the amazing cultural variety that is our world. I've traveled over much of the world and it's my favorite thing to be doing. And certainly there are things about Western culture that are horrible and we would all benefit from some changes. Human rights abuses should be condemned. And we have an opportunity to do that as the evolving world circumstances merge our cultures together.
I actually find this post offensive. To attribute a moral inclination to a group of people based on the color of their skin is racism, pure and simple. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, this kind of racist rhetoric just shows how far we still have to go.
As much as I love GC, it's a bit rude to just blatantly attack someone who listened to all the trash, rubbish, and mediahogging that WBC does. They might be a completely valueless group in terms of human improvement but at least they stick their guns and try to make a change. Gotta applaud that. @123456789 If you're being literal, spending money to save our own culture is almost wrong. First, saving your own country is no better ethically than saving another. Both have needs but the key difference in dime-spending is in the power of money. To save a family from First World Poverty in America can easily cost over ten-thousand dollars a year. To save a family from Third World Poverty (or extreme poverty where basic needs such as food and shelter cannot be met) is very cheap with first world money. For a much smaller sum of American(as an example) money, you can do more good. 100 dollars would go much farther with clothing, feeding, educating, and housing them. 100 dollars for an American is a very thin 2 meals a day for the month. @David Kulesh You might be trolling but I don't care. I can still add to the conversation without being "baited". Gotta extrapolate a tad what you said as your argument wasn't completely finished. The idea that a sinner cannot judge man is inane. Experience is the only rightful way to judge others as one who doesn't understand cannot possibly judge fairly. Imagine this, a man stabs another who quickly dies from blood loss but truthfully states it was in self-defense in a very heated and violent situation. He didn't mean to kill consciously, he only sought to keep himself alive and safe within his own home. The dead man's wife comes forward and says the man was but a burglar and did not have the means to cause harm to another living being. However, in the heated moment, he was caught by the man and both tried defending themselves. So, what would an educated or inexperienced person say? Would they commit the man for murder or excessive force? Or would they believe there could have been another way and the man did wrong? In that heated situation, losing one's head is not an excuse to kill? Would they believe discourse or better handling of the weapon could have saved a life? Should they have simply called the police and let the professionals handle it? This just comes down to how the situation is understood. You can either know how it feels when everything goes mad that bad things do happen or you can believe that in hindsight is an excuse for not doing better. Even more real examples would be how we all want to be judges by our peers. Nothing to do with ethnicity, religious, or even due to just being plain human. Peers entails "someone who has an understanding the matter" in the sense a doctor should be judged by doctors for malpractice and not by a banker or a mechanic. The latter may still have good opinions but their understanding of the medical world is limited at best. They would not know the difficulties, struggles, and ethical problems that doctors face daily and how their system of ethic works. The only way to judge someone is to be experienced just like them. To be blindly judged by a system of belief or by those who mean well is the real problem. We all have the right to judge others but only those who we understand. I cannot judge a cop for firing a shot in a tense situation that ended up in death as I've never held a gun or wondered whether I needed to pull the trigger or not. I cannot be angry at my doctor for misdiagnosing me as I do not have the same information he did nor the understanding of that information. I cannot yell at my gardener that my shrubs look ill and bear me no flowers this year as I have no idea what makes flora grow or die. Sure, I can scrutinize them and find proof or educate myself, but without doing so my opinion has no value. So, I cannot judge without experiencing their position through learning from experts, reading and educating myself, or trying it out myself. The world isn't perfect and bad things happen but I cannot say I am to judge all of it. I can only judge the things I do understand or I'd be a tyrant and not much of a judge. Now the roundhouse kick going back to the OP; this rather ties in well with the whole cultural topic. Once it was alright to throw away a baby like trash, literally, if they were deformed. Doing that today would not only be viewed as monstrous but you'd get jailed for infanticide. It's not an easy thing to solve by saying "We were not as educated back then" or "Human value on life was different back then" It was just the same as it was today. Think of it in terms of abortion. If a disease that causes the baby to die early in life and highly likely never to enjoy it due to pain or underdeveloped brains is caught in prenatal stages, the parents would normally opt for an abortion and try again. By even today's standards most would think that it was the right thing to do. Some, however, are anti-abortion and would say the child had a right to fight to survive, maybe a miracle would happen, a cure be found in time, or that life is sacred and that embryos have the same value as a developed human being. Both sides make valid points in their arguments for or against abortion but it all comes down to a rather personal question: Do you believe life, or the potential thereof, always worth saving even in extreme cases or is the value of life based on something other than being born to a certain species? Why is it more right to euthanize an abandoned and unwanted healthy and friendly dog than a human baby? Both are rather cute and did nothing to deserve death but one gets put down and the other taken care until a home is found. So, even if we look at our own culture, we are divided. Is it so surprising that what other cultures do might be considered barbaric or wrong or backwards compared to ours? If we had it right, they would have figured it out and copied us. However, it seems they see and believe in something in their own ways of life is as right as we think we are. So, that's where I draw the line between respect. If I cannot fully say something is wrong, I cannot judge another culture for thinking otherwise unless they have no backing for their beliefs. I know running over a puppy with your car as a recreational sport is wrong. The puppy is scared and will be in immense pain. He has his own wants and needs to continue living and you force your own wants on his and ultimately create suffering. For me, that's a cardinal rule that I can defend with little doubt. "..." tl;dr
