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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
The United States is one of the last of the Western nations to maintain the death penalty, considered by most people in the free world to be an immoral, horrible, backward, and uncivilized practice.
How would people feel if the European Common Market nations began trying to pressure us to change? How far can they go? At what point would we resist? How much is it worth fighting for? Is multi-culturalism one thing--only cutting one way? Isn't it something we might one day want, even demand for ourselves if we are the weaker one? Can't we look at it from the older culture's point of view? Could other people have different ideas about what is cultural imperialism? If we have the right to force our values on others because they are "better," then does that give some one with "better" values than ours a right, even a moral imperative to force their customs on us? |
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abc Inner circle South African in Taiwan 1081 Posts |
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On 2011-02-08 20:02, Davit Sicseek wrote: The problem is that it still relates to how we perceive certain things and our perceptions are based on our own moral code or what we consider right and wrong. My problem lies not with the "other" cultures. Heck I live in Asia and sometimes I frown at how an apparent "advanced" society can do things so stupidly. If we don't understand the motivation behind their actions we can not judge their actions and I am fine with that. My question is "Why do we have to accept it and live with it?" If you want to live in Taiwan, then you should eat Chinese food, obey the laws of this country, accept that on certain festivals they are going to burn ghost money in the street, know that some of them drive like mad people and they might not view the world the same as you do. I am fine with that, but if you move to a western country, why does that country have to adapt to suit you. Shouldn't you be adapting to this new country. You are the one that moved there. That is what annoys me. There are many westerners who have moved to Taiwan that complain about the people, the traditions and the food but they have been here for years. What makes the western way of thinking superior? There is no better or worse culture if you remove your own perception thereof but there is the culture of this country and that country and I hate that it is forced on us by people who immigrate or migrate to other countries. Do as you please in your own country but don't call me names because I don't want to allow you to do it in mine. |
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
Ever notice how many countries w/ no death penalty are more likely to drag someone behind a bldg and shoot 'em?
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Erwin New user 56 Posts |
Example?
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
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On 2011-02-08 20:46, abc wrote: There is much here that I think is outside of our topic, but I'll respond to what I think is the main idea. If a country (a political entity) wishes to be multicultural, it is making a commitment to both toleration and to the facilitation of multiple ways of life as expressed through culture. Those countries that embrace multiculturalism do so understanding that there will be inevitable differences and there will need to be adjudication of those differences. Further, they understand that there will be places where cultural claims are insufficient to justify certain actions. For those countries that do NOT embrace multiculturalism, the above means nothing. I live in a country with an official policy of multiculturalism. This gives certain freedoms to citizens and places certain burdens on the state. Many immigrants come to this country at least partially because of multicultural policy. Others may immigrate to countries with no such aspirations. But that has no implications for our multicultural policy. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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Davit Sicseek Inner circle 1818 Posts |
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I think you miss my point. You cannot simply line up cultures and tick off points one by one--they just don't articulate that way. Why not? It might be difficult, full of complications and conditional elements - but why can't it be done?
Send me the truth: davitsicseek@gmail.com
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
Who is going to bell the cat? Who gets to decide what culture is ours?
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
Okay...I'll stack the cultures.
Top Five: 1st: Southern Coastal 2nd: Other Southern 3rd: West Coast (top three US) 4th: Australia 5th: Chilean Bottom Five: 5th from last: Pakistan tribal 4th from last: Somalia 3rd from last: Mining area of the Congo 2nd from last: Canadian last place: New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania The rest fall into the middle. |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
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On 2011-02-08 22:07, Davit Sicseek wrote: As a thought experiment, you could easily imagine two cultures alike in every way but one, then decide. (Of course, you might have to defend why this is two cultures and not one with an internal division...) But how do you compare cultures on a large scale? How does the Italian love of opera weigh against the Russian ballet? How do you compare the nuclear family of Europe to the extended family of the Cree? What's better: freedom of expression or freedom from hunger? Many comparisons can be made, to be sure. But many features of cultures are, IMO, incommensurable. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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Davit Sicseek Inner circle 1818 Posts |
Comparing some aspects of culture are very difficult. Cultures may be very different but represent similar peaks on the landscape of possible cultures. Fortunately for the puposes of this discussion, most of these differences don't matter since the differences don't contravene the universal values mentioned by Cameron in his speech and instead fall under the true range of tolerable behavior as described in the quote I included in my initial post.
I'm happy to see cultures live and die according to the 'consumer'. Aspects of a culture that aren't great will be abandoned by individuals through a gradual process or be outlawed by the state because the democratic system makes the political decision that that aspect contravenes a set of universal values or rights. There is an interesting analogy from the concept of 'good health' that I will adopt. We all have an idea of what it means to be healthy. The idea of being healthy is certainly a term that is used in a relative context, the health of the healthiest poor nomad living in a polluted area may well be worse than a fairly unhealthy person living in a developed economy. If one takes a wider look however, a specturm of health is discernable - yet there are still difficult questions that make direct comparisons problematic. Is it healthier to have a toothache or a headache? Is it best to have acute pain for a day or minor pain for a month. These may be hard to decide upon - but the spectrum of healthy -> unhealthy exists and as knowledge improves we can be more and more confident about making these difficult judgements.
Send me the truth: davitsicseek@gmail.com
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
David, who decides who has the correct UNIVERSAL values? They are only universal when they are shared by everyone. Does some culture have the right to decide for another?
Do the Druze have the right to decide for you? Do the Jews? Do the Chinese Communists? Do the Afgan Christians? Or the Afgan Zoroastrians? I believe that all people have certain universal human rights given to them by the Creator, and that governments only exist to secure those rights for the governed. I believe that with all my heart, and am willing to fight and die for it. That doesn't make it true. There are those others who believe differently and are also willing to fight and die for their beliefs. Who decides which belief is worth fighting for? Killing for? Dying for? If Aliens from another planet tried to enforce on the entire earth what they thought were UNIVERSAL values, would you be on their side? Depends on wheat the values ARE, doesn't it? The rules of multiculturism aren't to protect the majority. They are to protect the rights of the minority. The problem is that the same attitude toward the "unenlightened" cultures produced such misery and harm. Hawaiians didn't know how to dress or make love. The Incas were pagans. It is very easy for the powerful to mistake their own cultural poles for the center pole of the world. How do we prevent ourselves from destroying and decimating cultures and religions and arts that we don't even understand? How is enforcing our ideas of what is important on the Middle East any different than the Taliban destroying the great stone statues of Buddha? Whose culture gets to make the decision? Is it a majority vote, or what? |
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
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On 2011-02-09 02:01, Whit Haydn wrote: If you believe in a transcendent source of values (and it sounds as though you do), then people don't "decide" what the correct values are; they attempt to discern them, via moral reasoning (among other things). Your belief doesn't make something true, but if someone has a contradictory belief, then at least one of you is wrong. We probably best prevent ourselves from destroying and decimating cultures, arts, and religions when we advocate the position that preserving them is probably one of those correct values. If you believe that people have "certain universal human rights," then, other things being equal, it seems to follow that cultures that protect those rights are better than cultures that don't. That's not a matter of "deciding," it's a matter of using reasoning to choose between conflicting values. There is no guarantee that one is correct, which making such a choice, but the fact that it may be difficult to ascertain with certainty which of two ideas is better does not mean that neither is better.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
Who gets to decide? Who makes the choice? Who tells the other what the transcendent value is? Who kills who?
Because one group values freedom more than life, and another values life and security more than individual expression, how do we choose between them? Do we get a choice, or does one have to go along with the majority or most powerful? The idea of multiculturalism is a good one, but it only works within a country with democratic laws in place. These protect one religious or cultural group from another, and protect people within a group from the group--people have a right to choose not to associate, not to conform, not to follow the group. People are allowed to practice whatever culture and language and traditions they might want, but they must allow everyone to freely choose to follow. Coercion is not allowed. The individual can decide to follow custom or not. In the world of sovereign nations and disparate and ancient cultures, things become more complicated. To enforce our "better" values on an older culture, against their will, that seems a problem. Do we fight them until they are too weak to fight back? Until they no longer exist? Consent of the governed is essential to me. It is one thing to freeze someone out of mutually beneficial relations because they do not adhere to a shared value of human rights. Education, science and technology are important. Fighting superstition (something magic is good for) can help. Aid can help change the position of a government that is standing in the way of change. There are all kinds of ways to encourage and coax a society to change. But one needs to respect that culture's right to self-governance. |
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Davit Sicseek Inner circle 1818 Posts |
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Who gets to decide? Who makes the choice? Who tells the other what the transcendent value is? Who kills who? This is not about killing people and as Lobowolf says - it may not always be about even 'deciding' - there is still a lot of room for tolerance in the society I am describing. I'm talking about the domestic policy of a liberal democratic government operating with the consent of the people with a perference for individual liberty. All that is resulting is that a set of universal values determined through this system are deemed so important that they will trump the aspects of different cultures residing withing the liberal democratic governments territory that are incompatible with these universal values. For example the right of 5 year old girls to be educated. Any cultural practice that conflicts with this position should be disregarded by a government. In some cultures it is acceptable to have sexual relations with children. This imo is a cultural practice that should be trumped by the state. I am happy for that decision to be made throuogh a democratic system. On the matter of consent and individual liberty - this is a valid concern and broadly I agree with it - providing that consent truly is consent - and not compliance through indoctrination or social pressure.
Send me the truth: davitsicseek@gmail.com
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Davit,
I think you're right. It's all well and good to admire the vast array of cultures that adorn our world. But in fact they are not all equal, and not all equally deserving of approbation. I am not sure that all of them are even deserving of our toleration. Consider for example a culture in which chattel slavery is the norm, along with its attendant racism. There are two questions here. One, would you tolerate that culture in its own place, far removed from your own place? I doubt that even those post-modern multiculturalists who would tolerate such a culture in its own territory would want to welcome such practices into their home countries. Closer to home, why do you think that Western liberal democracies should tolerate the establishment of enclaves in which the cultural norms include preferential patrilineal cross-cousin marriage, polygamy, mandatory excision of the labia minora and clitoris, no education of girls or women, no music, license to rape women from the surrounding "foreign" population, obedient submission to the self-proclaimed leaders of the community, and complete denial of the humanity of anyone who does not submit to these cultural norms? There are certain cultural differences which can coexist without threatening the fabric of society. And there are others which are unassimilable, and whose adherents do not wish to assimilate. Those who criticize multiculturalism don't think that the practices of these cultures should be eradicated in their own countries, but they do think that those who wish to immigrate to Western liberal democracies make the effort to conform to the norms of the society into which they have chosen to move. By undermining the features of the West which they seem to find objectionable, these immigrants will eventually turn the Western democracies into the same sort of failed states that they are fleeing today. Ironic. But stupid and suicidal of the West to allow this to happen. Woland |
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abc Inner circle South African in Taiwan 1081 Posts |
Would you consider western democracies successful and if so why? Based on economics, human rights...? Don't you think the west has enriched itself at the expense of those countries these people are fleeing from and we owe it to them to have a country where they can practice what they believe freely? Is it even possible?
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MagicSanta Inner circle Northern Nevada 5841 Posts |
No, we do not. They are fleeing from themselves.
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Abc,
Thank you for your questions. To clarify my thinking for you, here are my opinions: 1) The Western democracies are successful in that it is possible for the greatest number of individuals living within them to experience the greatest personal spiritual, intellectual, and material fulfillment of any societies in recorded history. 2)The West has not enriched itself at the expense of the East or the South. The principles that enabled the Western democracies to become prosperous will enable the East and the South to become prosperous, if understood and adopted. 3) The immigrants flooding Western Europe are in general coming from societies that do not respect the individual, private property, women in general, work, and freedom. That is why their societies are cruel and impoverished. We do not owe it to them to allow them to impose their dysfunctional social life on us. Rather, we owe it to them to maintain our free society, so that individuals from their societies who wish to adopt our way of life can do so, and so they can see the example of societies that actually work. 4) I am not sure what "it" stands in for in your sentence, when you ask "if it is even possible." I do not think it is possible for a society to become any place you or I would ever want to live that is not free, that does not respect private property, that does not respect honest work, that does not allow personal intellectual and spiritual freedom, that does not accord the simplest and most basic rights to girls and women, and that tolerates slavery. Woland |
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Davit Sicseek Inner circle 1818 Posts |
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Don't you think the west has enriched itself at the expense of those countries these people are fleeing from and we owe it to them to have a country where they can practice what they believe freely? I differ from Woland here in that I do believe (with a number of provisos) that the West has enriched itself PARTLY by the exploitation of the 3rd world but it does not follow in recompense for this that 'we owe it to them to have a country where they can practice what they believe freely'. I simply don't see the logic between the two. You have demonstrated something that I often come across when I discuss this with people. You are assuming that the correct referent object for justice is culture - as opposed to my belief that it is the individual. I'm afraid the choice between safeguarding the rights of a cultural group to refuse to educate their girls and the safeguarding of a girls right to be educated is not a difficult one for me.
Send me the truth: davitsicseek@gmail.com
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Whit Haydn V.I.P. 5449 Posts |
Very much the same attitude that the Christian missionaries had toward the Hawaiians.
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