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Butterfly
Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Location: Kuwait
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 Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| I'm no conservative. But your insistence that that position -- overstated or not -- is a straw man, represents liberal bias in its own right. Do you really believe that liberals don't push cultural relativism just a bit too far, at times? |
At times yes, but not to the point of defending the hanging of teenagers. Justifying the execution of teenagers for being homosexuals in the name of cultural relativism is a touch beyond a 'bit too far' wouldn't you say? 'A bit too far' is just the grey area in the realm in which we find our discussions. What happened in these pictures are wayy out there in the ether as far as reasonable western debate of culture goes.
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| That some peoples and cultures are, indeed, barbaric, and it's OK to say so? |
As BB said, it depends what you mean by barbaric. You believe it's okay to say that some 'peoples' are barbaric? By the same rationale, you perhaps might be inclined to suggest that some 'peoples' are more civilsed than others. You'd be on dodgy ground there mate.
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
The US should have assassinated Khomeni when it had the chance, while he was living in France or while he was on his way to Iran.
That the US did not was probably just about the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of the US. |
I'm quite sure circumstances were such that there would have been another khomeni, one person does not cause a revolution, he simply uses the desire for change to his own ends surely. |
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keithinkorea
Joined: 17 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
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| Why do they allow the death sentence? |
It's called democracy. The people want the death penalty, hence it is in place in many states. For the record, Japan and South Korea also have the death penalty. |
Yes I'm aware of that but it is rarely used compared to say NK, Saudi Arabia or indeed the US. It is also a bit dodgy on the race side of things, a black man will die but for the same offense a white man will often get jail. The problems with the death penalty are many, no justice system is perfect and mistakes are made. Completely innocent people have been murdered by the state. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Fri Nov 09, 2007 3:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Butterfly
Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Location: Kuwait
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| Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| if you were offended by it, you have my apologies |
No, I apologize, but I won't conform to another liberal stereotype, of which you seem so fond, and tell you I was 'offended' by it.
Sorry 
I just thought your energy to engage in debate would be better served if you argued with a real opponent, rather than one you made up. |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 11:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
"Hey all you die-hard liberals who are caught up in the cultural sensitivity/cultural relativism ideology: Are you paying attn to what just happened in Saudi Arabia?" |
"Discrimination against women impacts upon and compounds the wide range of human rights violations commonly reported in Saudi Arabia. These violations, which have been described in detail in two recent Amnesty International reports on Saudi Arabia, A Justice System Without Justice and A Secret State of Suffering, include arbitrary arrest and detention as facilitated by the wide-ranging powers enjoyed by the arresting authorities; vague written and unwritten laws; secret and grossly unfair trials; torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and the use of the death penalty."
Amnesty international:
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE230572000
14 girls have lost their lives and dozens of others were injured following a fire at their school in Mecca on 11 March 2002 after the religious police (Mutawa'een) prevented them from escaping from the fire because they were not wearing headscarves and their male relatives were not there to receive them. The religious police are also reported to have prevented rescuers from entering the school because they were males and therefore not permitted to mix with females." - Mar 15, 2002
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/2002/saudiarabia03152002.html
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that prevents women from driving, studying law and engineering, directly selling or buying property, attending court (even when accused of murder), and showing their faces in public."
http://www.middle-east-info.org/gateway/womenchildabuse/ |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 12:16 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| You believe it's okay to say that some 'peoples' are barbaric? By the same rationale, you perhaps might be inclined to suggest that some 'peoples' are more civilsed than others. |
Seems pretty obvious to me. Otherwise, you are in the absurd position of saying that all cultures are of equal value, which quite patently they are not. Once again, female genital mutilation, forced marriage and honour killings are barbaric. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:18 am Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| junkmail wrote: |
| Why don't we just mind our own business, and tend to those things we can control, in our own countries? |
because sometimes they hijack our passenger airliners and hold hostages, bomb those airlines, like PanAm 103, move against their neighbors and threaten our allies, attack our naval assets in foreign ports, such as the USS Cole, or hijack passenger airlines and come to us...just a short list of their b.s.
Isolationism hasn't worked for the U.S. since the late 1930s... |
With the exception of Pan Am 103 (which I have no explanation for), one could argue that the lack of our isolationism is what lead to those other attacks, esp. the USS Cole. Not to excuse it, but seriously, what dumb ass admiral came up with the idea to re-fuel navy ships in one of the most conservative, backward, and violent countries in the region?? Only Sudan and Somalia are more messed up than Yemen.
The US hasn't tried to isolate itself since the late 30s, so I don't know how you could argue that it "hasn't worked." |
Al Qaida fights to gain the Caliphate.
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| Al-Qa'ida's goal is to "unite all Muslims and to establish a government which follows the rule of the Caliphs." Bin Laden has stated that the only way to establish the Caliphate is by force. Al-Qa'ida's goal, therefore, is to overthrow nearly all Muslim governments, which are viewed as corrupt, to drive Western influence from those countries, and eventually to abolish state boundaries. |
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ladin.htm
It is not as though the US could stop the attacks were the US careful to do things that don't make them angry. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:25 am Post subject: |
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| Otherwise, you are in the absurd position of saying that all cultures are of equal value, which quite patently they are not. Once again, female genital mutilation, forced marriage and honour killings are barbaric. |
Yes, they are. No question. But are they the totality of the culture? No. Are there no other parts of the culture that are admirable? |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:11 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| Otherwise, you are in the absurd position of saying that all cultures are of equal value, which quite patently they are not. Once again, female genital mutilation, forced marriage and honour killings are barbaric. |
Yes, they are. No question. But are they the totality of the culture? No. Are there no other parts of the culture that are admirable? |
No they are not the totality of the culture, but I would say such norms trump any basket weaving or carpet making when it comes to assessing how civilized they are. No matter what else their cultures may produce, they will never be able to call themselves civilized while such backward practices remain prevalent. |
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scarneck
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:22 am Post subject: |
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| Well, if you putt from the rough, don't visit Iran...pretty simple. Tab A fits into slot B...that's the way it was designed... |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:31 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| No they are not the totality of the culture, but I would say such norms trump any basket weaving or carpet making when it comes to assessing how civilized they are. No matter what else their cultures may produce, they will never be able to call themselves civilized while such backward practices remain prevalent. |
I don't disagree with any of that.
However, I question a society calling itself civilized if it isolates very small children at night, denies them food except at stated times, prefers them to stay silent unless given permission to speak by an adult, regiments them into impersonal schools and allows millions of kids to be malnourished.
I have to question if a society is civilized if it favors violent sports, produces graphic images of humans being killed or maimed in games and movies just for 'fun'.
There is a question if a society is civilized if it sends out its mentally ill to live on the streets in the winter with no job, home, food or medicine. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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| It really wasn't that long ago that young black men were publicly lynched in the U.S. (mostly in what are now southern "Bush country" states) for such offenses as staring at white women... |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:27 pm Post subject: |
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| and it's perfectly legal to buy an arsenal of assault weapons |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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Those are all examples of why cultures can be judged. "Good" and "bad" can be used to describes cultures. If not, than "better" cannot be used either and improvement is impossible. Is Amercian culture better for banning slavery? Is it better for giving women the right to vote? Or is it just a different culture than it used to be-not better, not worse, just different? If cultures cannot be judged, they cannot be improved. If people fight to change an aspect of their culture, they cannot argue that they are trying to "improve" things, only change things. And why change things just to change them?
I always found it odd that many of the people who preach cultural relativism also have strong feelings about human rights. One concept is purely relative and value-free, the other is universal and laden with value. These two "ideals" conflict regularly. If you believe in human rights, you believe in universals and absolutes. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| and it's perfectly legal to buy an arsenal of assault weapons |
...in all States and in all cities, even in the South? |
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