Culture does not make Right

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by WillNever, Jul 16, 2009.

  1. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    Often, people (and particularly men) like to excuse the mistreatment of women in muslim societies, American polygamist communities, or any situation where women are routinely subjected to a life of subjugation and objectification, by declaring in a large bold voice: "it's their culture, they have a right to do that."

    That only tells one side of the story though, because in the above examples, it is the men who control that society and decide what the culture will be, while the women at large really have no choice in the matter, having been born into such treatment. So when you say that muslim societies should be allowed to deny women an education, arrest them for undressing, or execute them for adultery, or any other cruel act of brutality, simply because "it's their culture," what you really mean to say is that it is the men's culture, because the men are the ones who shaped that patriarchal culture into the way it is now. The fact is that the women never volunteered for such treatment, nor do those women have the means to change the nasty way that they are treated in those chauvinistic hellholes.

    Take those polygamist communities out in Utah for example. Saying "it's a different culture, so it's all okay" doesn't fly, because the choices of the women in those compounds is very limited as compared to the choices we have. The leaders of those communities are men, not women, so women don't get to decide the rules of that community. Additionally, the women in those communities cannot just up and leave whenever they feel like it, because they have children that do not belong to them only. Furthermore, those women are ill-equipped to free themselves from that culture, should they somehow abduct their children from their polygamist fathers, because they are (1) sometimes underage (2) always uneducated and (3) not financially independent, even as adults. Most of them have lived as homemakers for most of their lives. They don't have any money, any car, any place to live, or the history to get a job. The bottom line is that no self-respecting woman with an education and freedom in life would voluntarily subject herself to such a clearly exploitative lifestyle. The women who are born into those communities are indoctrinated from birth and as they come of age and bear children, they have no choice in the matter as to how they are treated in those villages and as to whether or not they can leave.

    The point is that saying "it's their culture" makes for a very poor excuse when used to rationalize situations where male chauvinism is resulting in psychological and physical harm to women, in addition to denying freedom and education to women. Cultural relativism blows too. In those situations, it is usually just one side who controls that culture, while everyone else is stuck with it.

    Who agrees?
     
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  3. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

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    I do agree that women ought to be given rights, so please don't think otherwise, although you must understand freedom is not a given, it is not for granted.

    Also "muslim societies" what the hell does that mean? That doesn't happen in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan...only in Saudi and Iran, really.
     
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  5. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Does it cause psych/phys harm for the women? Do you have any proof of that or are you basing that statement on your own culture and biases? Just because you (or others) don't like it, doesn't mean that it's harmful.

    Not much different to the western cultures that claim "freedom", is it? Aren't we all indoctrinated from birth as to how we should act? Doesn't society make umpty-eleven laws and rules that force us to act in certain ways?

    In passing, I'd like to say that many of the cultures that you've mentioned have been around for thousands of years longer, yes, LONGER, than the western cultures with the so-called "freedom". Could a culture so wrong and so harmful to half of it's members, last so long?

    I'm also concerned about telling others how to live and how to act. Is that so important to people ...to try to force their own ideals onto others? Why is that so important?

    Ditto, why is it so important to us to give a shit what happens to some woman 4,000 miles away, and not even a part of our society or culture or race or religion.

    "I don't like it, dammit, so therefore you shouldn't do it!" Even sounds silly, don't it?

    Baron Max
     
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  7. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    Does stoning women to death in an "honor killing" for adultery cause them physical harm? Does selling your five year old daughter for a "bride price" to some sick old fruit cause her psychological harm? Let's think about these things.

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    You're concerned about telling others how to live, how to act? Then you should oppose those societies too. That is exactly how what they do. And that is the basis that they have persisted on for centuries. Nothing to be proud of there.

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    And yes, freedom is better than oppression. That's not a cultural value. That's a universal value. Certain stone aged peoples not waking up to that truth doesn't change that.
     
  8. Barbie Banned Banned

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    Culture obviously does make "right", what else possibly could? Your arguments are clearly intolerant of different cultural norms, which indicates you believe your culture to be "right" and morally superior to others. Lots of cultures have gotten by fine treating women like shit, some still do, others do it less, what does it matter? If you were born in Europe in the Middle Ages you would probably use women as footstools and get them to handwash your shit-stained tights, and slap them if they didn't prepare your two eggs and bacon in the shape of a smiley face, all the while enjoying impunity from the law. The same individual born in California centuries later would consider it offensive to insist anything other than absolute gender equality, and would think sodomy and rimjobs in general were enjoyable pastimes to practice with neighbours and friends. Why do you insist the culture you were born into in this one era of all eras of time is somehow superior to all other cultures?

    I mean, it's clear to me that you're an elitist and supremacist. "Yeah, I definitely think all people are equal, as are all cultures ... but why couldn't those shifty foreigners stop abusing their women? Fucking weirdos ..."
     
  9. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    Certainly I'm a moral and cultural elitist. If it is a society's culture to torture and kill, then it isn't culture at all. It's barbarism.

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  10. Barbie Banned Banned

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    Wtf? How do you go from treating women like shit to "torturing and killing"? In general, all societies and cultures have tortured and killed, mostly because their adversaries were different in some way. If you asked your typical Vietnam vet why he committed typical Vietnam war crimes he'd probably get agitaged and say "man, I don't know, look at ... look at their fuckin' eyes, they look different, man ... no man, they shouldn't be like that, it ain't right", something along those lines. By the way, that quote is hilarious if you read it in a typical hispanic accent, if you didn't do so already, go back and do it.

    It's fair to say most cultures have treated women like shit, or "unequal", to use a better term. Women have been considered so shitty in some cultures that they were just buried alive after birth, sometimes just left on the floor as the parents walked outside of their tent in shame, scolded by the community, "the parkers just gave birth to a girl ... dirty gypsies, why the hell did you let them borrow our silverware?". Sure, it sounds cruel, but if a family needs a man to bring home resources that a woman could only consume, then she's going to weigh down the entire family. Your culture evolved with the mentality, "well, I guess we'll have to accomodate by eating cockroaches and bathing only once a year, oh well ...", whereas the cultures you want to change would think "let's bury her in the woods and try our luck in bed tonight".
     
  11. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Then perhaps you should learn to be more tolerant and understanding of others.

    I would also suggest that you look a little more closely to your own society's culture ...I'd suspect that they ain't nearly as perfect as you're trying to make out.

    Baron Max
     
  12. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I wonder if that's really true? I mean, were people so different then as to now? Didn't men fall in love with women like now ...weren't there such feelings like that in the old days? I mean, look at the stories ...ol' whatshisname starting a major war and a siege of Troy because of his love for Helen of Troy.

    No, I just don't think women were treated like shit in all the old cultures, I think we (or perhaps women?) just like to use that as propaganda for their special interests these days?

    No, I think men loved women then just as they do now. And I don't think that it was normal or usual for men to treat women like shit. Let's face it, the guy's own mother was a woman! Surely he didn't hate his own mother.

    Wow, ...did I go off topic, or what?? .....LOL!

    Baron Max
     
  13. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    I am tolerant of tolerant people. But by being intensely *intolerant* on the basis of gender, the men in control of such places are not worthy of tolerance. If we excuse that male cruelty on the basis of their culture, then they will keep hurting women forever. You may side with such men who have desires in their heart to abuse women... but the women don't volunteer to be executed in stonings. Don't the women's feelings count too? After all, they are the victims here... and they didn't construct or govern those societies. Often, they aren't even allowed to.
     
  14. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I think you're taking a few isolated, criminal cases of abuse and blowing it out of all and any proportion. ...sorta' like some people do with "terrorism" - a few terrorist attacks are by Muslims, so therefore all Muslims are terrorist! ...LOL!

    Show me a culture that's "intensely intolerant" of the women in it's culture. And please, don't just cite a couple of abuse cases, cite some reliable info that the entire culture abuses it's women.

    Baron Max
     
  15. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    It ain't criminal to do hurt women in such societies, Baron Max, nor are they outliers of brutality, but since you asked: Saudi Arabia. And isn't only women. Those very same countries legally use the death penalty against those who end up being gay. Should all the gays die too, just because the bigots in charge have decided to make it their culture, without the actual consent of the people they were killing?
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2009
  16. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    I think, sir, that you're sadly mistaken about that issue. I'd suggest that you do some study about the laws and culture of Saudi Arabia before you make such outlandish accusations.

    Baron Max
     
  17. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

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    People have different views. To the Saudi, homosexuals are a threat to tradition and thus must be eliminated.

    Quite simple. Intolerance is not inherently good or bad.
     
  18. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    Baron, Saudi Arabia is rabidly against gays. Saudi Arabia officially has the death penalty for acts of homosexuality, but typically reserve it to gays who commit other crimes. And in fact we have a thread in another subforum right now, talking about a muslim preacher in the UK who believes all gays should be stoned to death. Clearly, these are not exagerrations. And if this is how the *law* treats gays, then who knows what they do to them in the boonies. The same goes for women, who are not even allowed to drive on roads in Saudi Arabia.

    Indeed, the only thing that's "sad" is your odd need to defend such freakazoids who believe that their culture is an excuse to harm people they don't like. You would object if you were being stoned to death for being heterosexual, so you should object to ANY muslims who want to kill gays for being gays.

    Is it any surprise that these countries who make it their religion to be intolerant, cruel, and chauvinistic against women, very generally end up being some of the nastiest, most stone aged, most internally self-destructive dumps in the whole entire world?

    How long does it take to get your shit together? Forever, if you perpetuate the problems yourself.

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  19. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

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    Again, you assume we have to be tolerant. People don't, and society has no obligation to be tolerant. In fact, an intolerant society would likely be more efficient and more monotonous, thus with less division.
     
  20. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    Their view being different doesn't make their view not stupid and ignorant. Eradicating gayness is impossible. You can kill one person, but you can never kill all of them and you can't ever stop gayness from recurring.

    If I said it was my "differing view" to eliminate Saudi Arabians on the basis that they threaten progression, I don't think I'd be hearing the same "you should be allowed to kill the Saudis, because treating them that way is your culture" attitude that you are excusing the Saudis for having.

    The bottom line is that having "a differing view" is not a valid excuse to hurt people who never did a single bad thing to harm anyone else in their whole lives, and that's that.

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  21. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    Generally speaking, the most intolerant nations are the suckiest nations, norse. They're weak, primitive, and all-around crappy to live in.

    But hey, it's your trip.
     
  22. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

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    Nope, because such views are merely matters of perception.

    They might view your defense of homosexuality as "stupid and ignorant". You see?

    Let me make it clear, firstly, that I am all for homosexual rights. I'm simply playing the devil's advocate here:

    Perhaps what you say is true, but nonetheless it can be kept out of society through a targed eradication. Furthermore, with the use of technology it could be possible to eliminate it.

    Actually you would.

    Human society functions based on a majority; if the majority, including those behind the state, believed that all Saudis should be eliminated, then what is to stop them? It is the battle of the wills.

    Therefore you are free to eliminate them if you can get the law on your side; morals are irrelevant. Your justification could be that they are undesirables, for instance.

    Except that is not how everyone views it. From the perspective that the protection of tradition is the ultimate good, then homosexuals have not "never done a single bad thing"; they have done the ultimate bad, they have harmed tradition. Therefore, from that perspective, it is justified.
     
  23. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

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    This is not due to intolerance, it's due to other factors.

    Nazi Germany was intolerant and yet leaps and bounds past its counterparts in the sophistication and organization department.
     

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