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January drudion & I've had it with the Drude's xenophobic insinuations
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Bonzo the Cat
Bonzo the Cat
138 posts

Edited Jan 10, 2008, 09:59
Re: January drudion & I've had it with the Drude's xenophobic insinuations
Jan 07, 2008, 10:04
nigelswift wrote:
What is right and what is wrong? It depends which side of the fence you are on.

Oooh, now you've really got me confused.

Sounds like there is no such thing as wrong and anyone who hazards an opinion to the contrary is small-minded and unjustly riding roughshod over the rights of another to see it differently.

Is there no such thing as a heinous crime then? An intelligent computer might see it that way, or a Martian, but not human beings, surely? We're not wired that way.

Some things ARE wrong in human terms and they aren't rendered so by Western brainwashing, they've always been wrong whether the culture in which they occur recognises them as wrong or not. They're actually easy to define - they always involve a victim for whom those outside that culture feel compassion.


Absolutely right, nigelswift. Just as one should not condemn a culture for the number of power hungry man that misuse some of its concepts, one should not automatically have any respect for every part of another culture. First of all, it may just not be part of that culture but just an instrument of power, second not everything that is old is automatically "wisdom". It's like trying to sell futon matresses by claiming people have used it for thousands of years. Well, we've used caves for thousands of years - tradition isn't always right. I'm thinking about for instance woman's circumcision, specifically clitoridectomy or whassitcalled.

Blindly embracing a culture and all of it's aspects is just the other side of generalisation. The crux is that generalisation is the point at which one refuses to think things through.

I'll put it simply: "do what you will, lest ye harm no one" - and anything that willingly infringes on this principle and anyone who puts other individual's choices and lives to use for solely his or her own benefit *is* wrong. This said, part of this is an entirely western point of view. If you could save the lives of millions by killing 10000, would you do it? West says no, but East might think otherwise, and it all depends on whether you want every individual to survive, or whether you want the "tribe" to survive.

Both West and East agree on one thing though: no one shall put others to use for his or her *individual* needs. This is a general cultural tool (the most powerful "meme") that goes directly against survival of the fittest of the individual gene and allows us to build societies allowing for memes to survive. Only, the West sees this from the side of the individual and thus concludes that no one can do anything to anyone else, whereas the East sees it more from a society viewpoint, meaning that the individual, while not subject to other individuals, is subject to the society. Unfortunately, this leaves the road open for misuse of power (Taoism and Confucianism were basically ways of doing this). Nevertheless, what the fuck does it matter all this theorising, as each of both West and East cultures completely chokes on misuse of power and does not live by its principles at all. What I'm saying is that, while there's some truth in theoretical discussions, it's a dangerous path as with theory you can prove anything. Therefor I say, don't condemn the whole on any a priori grounds, but look at ways of making each society live according to maximalisation of happiness for the greatest amount of people.

Anyway, the point being it's a difficult discussion and nor blindly accepting nor blindly condemning a society or culture will get us anywhere. It's about changing *behaviour*, not cultures.

Arf!
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Re: January drudion & I've had it with the Drude's xenophobic insinuations (nigelswift)
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