Of course different cultures exist and different norms apply. Real problems exist in creating dialogue if we seek to apply our norms to other cultures, if we say, "our system is best, yours is 'mediaeval' and must be wrong".
I still have an issue with this. Perhaps it is just because we are approaching this from different perspectives. My first instinct is analytical - describe the world as it is, regardless of the implications of that description. After that, look to develop the best policies to address any perceived issues resulting from that assessment of reality. And while sometimes describing something as it is makes it more difficult to address the issue, without such an understanding of reality as it exists, developing any policy to address the issue becomes exceedingly (and potentially insurmountably) difficult.
Some cultures ARE inferior to others, based on particular metrics (whether those mnetrics are the production of an end result - literacy, degree of freedom, economic and health performance etc.) or just in general. Now some may say that factor X is irrelevant or that we should not pay attention to it in weighing cultures, or may say that it is difficult to balance a positive for one culture in X with a negative in Y, and that's fair. But I think there are enough common metrics, with enough clear superiority, to say that we in the west should have little interest in moving our culture towards the dominant culture in the middle east, and that we should resist attempts to move our society in that direction.
I also believe their societies would be better of if they moved in our direction (though I do not see the need, or the possibility, of supplanting culture, just in migrating elements to those more conducive to cooperation, development and social progress).
But that is a secondary issue. The first is to merely assess. I took a law, economics and development class in law school a number of years back. One of the biggest take-aways I had as the importance of assessing the legal, policial/institutional and cultural regimes before designing policies to foster sustainable development. Otherwise, you will not be able to use the tools you have available properly.
We may believe it to be wrong but we can only demonstrate our system to be preferable by showing its application and the positive benefits of it in our own societies. As I said before, we cannot oppose intolerance by using intolerant methods; the very intolerant methods that make us believe the other cultures and ideologies are inferior to our own.
I don't entirely agree. You can use rationing to win a war against a fascist enemy (as was done in WWII) without losing the essence of the capitalist economy. And you can use intolerance of certain practices, like female genital mutilation, to protect the freedom of victims in your society to live the lives they are entitled to live as free people.
In principle I agree with you, but for two points.
Firstly, I would suggest that our 'knowledge' and judgement of several alternative systems and different cultures is exceedingly poor. Unless we live cheek-by-jowl with another culture we get a picture that is skewed by its excesses and extremes. We see and hear about only the things that are newsworthy or which directly affect our dealings with that culture. It's like standing on the frontier of a country, looking across the border. From our position all we see of that country is mountains. Do we conclude that that is a mountainous country throughout, simply because that all we see from the border looking in? All we can really conclude is that that country has a mountainous border as we have insufficient information to make broad sweeping judgements from where we are standing.
and that is a fair point. But we are not really looking at just the mountains, as if they were natural phenomena that merely exist independent of the culture. There is a reason why health, economic, social statistics are as they are. There is a reason why some societies incline to openness and democracy while others do not. There is a reason why people in some societies are less likely to be open about their societies' failings, or more likely to seek scapegoats and believe in conspiracy theories.
They may be mountains, and miss the warm interpersonal relationships between members of those societies, but I do not view that to be particularly material. Because we are not seeking to assess whether a society has ANY redeeming features, or superior features (there are enough criteria that all societies likely do farily well in at least some), rather to assess whether we see value in our society moving closer or further away from that one in terms of internal dynamics - such as the debate going on in much of continental Europe, as large immigrant populations fail to assimilate.
I think that our Western media and governments give us a very poor insight in what other cultures are really about.
Combine those with the statistics, and the impressions get much more accurate.
Secondly, we have no business seeking to enshrine anything into a society which is not ours to manipulate.
I think this is somewhat off my point, but I also do not entirely agree.
Off point (which is fine) because I am more focused on allowing changes to OUR societies, which we clearly do have the right and interest to address.
But I do not entirely agree for two reasons - one purely self interested, the other, universalist.
on the self-interested point, how other societies act, react and view the world has a direct impact on people in the world around them. We are not in bubble states anymore (even if we ever were). The attitudes of people in the middle east (particularly in Wahabbi culture) and leadership in Iran have had a direct and very negative impact on the world for the last 60+ years, and that impact continues to be felt (and to be amplified as that culture, through Wahabbi money, is spread throughout the world). We have a direct interest, at a minimum, of slowing or reversing the spread of Wahabbi ideology, practices and cutlreu both within the middle east and throughout the rest of the world.
While it is people who kill, it is ideology that ultimately starts the process of killing on a mass scale. And not all ideologies share the same propensity in this regard.
The other reason is, as I said, universalist. Why should a child be denied basic rights because the child was born a woman in Saudi Arabia? As free people, how can we stand aside and deny our voice where people are murdered for being gay? Who are we to willfully shield our eyes and say "that is none of my concern, you have a right to supress whomever you like within your borders"?
I've always had a bit of an issue with avoiding that line of thought/argument when discussing this sort of cultural imperialism type position (which I am advocating, it seems). Sure "cultural imperialism" may be wrong, and cause issues with self-determination and the like, and for innocuous things cultures should be left alone. But there are certain things we should not turn our backs on. And to the extent that those actions are manifestations of a culture, don't we have a duty to both speak out and try to affect positive change?
I'd dearly like to enshrine tolerance of sexual diversity into Iran, but I have no business do anything about it unless there are Iranians willing to struggle towards that end.
Those strung up like meat in public squares struggled, no? In non-free societies, public polls and street protests are, unofrtunately, poor metrics of public views (one way or the other). They may reflect views. Or they may not.
What we can do is show how beneficial it is to a society as a whole for sexual diversity to be given (relatively) free rein.
And to punish societies that do not meet what we consider basic levels of decency. We have free will in this too.
I don't disagree with you at all, I don't want to live in a society like that either. I am not bothered by those who argue for it in Western societies however, as I don't see any ground-swell of opinion rising to approve of such moves. How many fundamentalists would it take for such ideas to be implemented in a Western country? Many millions, and many millions of fundamentalists there ain't. Implementation of Shari'a in any compulsory form would require democratic approval via an election of a majority of legislators committed to it or by a plebiscite. Tell me in which Western nation
you fear that would be approved?
The Netherlands, to start. And it is a creeping problem. If you don't take steps to integrate when there are a million people from a foreign culture, how are you going to deal with 5 million? 10 million? 50 million?
Sure, there are dangerous Islamic groups, but they are a tiny minority. There are also many aspects of mainstream Islamic theology that are incompatible with Western values, but I don's see any aggressive proselytising of these positions by the mainstream Moslem communities in any Western society.
minorities can dominate societies. We see that all over the world. And you don't see it, but it's there. Here's a good recent article comparing Islam in the US and Islam in Canada. Illustrates the impact of control of funds and religious institutions on the impact of a group of people on a culture. You could observe the same looking at Christian groups in the US.
Stephen Schwartz: Why Canadian Muslims are different - Full Comment
I think the basis of anti-semitism is identical to the basis of Islamophobia. It is scapegoating using false differences and imputed motives that have nothing to do with what Jewish people really believe or might seek to bring about.
I disagree. Almost completely. I think that the view of Islam may be ascribing the position of a minority to the majority, but it most certainly is NOT the case that no Muslims (or even a de minimis inconsequential group of Muslims) holds that view. We have statements from the Saudi/Hamas front groups like CAIR specifically stating that Islam is here to dominate, and we have Islam's "bloody borders" which speak to the conflict which seems to continually arise when cultures clash with Islam.
Muslims have cut off people's heads because they were not Muslim. Jews have never used gentile blood to make matzah for passover.
That incidences of anti-semitism have increased greatly throughout the World in the aftermath of the Gaza episode suggests that anti-semitism and the behaviour of the Jewish-Israeli state have a lot to do with one another, rightly or wrongly.
Anti-semitism is always there. It just takes a spark to set it off. This was true with Dreyfuss in France, it was true through centuruies of pogroms, and it is true today. The spark doesn't cause anti-semitism, it just sets it alight.
No, it's not, but intolerance of an entire culture based on the intolerant behaviour of a small part of that culture, is. One is just a mirror image of the other.
TBC...
again, disagree. It is not a de minimis minority, and if there is no other way to segment that group, the broader culture falls under suspicion. Especially where the smaller group is a product of the broader culture. I don't want to see women iin bags walking around town. I don't want it to be more or less ok that Muslims can chase after people they think are Jewish with Machetes like just happened in Ottawa and that warrants less press, less discussion, less introspection, than Ann Colter coming to Canada to give some nonsense talk.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2766638
Jews need protection at their children's schools, their synagogues, their meeting places because of the threat from Muslims. That's just a fact. Jews are singled out for murder by Muslims. That's also a fact.
And I frankly don't really care how many of them support that sort of action. Cause they sure as hell don't care enough to do anything about it. They just try to limit the damage of such actions on their own population (fear of "backlash" and all).
My children should not need guards to protect their school in Canada. I sure as hell shouldn't need armed paramilitary guards with submachine guns to protect me when I go to synagogue for high holidays.
But I do.
Because in Canada, we tolerate the intolerant.
