Human rights, cultural diversity, and moral relativity

The tradition is intact.That's all I meant.

Silent H responds to me:

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If you think my question means I'm dumb

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No, I think your question means you are playing dumb. And your pretending to not understand the difference only means you are unwilling to engage in serious discussion. You want to bog it down in trivia.

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Since all it was, was a single word with a question mark

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No, it wasn't. It was part of a continued expression of ideas. To pretend that the entire sequence has no effect on the meaning of the individual words is to play dumb. Especially since I went on to give an example that even though it is accepted doesn't lead to a "universal" claim. In short, I used a word and then proceded to define precisely what I meant by it. And then you claimed confusion?Do you think I'm stupid?

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Maybe you were trying to ask what I meant by universal, or why I would use that term.

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Well, considering that you didn't use that term, I am hard pressed to comprehend how anybody could interpret my use of the word as a request for you to clarify your use of it.Unless you're playing dumb again.

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No I don't think you are stupid. My argument with her was directly related (spun off from) FGM, which is why I introduced the other elements.

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And yet, here you are saying that you weren't talking about what you directly posited to molbiogirl when she made the same argument crashfrog and I were making.Are you playing dumb again?

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As far as between you and I, if you want it just straight out killing for no other reason, I can go with it. Until I add something else in a discussion with you directly, don't include what I am saying to someone else. We have a different debate arc.

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And there you go with the playing dumb again.We all made the same argument to you, Silent H: We're all using the same argument. To pretend that you were responding to "different debate arcs" is disingenuous at best.Do you think we're stupid?

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Certain arbitrary constructions of morality are more effective than others.

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This isn't something I'd dispute. However, isn't there a line drawn on how to improve a morality's effectiveness, drawn from our own concept of individual rights?

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Only in the sense of observing the results.

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I won't play dumb, and I won't treat someone as stupid.

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And yet, here you are, an entire post of playing dumb and treating others as stupid.

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I have changed during the time I was gone and I do not feel I have time to waste on vain bickering.

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And yet, here you are, bickering.

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Can we agree to keep things civil?

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You reap what you sow.

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By the way, I like your new avatar.

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Thanks. It's me as Adam as Jess as Hamlet from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) doing the "What a piece of work is man" speech...about the only serious moment in the entire play. Second time I've done it (previously playing Daniel). All I need is one more as Jess and I'll have the hat trick.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

molbiogirl responds to me:

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The tradition is intact.

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That's all I meant.

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But by coming here where it isn't performed and one can seek asylum from being sent back to Africa where it would be performed, it would seem the tradition is being broken.If it doesn't happen here and the number of women who eventually undergo it is smaller than would have been the case had they stayed in Africa, how does that keep the tradition "intact"?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

A child cannot seek asylum.Even after a girl is mutilated, she is kept quiet.Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out - David Horowitz Legislation on Female Genital Mutilation in the United States
Center for Reproductive Rights Briefing Paper
http://www.reproductiverights.org/pdf/pub_bp_fgmlawsusa.pdf FGM has been illegal in Germany for 6 years.Just this last September, two German girls, ages 1 and 4, were rescued.Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out - David Horowitz "A first".It was dumb luck these girls were spared.It's going to take a lot more than a couple of laws on the books to stop this barbarity.

i didn't say that.if circumcision is done properly, it's a tony little bit of flesh. if it is done improperly, that's an entirely different matter. if fgm is done properly, it's a lot of flesh and a permanent infection, if not death.if heart surgery is done improperly it means death. great. wooo. you're not arguing rationally.

I am sorry to see you are unwilling/unable to maintain civility. I answered a post of yours in another thread before seeing this one. You may ignore it.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

I've picked thru your posts to try and draw a bead on your "destroy" v. "preserve" conundrum.Message 22 was the best I could do. You are way off the mark.Just by way of introducing myself, you should know, I have a degree in Anthropology (Cultural Anthropology!).Please show me where anyone in this thread has "questioned the value of cultural diversity/integrity". If????Tiananmen Square? Again. Monoculture? Who here has advocated a monoculture? ???Shia v. Sunni? The very definition of FGM.Uncut women are harshly punished....The rest of your post natters on about some mythical global monoculture.FYI, by definition, any culture is a "monoculture". Any culture "acts like a headmaster" aka sets up rules. Any culture punishes deviants.The question you should have asked:How can universal human rights exist in a culturally diverse world?http://www.un.org/rights/dpi1627e.htm It should be patently obvious that the "protection of cultural heritage" (FGM) is sometimes going to come in conflict with other basic human rights (bodily integrity).In the UN Declaration of 1948, which is still the central reference text in the debate concerning the universality of human rights, the inviolability of the person is formulated in Article 3 with the words, “Everyone has the right to life, freedom and safety of person,” and it is expressed in Article 5 with the explicit prohibition of torture and the prohibition of cruel treatment and punishment.In 2005, the Organization of African Unity resolved to strive for gender parity. The OAU and others in Africa are fighting tooth and nail to change their society(ies).Your contention that eurocentric monsters are intent on destroying "the other" is soooooo 1970.

Here in the United States, 1:500,000. 26 deaths per year.Thompson, Robert S.
Routine Circumcision in the Newborn: An Opposing View.
Journal of Family Practice, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 189-196, 1990.The death rate for FGM is 10%!The rate of MGM "accidents" here in the U.S. is 1.5%.Journal of Urology, Vol 153, no 3 part I, March 1995, pp 778-779.I'm not sure how one can classify FGM "accidents", since "normal" FGM results in lifelong pain/infections/cysts/fistulae.

Okay, there seems to be a serious communication problem going on.We took as a right limitations on how OTHERS can change us. To be consistent that would require a limit on how we can change others.Yes it would fall within your given rights to effect political change of "country-life" culture within your own nation, but not so for emancipating women in other nations. The community limit is the nation. If you think you have voting rights elsewhere, you are mistaken. If you are forcing legal changes in other cultures where you have no vote, over the say of those people, then you are acting contrary to national sovereignty.The fact that "country-life" is a subculture of your national culture means nothing. There is a tacit agreement that change can be effected between you by your nationality. Of course that too probably has limits based upon the specific nation. Individual rights differ from nation to nation. We would not allow royalty to exist, you would.Your street is united as a community. It is a part of the same city and nation right?Your insult regarding my wolf example doesn't make sense. Just because they lack tech to reach each other is something completely different. WE can just as easily fly them over as we fly ourselves, the packs will not simply take the new group as insiders because of their wolfness. Neither do other humans just because we fly ourselves in and can point to our humanness. And I might add that the wolf example can be used within America or Germany. Different packs don't view all wolves as part of their own.Yes I do agree that some forms of political/social action are legitimate. The ones that entail effecting our own behavior, not directly effecting theirs. A boycott for example would be legitimate, and might very well produce change. However a blockade for example would not be legitimate. Well... Isn't your stated solution that we should try to change the other culture right up until they "win" and then you love their alternative?My "solution" as it were is to recognize that cultures do try to influence each other, just as gov'ts try to change their citizens. As citizens have placed limits on how the gov't may do this, so nations can from any "community of nations". That is what we asked from other nations in the past. Just because we have power now, I do not understand why that policy should be repealed.As far as nuking others go, that acts as a reductio for your position not mine. That would involve frying other nations, right? Hence against the right we took not to be interfered with. I am protecting multiculturalism from such threats... as well as the more subtle cases of enforced social engineering through sheer economic might. No, because severity of the practice is a culturally relative thing. The limits are based on what we would not want other nations to do to us, period. Well let me add the caveat "If we no longer had superpower status and other nations had powers to effect us." The OP was raising the question of whether individual rights (now called "human rights") are something that applies to all humans in some objective fashion, such that they exist as a mandate and can be applied across different cultures.As part of this I discussed how such a concept leads to actions that are not what we would have accepted in the past, and is becoming an attack on cultural diversity. Individual rights become a set of laws that WC nations have a right to police in others.While my OP mentioned this stemming from a debate with one specific poster, it was not Nator, nor did I claim that anyone said we should Nuke or go to war as a first option. I have used examples of warfare to start finding the lines that we would draw on activity, because the original statements tended to be without them. In other words it was the lack of limitations, plus a mandate. I am questioning both.Please, dear gods, I hope this is clearer.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

By definition, no it isn't.Your loose (and therefore inaccurate) definition of culture needs some fine-tuning: As can easily be seen from this definition, "culture" can refer to the any number of national "sub" cultures. It means everything.There is no over-riding, monolithic, "national" culture. And, as I mentioned earlier, just such an international consensus has been reached. Via the United Nations.The United Nations Human Rights Treaties No. Individual rights are human rights. Human rights are international. By international consensus!If you feel that individual rights are somehow different from human rights, please enlighten me.

I'll answer your last two posts to me in this one reply. I want to gain clarity by condensing answers (not using a quote by quote reply). Please pardon if this is a little longer than usual, since it does address two different posts.On the data, L-K explains discrepancies with previous studies, and they make sense... particularly for the Sudanese.While I agree that enjoyment and pleasure do not MEAN orgasm, the lack of that term in the listed study responses, does not mean they didn't have them. You also seem to leave out that the Egyptian women (the one's with less of an overt proscription on sexual discussion?) have a rather high % of sexual satisfaction.As far as NEWER studies go, that's great and I'll take a look. Thanks. As a forward, it was hard to tell what those %'s were referring to, but they were rather low when it came to "less frequency of sexual desire per week (28%), less initiative during sex (11%)... being less orgasmic (39%), and less frequency of orgasm (25%)..." Strangely that last point was countered by "... having difficulty reaching orgasm (60.5%)?"In any case, you understand that that was a clinical study right? Those have limitations... the people there are more likely to be suffering than others in the total population. Also, it was an incidence of complaint, which could very well be subjective and based on other factors.The Medline literature search article explicitly states it includes studies that would be suspect given L-K's findings. Given that I never stated the above, I'm not sure why I am supposed to answer it. But let me give some type of answer so hopefully I don't see it again...First of all it isn't objectively "barbaric", that is a subjective label and cuts to the kind of thing I am actually trying to address. To those in such cultures, women without FGMs are barbaric, mere animals. It is civilized to do this. So then if they had power should they legitimately change our society because of our "barbaric" practice of allowing women to be mere animals? To not be the true, rich humans, we're supposed to be?Second, FGM was given as an example of a single practice. I would argue its elimination will change the culture, but not destroy it. This does reduce diversity and if cultures are allowed to police each other, more than just FGM could fall under that same scheme in time. It is just like someone asking if eliminating complete free speech (ban the KKK for example) would destroy our culture. Of course not, but the reason it got changed and they way it was changed would be significant, and have consequences.2nd post...I never argued we should preserve cultures, simply not act in specific ways to try to change them (overt coercion). This was within a larger discussion of if any specific culture had a right to police the morality of others based on claims to own a moral system pertaining to all... as well as whether a world community of humans existed, as opposed to a world of humans with many separate communities.That's cool you have degree in Cultural Anthro. I took a course in it as part of my Soc minor. I wanted to have that be my minor, but they dumped it as a full program (or collapsed it I guess) after I started. But I suppose that's all besides the point.Posters have said that cultural diversity is not as important as standing up for human rights. No I'm not going to slog back through posts to find such quotes. In fact if everyone wants to say they never said that and would NOT violate cultural integrity in the name of human rights, then I guess I won. If you want cases off the top of my head, Ikabod and MrJack had clear comments to that effect. Indeed Ikabod definitively advocated a monoculture. Others suggested that averaging of cultures to a common norm would be right/acceptable, which I defined as a monoculture.You didn't seem to understand my comment on China (external not internal stomping on democracy) nor cultural diversity driving conflict (that was stated as inherent by Ikabod, which I disagreed with).If you had read all posts as you claimed, you would have seen where I did say that single cultures CAN become monocultures through internal repressions... and attempts at PRESERVATION (shooting down one of your initial false claims about my position). Vibrant cultures usually include subcultures and evolve over time, including from external sources. If you do not understand that that is what my OP is addressing, and this whole thread dedicated to, then there has been a vast miscommunication. Doesn't the thread title alone convey that concept?The only thing I've added is smaller points regarding moral relativism, which would have to reject universal human rights as an objective state of affairs from a theoretical point of view.As far as the UN charter goes, what does that mean about anything? So a legal contract was built which calls for adoption of a moral principle, to the exclusion of other people's moral principles, and at the same time says... that's not what we're doing! Such high-falootin' activity has been done in the past again and again. If you can't see the logical inconsistencies, I'd be happy to point 'em out for you. That a bunch of people agree to it, doesn't make it more rational or right.As far as OAU and "others" are concerned, that neither challenges my statements, nor proves changes are not being pressured from outside. And indeed does nothing to answer the questions within my OP.I agree nations and cultures can change. If they want to change fine. That there is a set of moral rights associated with just being human and which nations or cultures who do not agree are somehow violating, and an objective injustice occurring that others must try to end, would be a claim in question.I would point out on the OAU some of it is likely the result of pressure from outside to meet Eurocentric expectations for economic reasons. Don't ya think?What's wrong with the 70's?

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

While you claim to have read every post, I just don't see it. Or is this a Fish Called Wanda thing, where reading doesn't necessarily mean understanding? Heheheh... just kidding, not serious. I'm sure you're very smart. I just don't understand how you keep missing clear statements I have made.In the OP I clearly suggest that WC is trans-national. I mean I just do not understand how that can be missed. And it was used exactly in the spirit of the definition you provided.After that I have explained (and in more than one post) that I treat COMMUNITIES as the legal entities people have grouped themselves. Thus a culture can cross communities, and a community can contain many cultures. And indeed a culture can contain many subcultures.For ease/brevity/consistency, I have defined individual nations... which ARE the largest community bodies... as any individual's main culture. That is because while any one may actually be a subculture, for example western nations to the overall WC, they contain enough socio-political differences to be treated as a culture in their own right. For example, the US does not recognize royalty. Other western nations do not recognize each others' royalty. Etc. And then within each nation are subcultures.There in fact is a national culture. They all share the common belief, value, behaviors etc regarding the laws which pertain to themselves, including how they are made and what limits placed on such processes. If you do not believe that nations can be bullied into agreements and contracts under the guise of international, or multinational consensus... I give you the coalition of the willing.The UN in particular, while starting as an institution of individual nations, preserving national sovereignty, has over time developed into a morality machine. Indeed some claim it doesn't go far enough and should be pushing other nations into democracy. I'm sorry but is that an appeal to authority, or to majority? All you are saying is that it has been made so, by some group.Are individual rights something intrinsic to being human, based on some other source than a bunch of humans saying they are making it so? I mean with that basis in time an international body could say FGM is a human right, that wouldn't make it so... right? Or more realistically that homosexuality is against human rights, that atheism is against human rights...In addition, nations that sign such agreements often have different takes on what they mean or how they get applied. Some of those conventions you listed intrinsically involve ethnocentric takes on different communities, with no bearing on rights at all. Sure makes it sound good though!

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

From Ms. Lightfoot-Klein's article: In light of this alone, "sexual satisfaction" of a mutilated Sudanese woman means something entirely different from the "sexual satisfaction" of an uncut woman.By "explanation" I am assuming you mean this, as you have referred to it several times: OTTO, H. A., (Nov. 10-13, 1988). The Extended Orgasm: New Perspectives. Paper presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, San Francisco.MEGAFU, U. (1983). Female Ritual Circumcision in Africa: An Investigation of the Presumed Benefits Among Ibos of Nigeria. East Africa Med. Journal, 40(11), 793-800.VERKAUF, B. S. (1975). Acquired Clitoral Enlargement. Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality, 9(4), 134.MONEY, J., et al. (1955). Hermaphroditism: Recommendations Concerning Assignment of Sex, and Psychologic Management. Bulletin of Johns Hopkins Hospital, 97(4),284-300.None of these are available online.They are too old.It is interesting to note, however, that the author finds 32 y.o. study compelling. One that deals with hermaphrodites, at that. No, dear."Difficulty" can mean "absence of".Let's revisit that first quote: It is patently obvious that "sexual satisfaction" to a woman socialized to believe that "agonizing pain" is perfectly acceptable means something ... unique.Ms. Lightfoot-Klein chose not to share her data, with the exception of 3 case studies, so I am unable to say with certainty what she means by "sexual satifaction".This reluctance to share data is unusual, to say the least.
90% of the 97 women interviewed experienced orgasm?
And we are to take her word on this? I'd like to see your evidence, H.(Hint: Even the most repressive regimes cannot dictate a monoculture.) Again. By international consensus, the OAU has pledged to follow the treaties I mentioned upthread. Perhaps you are able to read the minds of the OAU, but I am sadly lacking in that ability. Just a "legal contract", eh?Bring on the inconsistencies!

Please provide cites to the relevant literature re: common values, behaviors, etc. of a national "culture". Long on bluster, short on answers.Look. In the OP you referred to individual rights. Are you unable to define individual rights?And unless you are able to document this supposed "coercion", I suggest you stop with the bare assertions.

First of all, I explained that it was arbitrary, and why. It was for ease/brevity of debate. A claim that you cannot understand there is for all practical purposes of discussion a separate socio-political belief for each nation without a literature search seems disingenuous at best.Each member within a nation subscribes to their nation's system of laws, either ideologically or in practice. These laws set out how people within that nation, and so differing cultures within the nation, may effect each other through coercion by state means. Other nations generally do not have their laws allowing people of other nations to do so. Hence it becomes for all practical purposes of discussion its own subculture. Uh, you committed a logical fallacy. Pointing that out isn't bluster. Neither is asking a bunch of questions (which you refuse to answer). I did define them. Need it again? Fine... and I'll do it really careful...Individual rights are those rights taken by me (or other individuals) which limit the scope and nature of laws instituted by gov't, as well as from actions of individuals. To amplify: these rights have a reciprocal effect towards those who I hold them against. Thus I can't say to another that I have a right to free speech, and then stop someone else from speaking.A set of individual rights for citizens within the US are established within the U.S. Constitution, as amendments. Even this documented and agreed upon list is NOT the end all be all of what rights are. People may champion still more rights for individuals, and others (or entities such as the gov't) can try to repeal existing rights or interpret them in ways which segments of the population do not like.Now, you show me yours... sans appeal to authority or majority. What are you talking about? Which coercion and why would I have to document any specific ongoing act when the whole point is about whether coercion is legitimate, not whether it is ongoing?

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard