Human rights, cultural diversity, and moral relativity

Changing one's own culture makes sense because one is a part of that culture. I mean I'm not sure how that does not make sense.As I do agree, change will occur. The question is on limits. Thus we can start with you can change anything everywhere no matter the means, and whittle it down from there. I am arguing that the concept of individual rights itself, those rights I demand for myself which cannot be negotiated away, sets the shape for that final whittled product.I would take it, that someone outside of my community (the largest unit of community we have) does not have a legitimate right to force change on my nation... whether we choose to change because we like an idea from the outside is another matter. If some nation attempted to do such a thing I would say that is unjust and attempt to stop them any way I could. If I found my nation was not in a position to stop it, I would declare it simply unjust and defend it on the personal level.The problem is, from my perspective, what happens to those nations who cannot defend themselves when WE have the power. It would be hypocrisy to know I'd fight it in the one case as unjust, and then demand it in the next. They can't judge me, I can't judge them. They shouldn't forcibly change me, I shouldn't forcibly change them. Well that's a bit tricky, but for all practical reality it is the nation. In your case that might extend to the EU.Can we agree the "British invasion" of the 50s/60s was not the same thing as Spain's conquest of Central America? That perhaps the latter is not considered a just method anymore, given international law regarding national sovereignty as we set up based on individual rights? This appears contradictory. That we do something hypocritical does not argue hypocrisy is the best method.I mean sure I like individualism, but there are things we stop people from doing... what limits do we have on THAT? Or do we expect from the concept of individual rights? Not everything is on the table. I didn't claim that all things will become criminal, and didn't mean to claim that all things thought criminal will be uniform throughout. I meant exactly what you said above. And in that situation, disagreement itself will be criminal. Where will people turn, when the whole world has that single idea and the will to enforce it.Sounds great if you happen to agree with what everyone else does. Yeah, I get that and agree. Doesn't HOW they do this make a difference?Or is it really just dog eat dog, and we should not worry about the hypocrisy? I mean you come off with this attitude, yet don't you argue the absolute moralists are in error and should not be foisting their beliefs on others? If you took the position that whatever they can get away with is fine, then I might feel your position was more seriously held. First of all you sort of blew by one of the important questions I asked in my OP. What do you mean by "natural rights"? Is that like natural law? I'm not trying to be sarcastic in this question.I posed that there were originally individual rights, which are what we claimed for ourselves from governing institutions. We said in future gov'ts we would demand these things beyond negotiation. Since then it has slowly morphed into a campaign of "human rights" as if they belonged to everyone... i.e. are objectively true... and so must be brought to everyone in the fashion that we understand them.And that's the problem. We secured these rights from... YOU GUYS!!! Heheheh. Then we made sure we had them secured from our own. While it is nice and all to think that others might pick this up, I'm not sure why there is a burning need to FORCE that on everyone. I mean in that case Bonaparte was fantastic, so is Bush.Other people of other nations, and so cultures, have their own track going. While they might change to the way we think in the course of things, I can't buy intentional coercion of them as consistent. Convince? I said convincing is fine. Figurative war of ideas is one thing. Literal war (economic and military) is something altogether different.If one really believes the LATTER is okay, then you have de facto given up free speech. You believe that if someone can come in and use military or financial power to limit your speech, that's okay. Unless you are going to hold a hypocritical position of fine for me, wrong for you.Right?

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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

it may not amount to sexism, but that won't magically prevent it from being oppression. who said anything about coercion? many of the people who participate in fgm do so under erroneous religious understandings which have been discounted by the religious authorities. their own societies are working to correct the problem, just not very well. it's like the question of family planning versus population control. there is a huge unmet need for family planning and reproductive health services in the world. however, this has been used to defend coercive population control programs. but. providing the necessary health services doesn't require coercive programs. proper education is not coercive. demonstrating that a given practice is harmful is not coercion. showing genocide deniers that they're wrong is not a coercive attack on their culture. it's not evil to demonstrate reality and truth to people. this is really the heart of the issue.everything i know comes from the understanding of the universality of individual liberty. is it possible that this isn't the end-all be-all of humanity? yes. liberalism doesn't even account for all modern views of industrialized society. but. i'm quite convinced that even a social contract that doesn't protect the individual rights of all isn't a legitimate form of social government. i'm horribly limited by my paradigm. but if this is limitation, i'll take it.that said. if we go around wondering if anything can be objectively analyzed, we won't really accomplish much. because the answer is no. nothing can be objectively known. everything is subject to perception and perception is inherently biased. even real mathematicians will tell you that everything in that universe depends on the assumptions and corollaries that have been determined. we think that somewhere there must be objectivity, but there really isn't.

Cool post. This is true, but then it is people choosing to live in, or continue, a culture that is "oppressive" to our standards. Our own standards may be oppressive to others. Hell, I think our modern standards are oppressive.Indeed, the idea of any gov't or culture or even family is the acceptance of some level of oppression. It is only the matter of degree, isn't it?I just start having problems riding down others and acting like I've got the end all be all solution to how they should live. Ahem... I did. That was my OP. If you are talking about spreading information and letting them work things out, I don't have any problems with that at all. We would not prevent that from happening in our society as that is a part of individual rights and not contrary to the concept of our national sovereignty.I agree with you that much of these kinds of things are erroneous concepts. I'm going to disagree that its religion. While religion may be used in some parts to back it up, its been shown that these things predate any of the current religions. It is cultural tradition, which newer religions have simply recognized. In some areas religion is being used to stop the practice. Religion is simply a tool.Its stunning the degree of ignorance that has gone into shaping some of these practices. Clits as long as goosenecks so the men will feel ashamed? Sheesh. That whole piece was nice by the way, but I'm going to stress where I disagree. Individual liberty is simply a socio-political concept like democracy or capitalism. For those that wanted greater individual autonomy, this concept was taken to explain and to some extent justify their actions.As I said to Mod, while it might be nice that others decide to pick it up, there is no reality that people must organize themselves this way. It is possible for humans to view society as more important. You know what I mean? That reduces the applicability of individual rights, or universality anyway. Some people would deny it straight to your face... doesn't that sort of argue it ISN'T universal?In any case, something else falls out of that concept. If you believe you have such rights, then you have the right to create your own communities without interference with other like-minded individuals. And these can in turn restrict the coercion of other groups. This right is demanded, and it is called sovereignty.Even if one wants to apply individualism universally, aren't these other cultures just individuals who have chosen to group themselves as they have, with all their whacky concepts and self-oppressions to live a traditional life that they find value in?I think one of the problems here is that this involves not so much these people, but that it involves children. We want to say that they are individuals and that the parents should not be able to do X with them. But isn't that their right? Isn't that part of individual rights, or rather couldn't they view parental rights to continue their traditions as they see fit as an individual right?Certainly that's what Jews would claim regarding MGM.In the West we have recently been gripped with an hysteria about children. Its as if all children must be communally raised. That their most natural caretakers are not the parent, society can and should raise them, and in the way the majority likes.I just can't agree. If this is what those parents really want, then I'm not sure how I could agree they don't have that right. Yes it would conflict with the child's individual rights, BUT THAT IS ALWAYS THE CASE WITH CHILDREN. There is no sense that a child is left free reign and without coercion toward someone's expectations, and that can include physical damage to suit norms.If that next generation does not like it then they have the power to change it, or maybe they'll end up liking it... in which case who am I to say anything. Those that did not like it and cannot change it are very unfortunate. People like this can be found in every culture. It is an unfortunate reality of this world.But to wrap up on a positive note, I really do agree that providing better medical support, and accurate biological knowledge is not synonymous with coercion. Change from that route is something else.

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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

Holmes, is there any possibility you could respond to the questions I raised in Post 16?

So, what about a physical change to being dead? When a parent chooses to murder their children because they think being dead is in the child's best interest, is that a cultural practice you get behind, because parents universally know best?Or is there no practice you could see a legitimate state interest in interdicting? And if you do concede a state interest in second-guessing the decisions of parents, exactly how does your position differ from your opponents', except in detail?

my argument is that informing people doesn't require coercion... that you don't have to be coercive to change cultures, and that to change culture to defend welfare isn't damaging and won't inherently destroy the whole of that culture. fgm doesn't define tribal african and arab culture. and i don't really see where national sovereignty comes into play here. and that is the basic understanding of social contract theory. you do have a point that liberalism (the theory of individualism) is a socio-economic theory, but it is not one that developed on it's own. it was a recognition of a process of liberalization which began even before it's first codification in the Magna Carta. liberalism developed as a result of evolving sensibilities and evolving social contracts. of course, social contract theory has it's own weaknesses. (do you really thing that tyrants have a social contract with their oppressed masses?) i really dislike this use of the idea of mgm. male circumcision, while not the greatest idea in the world, does not amount to a comparable practice. using this term is dishonest. i'm also very disturbed by the way people treat raising children. i have a great desire to homeschool my children. i want to make sure they're exposed to reality and scientific truth. i want to make sure they can be competent academically, and i'm not convinced that any school can provide that. i think most school is a waste of at least 8 years. also, i'm unconvinced of the value of "socialization". i'm quite sure that school was far more damaging to my ability to relate to others than any other singular experience in my life. everyone i express this desire to looks at me like i've grown several extra body parts in funny places. i'm sure someone will demand i be put away for it. likewise, there are plenty of people (my fiance included) who claim that raising children in a religion is child abuse. i think that's insane. religion is one thing. no matter what people on here will tell you, fanaticism is entirely disparate. and this is another point of social contract theory. a society determines the contract as a whole. if you choose to break contract, you will be forced to live outside it. there is some limitation in this theoretical construct of how much an individual can control his surroundings... it suffers from some degree of determinism. i think it's one of the greatest things we can do as a great power... to support education. i wrote a paper last fall about population control and the research demonstrated that the number one way to encourage birth limiting is to encourage policies which promote gender equality and sufficient education. as it is, our population control programs --on which, among other things, much world bank funding often depends-- tend to rely on incentive and disincentive programs based on immediate financial rewards which amount to coercion in many of the impoverished societies they're instituted in, and promote more permanent methods, ignoring cultural practices, reduced agency of women in matters of reproduction and family government, and often not providing long-term medical care for the individuals who accept the treatments... including notification of and care for side affects of the treatments. the problems of cultural intervention is when the programs involved are just as detrimental as the current cultural institutions. it would appear that i actually have managed to learn something in school. also, i'd recommend you look into the used book section at amazon. that's where i get all my books. i have another one for you, if you're interested in population control issues. reproductive rights and wrongs look, they have it for a penny (plus probably $4 in shipping).

I believe surveys have supported that men lose sexual enjoyment when they do the ol' snip-snip too, no?Just me 2 Jon

Bring in the evidence, or back out the argument. Pullin' your same ol' feminazi shit again (Phat's word), nator. Won't let it slip by unnoticed this time. Onicusjay Aximusmay

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In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist... might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. - Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species
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En el mundo hay multitud de idiomas, y cada uno tiene su propio significado. - I Corintios 14:10
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A devout people with its back to the wall can be pushed deeper and deeper into hardening religious nativism, in the end even preferring national suicide to religious compromise. - Colin Wells Sailing from Byzantium
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[Philosophy] stands behind everything. It is the loom behind the fabric, the place you arrive when you trace the threads back to their source. It is where you question everything you think you know and seek every truth to be had. - Archer Opterix [msg=-11,-316,210]

I agree. My OP was only about the idea that individual rights were some sort of universal human right, that roped everyone in and on top of demanding our action, allowed us to effect cultures any way we had to.As far as your last point on FGM not defining certain cultures... I have to differ with that. While it is not true that it must be a part of it intrinsically, the fact is that it is there (has been for 100s to 1000s of years) and is definitely important to the people of that culture (they even name the worse kind after its ancient Egyptian source). They would take it as a defining part of life there. National sovereignty comes into play, if WC nations begin bullying those within nations that have the practice, to change it. They can do it through economic or military leveraging. In other words when we decide to "police" their activity, rather than simply giving them information that might lead them to change. Good question, I actually believe they do because it really takes the people to support the tyrant. Indeed it is less a persona than a tyrannical system of persons. Unfortunately to break this initial contract (however it came about) will likely require a bit of red ink. Just to let you know I'm not the only person using the term MGM. I thought maybe I had coined it earlier but then discovered it is in use.I'm not sure why you think it is dishonest at all. FGM covers a range of procedures, including direct correlations to male circumcision (they only remove the hood). If anything I think its been somewhat dishonest for people (antiFGM advocates) to treat all FGM as the most severe kinds, and to dismiss male circ as nothing.If the question is doing something to a child without their consent, then it cuts both ways (no pun intended). If the issue is pain and complications, especially in field conditions, then the same thing goes. The only difference is when we reach the extent of damage and pain for the more severe types. Does that really make a difference such that MC should be discounted (not considered mutilation)?By the way there is also subincision which is pretty gruesome, though I will admit still not as pain inducing as type 2 and 3 FGM. This is exactly why I do not like the idea of a global monoculture. At least in the past you could move somewhere and start a new nation/religion/whatever. You could literally live outside of your original culture. Now all that remains... to protect some level of escape for people... is recognizing national sovereignty such that people can find nations whose ideas are most in line with their own.Looks like we agree on the education of kids and problems of cultural intervention by counterproductive strategies.Edited by Silent H, : lil notes

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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 really would suggest that you're far to interested in confusing nationhood and culture.i also think that you're too concerned with the idea that removing damaging parts of cultures will create a hideous global monoculture. tell me. when we stopped pressing witches, did we lose our cultural identity?

Hi, H.I remember that you brought this topic up a few years ago in one or two different threads. It was a pretty thought-provoking subject, one that kept me busy for a while trying to trace a path through the forest of individual rights, human rights, and respect for cultural diversity. It was pretty worthwhile in that it led me to a deeper understanding of my own beliefs; in fact, seeing this new thread has led me to think through some of these issues again, and I've come to a few new insights into what exactly it is that I believe. This is why it's taken me so long to respond to the OP -- I've been having some trouble getting my thoughts into words, and I've finally realized that there are so many different aspects of this one topic and I was trying to respond to it all at once. I finally realized that if I'm going to play, I'll have to be less ambitious and write posts concerning one small aspect at a time.The first thing that I think needs to be said is that I, as I've said before in other threads, am a moral relativist. What I mean by this is that I do not believe that a single objective moral standard exists in reality waiting to be discovered by (or explained to) humanity. Morality, by definition, is doing right as opposed to doing wrong, and I cannot figure out how to get a coherent definition that is consistent with most of our intuitive ideas of right and wrong except to define right and wrong according to the subjective perceptions of the person who is doing the judging. Ultimately, that is how a person is going to judge the rightness and wrongness of any course of action -- it is going to be an expression of his inner moral feelings.And so I agree with your statement (or at least with how I interpret what you are saying) that the idea of human rights is basically a subjective set of standards that are not a priori the correct standards, the best standards, or the only possible standards. As you say, our current concept of human rights is a product of what we can call Western Civilization, an expression of the consensus of what we in the West feel is either part of the foundation of our ethical system or perhaps part of the results of what we value in the West (and, by the way, adopted by many other people in other parts of the world as well).That said, it is now an integral part of the moral conscience of many of us in the West. And we cannot help but be influenced in how we are going to behave and react, even to information we receive even from other countries.And what can we do? We can only try to do "right" and hope we can avoid doing "wrong". But what is "right" and what is "wrong"? "Right" and "wrong" make no sense except in terms of the emotional, visceral feelings of the individual. As such, the "right" course of action is going to depend on the individual based on her upbringing, her education, her cultural values, as well as the idiosyncracies that she will add to the mix as an individual. In the end, her behavior is going to be determined by her values, and how strongly her conscience compels her to act. How will she be able to do otherwise?So, are the individual rights of a particular person more important than the cultural values in the society in which she lives? Important enough to warrant interfering with that culture? If the abuses committed against that person arouses feelings of outrage within me, how can I avoid acting? Or is it important to respect the integrity of that particular culture, even when individuals are suffering unnecessarily (according to my beliefs)? Again, if I feel outraged at by those who self-righteously promote their beliefs over those of a culture they don't understand, how can I refrain from acting on this?This is the nature of ethics. "Rightness" and "wrongness" are not absolutes - they can only be judged by the subjective values of the individual considering the question.This isn't to say that morality and ethics cannot by discussed rationally, or that morality is beyond reasoned discourse. If you feel strongly about a topic, then you certainly have the right to try to convince others of your position -- in fact, if you feel that you are "right", what else can you do? It is perfectly fair that we try to convince others of our positions -- we have to live together, of course, and we are going to have to decide on the policies to be followed by our governments and the organizations to which we belong.There are ways to argue for one's ethical position. One can attempt to investigate the foundations of the other person's moral framework and attempt to show that there is an inconsistency. Or one can attempt to find out if there is some common ideas of what an ideal society and an ideal world would look like, and then try to show how the other person's beliefs would be counter-productive to that -- even if that other person's moral beliefs remain intact, one might at least be able to convince her of the practicality of a different course of action.This is a bit long-winded for something that I think that we both understand. However, there is always that danger in a discussion such as this one that one give the impression that one believes that one's moral standards are some sort of absolute standards, the only correct standards that everyone should adopt. There is also the danger that if one isn't careful, one can forget and come to believe that one's standards are the correct standards that everyone else should adopt -- that, too, is the nature of moral feelings -- they certainly feel real to the person who has them.

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

Well I'm not interested in confusing them, but they are the largest community dimension we have. That's where cultures divided themselves based on wars to set apart socio-economic divides. So, that's why I am using.I think it can be argued that there are cultures which span the nations, for example WC as I defined it is cross-national. However we have created sufficiently distinct subcultures at the national level that they do come into play. After all we ain't got no stupid kings n queens! Heheheh. But the point is "damaging" is subjective. Actually that section of our nation did lose its cultural identity when it stopped pressing witches. Go there today (ironically I was living for a short period of time where most of the killed witches came from) and it is quite quite different.Isn't your actual question whether I mourn the loss of it, or that what came out of it was something worse? I'd say no, from my own view point, but it was a loss of ignorance which was generated from within that culture.Now you tell me, when the aztecs stopped human sacrifice and native americans stopped raiding each other's camps, sometimes taking women for slaves, did they lose their cultural identity?

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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

Hey Chiro, thanks for the compliment regarding my last thread. I wondered if it meant anything to people at the time, and I was conscious this was sort of a resurrection of the topic. Also, don't feel bad about taking time, nor that you can't fit your position in a single post, as that is exactly the problem I had. That OP is not my complete position at all and I'm hoping questions will organically bring out the whole picture. So far so good on that.I think we are extremely similar in vantage point and honestly I am still trying to trace a path through that forest you described. Its an exciting exploration as far as I'm concerned. Your process was interesting and in a way breaks it down into a practical issue. My answer to the repeated question you raise is to ask another question. Is the person being wronged (from your point of view) the only moral question you face, once you decide to act?If it were as easy as simply "What would I do if I saw a child getting its genitals ripped off?", its likely I'd never have started the thread at all. To me we create a new layer of moral problems once we think of the action. HOW should that be achieved? What would that involve? Don't these elicit moral feelings of "duty" as well?Moral confliction is a very real possibility, and I don't think its a cop-out, or cowardice as Flies suggested, to look at all the other moral issues involved with possible acts and come to a conclusion action is impractical or morally illegitimate. And clearly we both agree on the above statement. Now one thing I would add is that in the course of investigating the foundations of another framework one may very well find problems with one's own, some reasons to empathize with the other actors (even if the act remains repellent), or keys to an alternative practical route to solving the "problem" tangentially.In the case of FGM, the documented reasons are so myth based and economically sustaining, that I tend to think increasing knowledge of biology as well as financial improvements will result in a decrease in the procedure overall (at least the most severe). And I also think increased medical tech would alleviate some of the worst, overt horror of the procedure. I feel that knee jerk response that "it is wrong" and it has to be stopped NOW, will have a detrimental effect overall.Anyway, I enjoyed your post and thought it worked through things well. I hope maybe my responses can help throw you a line to introduce other concepts/definitions you hadn't gotten to here. I definitely want to compare notes, coming from the similar positions we do.

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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

Come on, people fight against change in their lifestyles all the time. You don't care because nobody is challenging yours.Some people in California died trying to protect their homes from wildfires. Instead of evacuating, they stood in the face of towering flames. They didn't want to move their homes, they didn't want to lose their belongings, their way of life. Is it really so hard to understand?Different people and cultures choose to put value on different aspects of their lives. You happen to put it on human suffering and individual rights. Other people see it differently.

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