I think impractical, or self-defeating might be better terms.
i don't think so. impractical would kind of insinuate that it can't be done or that it wouldn't have the intended outcome, which i don't think has anything to do with what you're saying. self-defeating is the same as the second option there.
And you are right that a tyrant can't impose a culture. It takes the willingness of others to go along.
You misunderstood my examples. Although I did mention Mao, I never said Hitler, and I gave a specific recent example of a democratic gov't instituting a cultural policy from a grassroots movement.
My position is that groups ATTEMPT to impose a culture. That is not the same thing as actually achieving such a thing... other than getting a visual (outward) simulation of such.
not being successful has no bearing on the discussion whatsoever.
and i think you mentioned hitler in a different thread (or rather the nazi party).
In this quest they often (I might argue always) and up using coercion to get people to submit to this goal. Hence it is not an "honest" change in opinion, but rather a manufactured obedience.
yes, but who is to say the previously existing culture wasn't there by imposition and coercion as well? this is what i was getting at with the question of whether it's wrong to seek to encourage cultural change. if the existing culture is only there through coercion (some would argue that all social cohesion exists through coercion) then what's wrong with displacing it?
Even using your own criteria, to some allowing homosexuality to exist, or women to have a say in public life, is a "more damaging" norm, than to proscribe such activities. I personally would not hold that, but that does not make my position more valid. They are each statements of taste (and assumption of outcome). What I don't want is to empower the idea that that other person can make the same argument you just made to justify crushing my community/nation/beliefs.
i really don't like moral relativism. you don't have to be religious to belief there really are things that are inherently right and wrong.