AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

[vtsnowedin]

Am I raciest? Of course I am. (Do you think that you are not?) I grew up in the whitest state of the Union and my father's opinions made Archie Bunker look like a Commie Pinko Fag. Set me down in Harlem on a Saturday night without a gun and two spare mags and I'll be as nervous as a cat dropped into the middle of a dog pound. But I'm working on it. the only person of another race I really dislike is because he is a complete A#$ hole irregardless of color. Trying to give everybody a fair shake and there are many of my ethnicity that don't deserve a second look but if you are breaking down my door in the middle of the night regardless of race creed or religion "I will shoot you."

[Little John]

Am I raciest? Of course I am. (Do you think that you are not?) I grew up in the whitest state of the Union and my father's opinions made Archie Bunker look like a Commie Pinko Fag. Set me down in Harlem on a Saturday night without a gun and two spare mags and I'll be as nervous as a cat dropped into the middle of a dog pound. But I'm working on it. the only person of another race I really dislike is because he is a complete A#$ hole irregardless of color. Trying to give everybody a fair shake and there are many of my ethnicity that don't deserve a second look but if you are breaking down my door in the middle of the night regardless of race creed or religion "I will shoot you."

Fair enough V. You certainly do appear to employ a commendable "equal opportunities" attitude in your dislike and distrust of your fellow humans. Personally, I'm a glass half full kind of guy. I find it uses up less psychological energy.

[AndySir]

The "we" quote can be ascribed to me. Tell me, do you consider it an unnaceptable cultural prejudice to view a cultural norm that, for instance, condones and, even, sanctions the genital mutilation of women? Or, to take another instance, condones or, even, sanctions the murder of religious apostates? I ask because I'm just wondering just how far your culturally relativistic ideal extends. If you do consider such views as evidence of unacceptable cultural prejudice, then guess I must congratulate you on your philosophical consistency and also inform you we have nothing useful left to communicate to one another. On the other hand, if you do not consider such a views as being unacceptably prejudicial, irrespective of whether you personally agree with them or not, then I am bound to ask you where you draw the line and specifically what criteria do you use when drawing it? I'm quite happy to outline the criteria I use. But, then why would you want to ask, since you already think you know?

I'm expecting a "non answer" of course. But, then, I am always ready to be pleasantly surprised.

It looks like you think you are presenting me with a dilemma, but you have missed the point. The answer is yes, I do think that the examples you gave are unacceptable cultural prejudices since there is no culture which does any of the things that you name. There are certainly individuals within certain cultures which do pretty horrible things but the moment you say 'This culture does X' then you are stepping into the realms of the irrational. When you say 'This culture does X so we will treat INDIVIDUALS from this culture differently' you are then stepping into the realms of the immoral, even if you can say that some or the majority of people within whatever subgroup you've mentioned do do X.

If the point is not sufficiently clear yet then let me ask you, as a thought experiment, whether you would be happy to name an unacceptable culture? That's a named cultural group I'm looking for not 'a culture that does this nasty thing'.

[woodburner]

This is getting baffling. Are you saying there is no culture that condones or sanctions the genital mutilation of women? If that is what you are saying I think you need to open your eyes. There are girls sent from the UK, by their mothers, for such treatment,.

[biffvernon]

And you are suggesting we home immigrants there???

No. It would be a very silly place to live and destroy a valuable ecosystem.

[AndySir]

This is getting baffling. Are you saying there is no culture that condones or sanctions the genital mutilation of women? If that is what you are saying I think you need to open your eyes. There are girls sent from the UK, by their mothers, for such treatment,.

Yes. Name it if it is so obvious. I might go for the Dawoodi Bohra, where the practice is common but not universal. Indeed there are those that call themselves Progressive Dawoodi Bohra. That issue transcends cultures, and many of the cultures in which it is prevalent have also issued laws against it. The division of opinion within even this small cultural group illustrates the danger of making judgement based on cultural groups and not individuals.

[Little John]

This is getting baffling. Are you saying there is no culture that condones or sanctions the genital mutilation of women? If that is what you are saying I think you need to open your eyes. There are girls sent from the UK, by their mothers, for such treatment,.

Yes. Name it if it is so obvious. I might go for the Dawoodi Bohra, where the practice is common but not universal. Indeed there are those that call themselves Progressive Dawoodi Bohra. That issue transcends cultures, and many of the cultures in which it is prevalent have also issued laws against it. The division of opinion within even this small cultural group illustrates the danger of making judgement based on cultural groups and not individuals.

What criteria do you use to determine whether a particular belief and/or behavioural practice may be seen as being common enough to call it a cultural practice (in other, words, a shared practice, both in terms of the beleifs underlying it as well as the practice itself) or, alternatively, uncommon enough to be seen as merely atomised actions/beliefs of individuals that has no relationship to the shared culture of the community to which they hail from.

I ask because you seem extremely unclear on this.

[AndySir]

SC: Well if the practice is not shared between all members of the group then it is not a shared practice is it? So the short answer is 100%. A fair example would be to define churchgoers as a cultural group - if an individual does not go to church then he is not a churchgoer - though he may be Christian (not opening the can of worms of what might define a Christian but it gives another good example of the difficulty of defining a cultural belief in the manner which you suggest).

In reality this condition is unlikely to be met unless you choose a specific practice and a very small group at which point your definition is likely to be tautological (a group comprised of people who believe in X believe in X) forcing the only logical conclusion - you can't make any judgement about any group of people, only about individual beliefs and practices.

[jonny2mad]

The "we" quote can be ascribed to me. Tell me, do you consider it an unnaceptable cultural prejudice to view a cultural norm that, for instance, condones and, even, sanctions the genital mutilation of women? Or, to take another instance, condones or, even, sanctions the murder of religious apostates? I ask because I'm just wondering just how far your culturally relativistic ideal extends. If you do consider such views as evidence of unacceptable cultural prejudice, then guess I must congratulate you on your philosophical consistency and also inform you we have nothing useful left to communicate to one another. On the other hand, if you do not consider such a views as being unacceptably prejudicial, irrespective of whether you personally agree with them or not, then I am bound to ask you where you draw the line and specifically what criteria do you use when drawing it? I'm quite happy to outline the criteria I use. But, then why would you want to ask, since you already think you know?

I'm expecting a "non answer" of course. But, then, I am always ready to be pleasantly surprised.

It looks like you think you are presenting me with a dilemma, but you have missed the point. The answer is yes, I do think that the examples you gave are unacceptable cultural prejudices since there is no culture which does any of the things that you name. There are certainly individuals within certain cultures which do pretty horrible things but the moment you say 'This culture does X' then you are stepping into the realms of the irrational. When you say 'This culture does X so we will treat INDIVIDUALS from this culture differently' you are then stepping into the realms of the immoral, even if you can say that some or the majority of people within whatever subgroup you've mentioned do do X.

If the point is not sufficiently clear yet then let me ask you, as a thought experiment, whether you would be happy to name an unacceptable culture? That's a named cultural group I'm looking for not 'a culture that does this nasty thing'.

This sounds like nonsense and pretty impractical, from a in group out group point of view.

on a bright note such a world view will mean you dont live long unless as some form of slave during a collapse .

The hari krishna being led as slaves during the last mad max film comes to mind .

Was the third reich an unacceptable culture ?

[Little John]

The "we" quote can be ascribed to me. Tell me, do you consider it an unnaceptable cultural prejudice to view a cultural norm that, for instance, condones and, even, sanctions the genital mutilation of women? Or, to take another instance, condones or, even, sanctions the murder of religious apostates? I ask because I'm just wondering just how far your culturally relativistic ideal extends. If you do consider such views as evidence of unacceptable cultural prejudice, then guess I must congratulate you on your philosophical consistency and also inform you we have nothing useful left to communicate to one another. On the other hand, if you do not consider such a views as being unacceptably prejudicial, irrespective of whether you personally agree with them or not, then I am bound to ask you where you draw the line and specifically what criteria do you use when drawing it? I'm quite happy to outline the criteria I use. But, then why would you want to ask, since you already think you know?

I'm expecting a "non answer" of course. But, then, I am always ready to be pleasantly surprised.

It looks like you think you are presenting me with a dilemma, but you have missed the point. The answer is yes, I do think that the examples you gave are unacceptable cultural prejudices since there is no culture which does any of the things that you name. There are certainly individuals within certain cultures which do pretty horrible things but the moment you say 'This culture does X' then you are stepping into the realms of the irrational. When you say 'This culture does X so we will treat INDIVIDUALS from this culture differently' you are then stepping into the realms of the immoral, even if you can say that some or the majority of people within whatever subgroup you've mentioned do do X.

If the point is not sufficiently clear yet then let me ask you, as a thought experiment, whether you would be happy to name an unacceptable culture? That's a named cultural group I'm looking for not 'a culture that does this nasty thing'.

This sounds like nonsense and pretty impractical, from a in group out group point of view.

on a bright note such a world view will mean you dont live long unless as some form of slave during a collapse .

The hari krishna being led as slaves during the last mad max film comes to mind .

Was the third reich an unacceptable culture ?

Ah, well now you see, the Nazi culture did not actually exist...apparently.

You see, according to AndySir, it requires that precisely 100% of the people share precisely 100% of the same beliefs and behave in precisely 100% the same way precisely 100% of the time, otherwise such a culture, as defined by a common set of behaviours/beliefs and as easily recognised as such by anybody with eyes to see, does not actually exist.

Apparently.

[AndySir]

Your attempt at reduction to the absurd fails with one simple question: were there Nazis who opposed the third Reich? Dissenters? People who rebelled? Assassination attempts against other Nazis? Might movies have been made about them, book written? Have you not now shot yourself in the foot, as it were?

[jonny2mad]

yup oscar shindler could have stopped world war 2 on his own ...if only we had known

[jonny2mad]

Your attempt at reduction to the absurd fails with one simple question: were there Nazis who opposed the third Reich? Dissenters? People who rebelled? Assassination attempts against other Nazis? Might movies have been made about them, book written? Have you not now shot yourself in the foot, as it were?

No there were dissenters but really they didnt change things, if I thought of the nazis as a threat having some nazis be anti nazis wouldnt have stopped me from bombing or killing them .

[jonny2mad]

During world war two we sunk the french fleet at Mers-el-Kebir near oran north africa, these guys had just been our allies, but we didnt want the fleet to fall into german hands .

yup nasty thing to do

But with the french fleet the germans might have won the battle of the atlantic .

We also blew up ships full of young children, 14 Norwegians drowned could have been lots more, the ships were carrying heavy water for german atom programme

Apparently these ships didnt have enough heavy water to make a nuke but we didnt know that at the time, so those 14 people died for nothing but thats life or in their case death.

[emordnilap]

Hmm, I think I should leave. see ya.

JSD and similar are worth ignoring. Stick around for the worthwhile stuff.