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DeathcoreDecimator
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Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:34 pm
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:08 pm 
 

I couldn't think of a better title for this thread, but you'll just have to go along with it.

When I turn on the TV to MSNBC and see these television shows with Chris Hansen investigating Taiwan's child prostitution rings and see people from America trying to shut them down, I get disgusted. It is their culture, not America's. Sure as a majority, we may find it sickening, but if its considered the norm in their culture, why is it our business to interfere? Same thing with anyone trying to stop a culture's traditions. Even in America, if a group isn't actually harming anyone in their practices, why should they be stopped? Even the KKK shouldn't be banned, as long as they don't actually use violence or other torture techniques.

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Avestriel
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:34 pm 
 

It is NOT considered the "norm" in their culture.

But yes, you have no right to interfere.
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MikeyC
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:47 pm 
 

I think even in Taiwan, child prostitution isn't considered a normal part of their culture, so trying to shut it down seems like the best idea. I agree with Avestriel that interfering is not always a good option, but morally, maybe it is.

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
Even the KKK shouldn't be banned, as long as they don't actually use violence or other torture techniques.

I guess that comes down to their history. Any organisation with a history of violence and such are usually pressured into being stopped/banned/downsized/whatever.
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DGYDP
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:53 pm 
 

That's not their 'culture' ... it's not a 'tradition'. You do realise that saying something like that insults all the decent people in Taiwan?

And no WE shouldn't interfere, their own government should do something about it.
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Pathological_Frolic
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Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2008 4:57 pm
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:57 pm 
 

DGYDP wrote:
That's not their 'culture' ... it's not a 'tradition'. You do realise that saying something like that insults all the decent people in Taiwan?

It's more a gross misrepresentation of an aspect of their culture rather than anything else.
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greysnow
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:00 pm 
 

Huh? What aspect?
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Pathological_Frolic
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:03 pm 
 

greysnow wrote:
Huh? What aspect?

I wasn't sure how to word that, actually. It's an aspect of their culture he was asserting that in reality does not exist as a cultural norm (child prostitution). It's like saying it was a cultural norm to bootleg in the 1920s in America. It was part of the culture, but not something that was accepted. Perhaps I should have omitted that part entirely.
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dmerritt
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:21 pm 
 

It is globalisation and the idea of the 'International Citizen' that has forced us into a position of denying cultural relativism. The more economies and people integrate, the more the citizens of powerful countries begin to take a moral exception to the practices of cultures a thousand miles away.

However, that's really not the issue in the present example. Child prostitution is never an accepted practice. I think a better talking point for a discussion on the limits of moral relativism is the forced mutilation of women's genitalia in many Muslim countries.

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Noktorn
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:45 pm 
 

Bad trolling attempt, and even then, child prostitution is clearly harming people.
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greysnow
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:47 pm 
 

Pathological_Frolic wrote:
I wasn't sure how to word that, actually. It's an aspect of their culture he was asserting that in reality does not exist as a cultural norm (child prostitution). It's like saying it was a cultural norm to bootleg in the 1920s in America. It was part of the culture, but not something that was accepted. Perhaps I should have omitted that part entirely.


While authorities outside of Taiwan can certainly not do much to reach the organizers (i.e. the pimps), they can make pedophilia punishable indepently from where it has been committed. This has happened in Germany a few years ago. As a result, a German having sex with a child prostitute anywhere on the planet can be found guilty of pedophilia in Germany and sentenced to several years in prison. (And in German prisons at least, pedophiles are at the absolute bottom rung in the inmate hierarchy and sure not to enjoy their stay very much.) I don't know if other states beside Germany and Austria have similar laws, but if not, I would recommend passing some.

Regarding the the topic of cultural relativity implicit in the OP: I used to go this way, then that on this topic, but made my mind up some years ago: I am pro human rights of the modern secular humanist kind everywhere on the planet, even if they came from the West and go against some traditions in some other parts of the world. I don't even care if that is arrogant. In my opinion, the maxim to follow is to act so as to maximally decrease suffering in the world. The suffering felt by any traditionalist at the loss of valued traditions like female circumcision / stoning of homosexuals / defending family honor by killing their "adulterous" sister is nothing compared to the suffering of the victims of those traditions.
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Pathological_Frolic
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:50 pm 
 

greysnow wrote:
(And in German prisons at least, pedophiles are at the absolute bottom rung in the inmate hierarchy and sure not to enjoy their stay very much.)

It's the same way in America. Offenders found guilty of crimes against children such as child abuse, molestation or anything else are treated very harshly.

greysnow wrote:
The suffering felt by any traditionalist at the loss of valued traditions like female circumcision / stoning of homosexuals / defending family honor by killing their "adulterous" sister is nothing compared to the suffering of the victims of those traditions.

At times, our tolerances make us tolerant of intolerance. Of course, understanding cultural relativism helps one to avoid demonizing the practitioners, but all the same, such things are still inappropriate for the modern world.
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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:57 pm 
 

Noktorn wrote:
Bad trolling attempt, and even then, child prostitution is clearly harming people.


I'm not trolling. I'm personally against child prostitution, but if another country other than the U.S.A has been doing it for ages, who are we to tell them to stop?

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Thorgrim_Honkronte
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Joined: Sun Jan 16, 2005 4:40 pm
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:01 pm 
 

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
Noktorn wrote:
Bad trolling attempt, and even then, child prostitution is clearly harming people.


I'm not trolling. I'm personally against child prostitution, but if another country other than the U.S.A has been doing it for ages, who are we to tell them to stop?


Fallacious reasoning. It's pretty widely known that child prostitution is very detrimental, and those who have the power to stop it should.
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greysnow
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:03 pm 
 

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
Noktorn wrote:
Bad trolling attempt, and even then, child prostitution is clearly harming people.


I'm not trolling. I'm personally against child prostitution, but if another country other than the U.S.A has been doing it for ages, who are we to tell them to stop?

You need to distinguish between traditions that don't do any harm and those that do. In the latter case, I welcome even extraneous help to do away with them in the interest of the common welfare of humanity (yeah, big words, I know). And I don't even know if your claim that Taiwan has been "doing it for ages" is correct.
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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:29 pm 
 

greysnow wrote:
DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
Noktorn wrote:
Bad trolling attempt, and even then, child prostitution is clearly harming people.


I'm not trolling. I'm personally against child prostitution, but if another country other than the U.S.A has been doing it for ages, who are we to tell them to stop?

You need to distinguish between traditions that don't do any harm and those that do. In the latter case, I welcome even extraneous help to do away with them in the interest of the common welfare of humanity (yeah, big words, I know). And I don't even know if your claim that Taiwan has been "doing it for ages" is correct.


Yeah I don't know why I said that stuff about Taiwan, I was just trying to make an example. But even if they do cause harm, as long as its far away from our society and stays in its third world society I see no harm. Let nature take its course.

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DGYDP
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:32 pm 
 

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
But even if they do cause harm, as long as its far away from our society and stays in its third world society I see no harm. Let nature take its course.


I consider myself to be pretty egoistic, but that statement is ... wrong. In every sense of the word.

:boo:
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Pathological_Frolic
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:34 pm 
 

Ah, I forgot that the child being exploited in Taiwan is to be considered less valuable/important than the child being exploited in Alabama. If I can't see it, then I can pretend it isn't happening.
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The_Count
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:42 pm 
 

Pathological_Frolic wrote:
Ah, I forgot that the child being exploited in Taiwan is to be considered less valuable/important than the child being exploited in Alabama. If I can't see it, then I can pretend it isn't happening.


To an extent I would agree with that tbh, While it is horrible that it is happening I would care first and foremost about the citizens of my own country and secondly about ones abroad.
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Pathological_Frolic
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:44 pm 
 

The_Count wrote:
Pathological_Frolic wrote:
Ah, I forgot that the child being exploited in Taiwan is to be considered less valuable/important than the child being exploited in Alabama. If I can't see it, then I can pretend it isn't happening.


To an extent I would agree with that tbh, While it is horrible that it is happening I would care first and foremost about the citizens of my own country and secondly about ones abroad.

Well, of course, that's nothing but practicality. However, to act like the act itself is any less atrocious or any more acceptable when it occurs abroad and outside my country's jurisdiction is just shameful.
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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:56 pm 
 

Pathological_Frolic wrote:
Ah, I forgot that the child being exploited in Taiwan is to be considered less valuable/important than the child being exploited in Alabama. If I can't see it, then I can pretend it isn't happening.


Thats not the point of this thread. I do agree, that everyone is equal. The point I'm trying to get across is that if something in another culture is considered wrong to us, but considered the norm to them, we shouldn't go interfere in what they are doing and try to put an end to it. The child prostitution was a bad example of this, and so would the Darfur genocides because that would be more of a political thing than cultural.

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Noktorn
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:58 pm 
 

Deathcore, were we have been wrong to get involved in WW2 if we hadn't been attacked?
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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:01 pm 
 

No, because the Holocaust was purely political. Germany hasn't been burning Jews as a wholesome until Hitler took over. And I realize that Jews have been the most mistreated groups of people in Europe even back before World War II, but even that is more of a political thing.

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~Guest 19003
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:02 pm 
 

no post


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Pathological_Frolic
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:03 pm 
 

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
No, because the Holocaust was purely political.

So if it was cultural, would it be wrong to stop it?
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~Guest 19003
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:04 pm 
 

no post


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greysnow
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:21 pm 
 

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
No, because the Holocaust was purely political. Germany hasn't been burning Jews as a wholesome until Hitler took over. And I realize that Jews have been the most mistreated groups of people in Europe even back before World War II, but even that is more of a political thing.

[sarcasm]I don't quite fathom how genital mutilation can be a quaint tradition and the killing of Jews not so.[/sarcasm]

swineeyedlamb wrote:
Anyway, the issue is, or should be, one of trafficking children to the West for sex slavery, and of Western nationals going over for pedophile tourism.

No, that's not the issue in this thread, and I'm not convinced that it should be limited to that; as I understood it, the issue is cultural relativity vs. human rights western-style.

Besides, Western governments could at least try to put pressure on other governments for human rights reasons, but we all see what kind of realpolitik is going on, so that's little likely, unfortunately.
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~Guest 19003
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:13 pm 
 

no post


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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:05 pm 
 

Pathological_Frolic wrote:
DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
No, because the Holocaust was purely political.

So if it was cultural, would it be wrong to stop it?


How would it have been cultural? And if it had been, don't you think it would've been started much before the Holocaust and the Jews would have been extinct by then?

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greysnow
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:07 pm 
 

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
Pathological_Frolic wrote:
DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
No, because the Holocaust was purely political.

So if it was cultural, would it be wrong to stop it?


How would it have been cultural? And if it had been, don't you think it would've been started much before the Holocaust and the Jews would have been extinct by then?

I notice that you didn't answer his question.
Edit: To elaborate, if it was an amusing pastime or part of an initiation ceremony in part x of the world to go out and slay a Jew for your birthday, would it be right or wrong to stop that?
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Noktorn
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:13 pm 
 

A hypothetical, Deathcore. The Unga Bunga tribe of Nigeria has a ritual where any male who does not achieve six feet in height by their 17th birthday is brutally sodomized to death by the taller members of the tribe while their families watch and lament the horrific rape-murders of their sons. This is indeed a cultural tradition. Would it or would it not be acceptable to in some way stop the rectal anarchy occurring in this remote part of Nigeria?
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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:21 pm 
 

greysnow wrote:
DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
Pathological_Frolic wrote:
DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
No, because the Holocaust was purely political.

So if it was cultural, would it be wrong to stop it?


How would it have been cultural? And if it had been, don't you think it would've been started much before the Holocaust and the Jews would have been extinct by then?

I notice that you didn't answer his question.
Edit: To elaborate, if it was an amusing pastime or part of an initiation ceremony in part x of the world to go out and slay a Jew for your birthday, would it be right or wrong to stop that?


I didn't answer because I was adding context. I'm not denying it wouldn't be wrong, but I think that its the nation of who's tradition this pasttime is to take action against it. So if the United States had this tradition and I was the president, I'd do everything in my power to stop it. However, if it was say Israel's tradition and I was still the president of the United States, I wouldn't take action against it because it is another nation's tradition and I should respect that instead of trying to create an international system of one nation's morals.

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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:22 pm 
 

Noktorn wrote:
A hypothetical, Deathcore. The Unga Bunga tribe of Nigeria has a ritual where any male who does not achieve six feet in height by their 17th birthday is brutally sodomized to death by the taller members of the tribe while their families watch and lament the horrific rape-murders of their sons. This is indeed a cultural tradition. Would it or would it not be acceptable to in some way stop the rectal anarchy occurring in this remote part of Nigeria?


Read my previous post. Same idea, but a different situation

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Kruel
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:23 pm 
 

Clinging onto something just because it is a tradition is extremely foolish. If a tradition sucks, change it.

By the way, is the KKK banned? I thought there was no problem unless they do anything harmful. Nazism is allowed, then why not KKK?
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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:24 pm 
 

Kruel wrote:
Clinging onto something just because it is a tradition is extremely foolish. If a tradition sucks, change it.

By the way, is the KKK banned? I thought there was no problem unless they do anything harmful. Nazism is allowed, then why not KKK?


No, the KKK isn't banned.

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Thorgrim_Honkronte
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:24 pm 
 

The KKK is not banned.
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Noktorn
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:26 pm 
 

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
Noktorn wrote:
A hypothetical, Deathcore. The Unga Bunga tribe of Nigeria has a ritual where any male who does not achieve six feet in height by their 17th birthday is brutally sodomized to death by the taller members of the tribe while their families watch and lament the horrific rape-murders of their sons. This is indeed a cultural tradition. Would it or would it not be acceptable to in some way stop the rectal anarchy occurring in this remote part of Nigeria?


Read my previous post. Same idea, but a different situation


So why is a political factor something that we can interfere with while a cultural one is somehow sacred? Isn't it just as moralizing to say that everyone's opinions are correct and should be respected as it is to try and enforce a moral status quo, just in an opposite direction? That brings me to another question: why is interfering with another culture or nation unacceptable, but interfering with an individual's 'traditions' not?
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greysnow
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:37 pm 
 

I think DeathcoreDecimator is actually trying to say that you shouldn't go out with your military to solve other countries' problems. Which is bollocks. As if the Jews of Europe could have defended themselves against the Nazis. As if the Sudanese government was even willing to put a stop to the atrocities in Darfur.
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DeathcoreDecimator
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:39 pm 
 

Noktorn wrote:
DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
Noktorn wrote:
A hypothetical, Deathcore. The Unga Bunga tribe of Nigeria has a ritual where any male who does not achieve six feet in height by their 17th birthday is brutally sodomized to death by the taller members of the tribe while their families watch and lament the horrific rape-murders of their sons. This is indeed a cultural tradition. Would it or would it not be acceptable to in some way stop the rectal anarchy occurring in this remote part of Nigeria?


Read my previous post. Same idea, but a different situation


So why is a political factor something that we can interfere with while a cultural one is somehow sacred? Isn't it just as moralizing to say that everyone's opinions are correct and should be respected as it is to try and enforce a moral status quo, just in an opposite direction? That brings me to another question: why is interfering with another culture or nation unacceptable, but interfering with an individual's 'traditions' not?


Because culture is something that has been with a civilization for centuries, while politics can be something as quick as months. Also, if we are to interfere with anything political, it usually has to deal with genocide. And as far as I know, there are very few brutal cultural traditions. And if they were serious enough, wouldn't we be hearing about them on the news and in our history books?

It is unacceptable to interfere with a culture's traditions because they are almost a part of the nation itself, while the individual is something that was started some time in their lifetime, and is about as justifiable as political genocide.

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greysnow
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:53 pm 
 

DeathcoreDecimator wrote:
It is unacceptable to interfere with a culture's traditions because they are almost a part of the nation itself, while the individual is something that was started some time in their lifetime, and is about as justifiable as political genocide.

Are you actually saying that interfering with a culture's traditions, for example preventing them mutilating women, is on the same level as genocide? :shock:
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dmerritt
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:53 pm 
 

swineeyedlamb wrote:
DBettino wrote:
It is globalisation and the idea of the 'International Citizen' that has forced us into a position of denying cultural relativism. The more economies and people integrate, the more the citizens of powerful countries begin to take a moral exception to the practices of cultures a thousand miles away.

However, that's really not the issue in the present example. Child prostitution is never an accepted practice. I think a better talking point for a discussion on the limits of moral relativism is the forced mutilation of women's genitalia in many Muslim countries.


I don't know about that. In many cultures across history having a catamite was considered quite acceptable, though in a situation more akin to concubism than prostitution as we know it today.

Anyway, the issue is, or should be, one of trafficking children to the West for sex slavery, and of Western nationals going over for pedophile tourism.


Well, that does bring a certain political relevance to the subject at hand. But, to me, to enter that into the discussion obfuscates the issue somewhat. It's really a philosophical issue about the existence of absolute morality rather than a policy debate. Nonetheless, I agree with your opinions about pedophiliac Western tourists, and I would certainly support any International intelligence effort to stop the trafficking of minors for sex purposes.

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