The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
foreignpolicy.com
The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
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Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#2"cultural relativity" phrase probably wasn't intended to justify "anything is OK"...
so anything is "OK" as long as it has "tradition"? A mafia mob family with a "tradition" in killing ppl around is OK because it's "tradition"?
What's next? Claiming that Nazi killing was a "cultural thing"?
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#3Arguments here have to also reconcile with arguments used in the discussion on Belgium's child euthanasia rights.
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#4> That was the “introduction in the Suruwaha’s symbolic universe of a possible resolution to a problem, in their lives, by means other than those under their control by traditional practices.”
There is the general point about how indegenous tribes are handled. As I understand from the article, they are set as communities that are independant from national and international laws, can keep their traditions and set their own rules.
But then there is all the “protection” layer where external influence is also shun, and people need government authorization to live with them.
I am confused/bothered as it looks like these tribes are treated like children (“we won’t let people taint you”) and grown ups (“do what you want at your own risks”) at the same time.
If they decide of their own rules, why shouldn’t they also decide by themselves what traditions to keep, what not to keep, and how they want to elvolve ?
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#5"cultural relativity" phrase probably wasn't intended to justify "anything is OK"... so anything is "OK" as long as it has "tradition"? A mafia mob family with a "tradition" in killing ppl around is OK because it's "tradition"? What's next? Claiming that Nazi killing was a "cultural thing"?
What’s so cruel with the situation is that there are middle paths, for instance the tribe banning members it doesn’t want instead of killing them, and the rest of the society adopting them (like what happens with the Suzuki couple).
It seems like a good compromise, but there is all that “traditions must be protected” mantra, coming from outside these tribes, that brings massive inertia.
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#6> In other words, according to Almeida’s report, the Suzukis had done irreparable damage to the Suruwaha way of life by showing that certain physical disabilities didn’t necessitate killing.
[...]
> Because of what happened to Hakani, Suzuki says, other parents began to seek help. In 2005, two Suruwaha families requested medical assistance for their children.
[...]
> "You abandon us, you pretend we’re invisible, since we’re way out there in the middle of the jungle. You pretend that we’re nothing and use the culture excuse. I ask you one more time to rethink that. We’re here.… We’re screaming for help. We’re screaming for rights."
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#7"cultural relativity" phrase probably wasn't intended to justify "anything is OK"... so anything is "OK" as long as it has "tradition"? A mafia mob family with a "tradition" in killing ppl around is OK because it's "tradition"? What's next? Claiming that Nazi killing was a "cultural thing"?
I guess it only applies to traditional cultures, which the Nazis weren’t.
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#8Arguments here have to also reconcile with arguments used in the discussion on Belgium's child euthanasia rights.
are you refering to this ?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26181615
> Under the Dutch conditions, a patient's request for euthanasia can be fulfilled by a doctor if the request is "voluntary and well-considered" and the patient is suffering unbearably, with no prospect of improvement.
These are conditions that are not fulfilled in the case of the traditional killing done by the tribes.
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#9"cultural relativity" phrase probably wasn't intended to justify "anything is OK"... so anything is "OK" as long as it has "tradition"? A mafia mob family with a "tradition" in killing ppl around is OK because it's "tradition"? What's next? Claiming that Nazi killing was a "cultural thing"?
I guess it only applies to traditional cultures, which the Nazis weren’t.
Completely made-up and arbitrary though, so the justification is just shifted somewhere else - the "reason" is none. It's like explaining anything with "higher forces", all it is is not explaining anything at all, instead putting the issue under the rug or on the shelve of "stuff we just accept without giving it any more thoughts". Which I think is actually okay depending on the context, since every human does it to a large extend out of necessity. Only when it extends to preventing others from looking deeper does it become a problem. Here it's a problem when it's used to set standards used to justify how to treat different people.
I proofread the Ph.D. thesis of a friend of mine who wrote on transfer of organizational culture. The example was Western companies doing business in countries with a different culture. To cut a very long story short, the conclusion (well-supported by the evidence he had collected) was that instead of accepting the local culture at least in the examples he had looked the ones that succeeded by a big margin were those who imposed their own values from their home organization. The "details" matter of course: What did not work was imposing those values. He found that what worked best was to take a number of core people, bring them back to the country of the source culture and let them work there for a time and absorb the organization's culture (an active process, and that culture must be attractive and demonstrably be successful, or why would anyone want to adopt it in the first place). Then let these people build the new business. Don't give them direct supervision, i.e. no boss(es) from the source organization. Well, there are a few hundred more pages, but my point is that trying to always accept all kinds of cultures as the "best" way is just not true. We humans have "transferred cultures", often by force, for a million years, and in the realm of nature keeping everything as it is, forever, is not exactly a proven success story or how anything works.
Re: The controversy over child killing among Amazon tribes in Brazil
#10"cultural relativity" phrase probably wasn't intended to justify "anything is OK"... so anything is "OK" as long as it has "tradition"? A mafia mob family with a "tradition" in killing ppl around is OK because it's "tradition"? What's next? Claiming that Nazi killing was a "cultural thing"?
Why even this comment is flagged? maybe downvoted by HN people who buried their children alive by tradition?