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Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

lettersfromnj.wordpress.com

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Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#61

Post by mcguire »

Veen wrote: post #28
roel_v wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the interests of pluralism (not relativism)" Honestly asking as I hadn't seen anyone side-stepping the moral absolutism/relativism question in this way before - where is the line between 'pluralism' and 'relativism'? At what point does 'accepting' an alternative set of morals become 'condoning' them? (again I'm not arguing a side here and I'm not asking in an attempt to tease out a standpoint I can attack - I'm i…

What I have in mind is cultural pluralism. Take the US; most people accept a certain set of political norms: democracy, the constitution, a republic-style political system. But people who accept those basic norms and institutions can have a wide variety of cultural and political beliefs. They can be left wing or right wing, Orthodox Jew or atheist, patriarchal or egalitarian. But they all accept the basic US framewor…

Some might feel that not giving complete credit to a woman because she is a woman goes against the core norms and institutions of modern civilization.

Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#62

Post by bjourne »

jhanschoo wrote: post #46
bjourne wrote: post #40

It's odd that if Muslims want to separate their boys and girls from a young age we think it is horrible and abusive. But if Christians or Jews do the exact same thing, we are fine with it because we must respect their traditions.

Do we, really? If we learned that such a practice was widespread in a Christian or Jewish community, it would count disfavorably in the esteem most of us have of them, and this surely must be the case for us who have read about the bus segregation in the article. In addition, poor opinion we have of certain Muslim countries with gender segregation is due not only to this but also of many other rights violations in th…

But such practice is widespread in some Christian and Jewish sects! I'm not making stuff up.

> the disparity between our esteem toward Jewish communities and Muslim communities in the US coming from their greater historical presence in the US. I shall not comment on whether such is warranted.

No, perhaps you should not comment on it. Because defending the disparity is defending racism. Segregating children by gender from a young age is child abuse no matter what the religion is. That we accept Christians and Jews doing it to their children but not Muslims is pure hypocrisy.

Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#63

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

basetop wrote: post #48
mikorym wrote: post #7

I think that modern religions and the way they learn to part with certain medieval ways is critical. The Jewish religion has been arguably successful with this, producing exceedingly prestigious scientists and mathematicians. The risk is always the "fundamental" factions.

I wouldn't credit the religion ( fundamental or not ). After all, much of modern science was created by "fundamental" priests, clerics, adherents, etc ( from copernicus to newton to mendel ). Rather, the jewish scientists benefited from living in wealthy colonial europe which provided opportunities ( though there were anti-semitic roadblocks as well ) for research. There is a reason why most of the prominent jewish s…

> There is a reason why most of the prominent jewish scientists are from germany, britain and US. You need wealth, infrastructure and research instutions. Jews in the middle east, china, africa, etc haven't as much due to instability, lack of wealth, infrastructure, etc.

Thanks for mentioning not all Jews are European. Most Jews in Israel, for example, are not European. Nearly the entire ancient communities of Iraqi, Yemeni and Persian Jews are almost in Israel. If not for modes of dress (and even then), the casual foreign observer would often not easily tell apart Jew from Arab in Israel. At least, I often cannot.

Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#64

Post by shkkmo »

roel_v wrote: post #27
Veen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm entirely on Kaplan's side in this, but the way you express it gives me pause. "All sexism is bad" is true from my perspective, but it clearly isn't true from the perspective of the community concerned. In the interests of pluralism (not relativism), I don't think it's a good idea to attempt to universalise social norms in that way.

"In the interests of pluralism (not relativism)" Honestly asking as I hadn't seen anyone side-stepping the moral absolutism/relativism question in this way before - where is the line between 'pluralism' and 'relativism'? At what point does 'accepting' an alternative set of morals become 'condoning' them? (again I'm not arguing a side here and I'm not asking in an attempt to tease out a standpoint I can attack - I'm i…

> At what point does 'accepting' an alternative set of morals become 'condoning' them?

As far as I can tell, those words mean practically the same thing. "Condone" is modernly generally only used in the negative sense, and thus people may be confused into thinking it means something akin to "endorse" or "support". In actuality it means something much more akin to "tolerate".

"pluralism" and "relativism" are harder words to nail down. One way might be to say the relativism says that all moral systems are equally valid while pluralism says that there are more than one valid moral system.

Here, I think "pluralism" is being presented as its own moral virtue (rather than as a philosophical stance): tolerance of other moral systems and beliefs is good.

> pluralism in general tries to leave people alone to pursue their own ends as long as they’re willing to play nice with others. Part of playing nice with others for pluralism is not trying to coerce others into adopting your truths, values, and ethics, even if you think you’re right and the other party is wrong. That live and let live attitude may be the same practical result as relativism, but it is reached by starting at a different philosophical standpoint.

http://blogs.bu.edu/dscott/2011/06/24/pluralism-vs-relativis...

So I guess the point being made is that while a lot of sexism is bad, especially where it is imposed unwillingly, there there may be acceptable sexist moral systems that limit that sexism to voluntary participants of that moral system.

However, the choice of voluntary participation in the moral system is usually suppressed in sexist moral systems which makes them unacceptable from a pluralist stance.

Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#65

Post by bjourne »

dalbasal wrote: post #59
darylfritz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like bjourne is referring to the hypocracy that society commonly accepts the Jewish practice, whereas the Muslim practice is generally rejected. I don't think bjourne is suggesting that Deborah accepts the practice.

Where is the example of "society commonly accepting the Jewish practice?" Not hn society, as you can see in the thread. Not Jewish society, as you can see in the article. In any case, this is not a Jewish practice. The practice in this article is specific to certain hasidic sects, within the haredi minority... And very few outside of the haredi minority are accepting of sexism within the community. It's a big point o…

I didn't say it was a "Jewish practice" it was darylfritz who misunderstood. The practice is common in the Hasidic minority as a result of society accepting people shoveling religious dogma down their children's throats. Except for Muslims having their girls wear veils which "society" has a problem with. But society shouldn't be accepting religious indoctrination of children from anyone.

Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#66

Post by dalbasal »

bjourne wrote: post #65
dalbasal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the example of "society commonly accepting the Jewish practice?" Not hn society, as you can see in the thread. Not Jewish society, as you can see in the article. In any case, this is not a Jewish practice. The practice in this article is specific to certain hasidic sects, within the haredi minority... And very few outside of the haredi minority are accepting of sexism within the community. It's a big point o…

I didn't say it was a "Jewish practice" it was darylfritz who misunderstood. The practice is common in the Hasidic minority as a result of society accepting people shoveling religious dogma down their children's throats. Except for Muslims having their girls wear veils which "society" has a problem with. But society shouldn't be accepting religious indoctrination of children from anyone.

Which society are you talking about?

Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#67

Post by Veen »

mcguire wrote: post #61
Veen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I have in mind is cultural pluralism. Take the US; most people accept a certain set of political norms: democracy, the constitution, a republic-style political system. But people who accept those basic norms and institutions can have a wide variety of cultural and political beliefs. They can be left wing or right wing, Orthodox Jew or atheist, patriarchal or egalitarian. But they all accept the basic US framewor…

Some might feel that not giving complete credit to a woman because she is a woman goes against the core norms and institutions of modern civilization.

Yes, some might, which is why I specified that people must be free to choose their own culture, and, of course, people must be free to speak their mind.

But the price of living in a society with diverse communities is that we occasionally have to hold our noses when people embrace shitty ideas. In fact, we have to defend their ability to do so.

Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#68

Post by jhanschoo »

bjourne wrote: post #62
jhanschoo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we, really? If we learned that such a practice was widespread in a Christian or Jewish community, it would count disfavorably in the esteem most of us have of them, and this surely must be the case for us who have read about the bus segregation in the article. In addition, poor opinion we have of certain Muslim countries with gender segregation is due not only to this but also of many other rights violations in th…

But such practice is widespread in some Christian and Jewish sects! I'm not making stuff up. > the disparity between our esteem toward Jewish communities and Muslim communities in the US coming from their greater historical presence in the US. I shall not comment on whether such is warranted. No, perhaps you should not comment on it. Because defending the disparity is defending racism. Segregating children by gender…

> But such practice is widespread in some Christian and Jewish sects! I'm not making stuff up.

I agree, and I think it counts against them to the rest of us. For example, many of us do not think highly at all about cultish Christian sects.

> Because defending the disparity is defending racism.

Indeed. What I'm trying to do here is model how the notion can come about, simply by being ignorant and not by any directed racist thought against any one group. That is, even if the only discrimination we receive from our environment about the various communities were our frequency of interaction with these respective due to proximity and integration, we are inclined to this notion. The post I was responding to was in general attitudes for the general population; and I assume that people are generally ignorant about religious communities in their own country and in other countries. Hence how this ignorance leads reasonably to a notion.

In addition, I don't think it is necessarily racist to have such an opinion, especially if one also understands that it is likely to be horribly misinformed and comes from ignorance. It becomes racist only if you choose to act on the notion, or communicate it without also communicating that the opinion comes from ignorance. Rather, the responsible thing to do is to perform adequate due diligence to form an educated opinion on it once your opinion on the matter becomes of importance to anything.

Re: Call Me by My Name: Deborah Abrams Kaplan

#70

Post by mikorym »

bliblah wrote: post #50
mikorym wrote: post #7

I think that modern religions and the way they learn to part with certain medieval ways is critical. The Jewish religion has been arguably successful with this, producing exceedingly prestigious scientists and mathematicians. The risk is always the "fundamental" factions.

Interesting because in a way the Islamic faith has been dealing with the opposite problem. During the Medieval era a lot of the most prominent scientific discoveries in Europe were done by Muslim scholars in a wide variety of fields. However the modern radical approach to the religion has definitely resulted in many scientists having to abandon their countries and faith due to a variety of reasons.

I know this is true at least from a mathematical point of view. The common knowledge case is the conic sections that were discovered during this time. But like the library of Alexandria, our historical knowledge has the infortunate property of being limited by extant texts.
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