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The world's most toxic value system (2001)

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Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#111

Post by Pyrhos »

c3534l wrote: post #62

I'm not sure why the author lumps together so many of the attributes he does, and when he does acknowledge exceptions, rather than learn from them and understand why they exist, he simply waves his hands an says Japan wasn't honor-bound enough or not in the right way or whatever else. His examples are cherry-picked and similar examples exist in the countries he holds up as exemplars. Saudi Arabia viewed cleaning as w…

>"I'm not sure why the author lumps together so many of the attributes he does, and when he does acknowledge exceptions, rather than learn from them and understand why they exist, he simply waves his hands an says Japan wasn't honor-bound enough or not in the right way or whatever else."

He makes a very clear distinction between the two - one honor system is based on (external) shame, the other is based on (internal) guilt.

>"His examples are cherry-picked and similar examples exist in the countries he holds up as exemplars. Saudi Arabia viewed cleaning as women's work, sure, just like nearly every country in Europe 100 years ago."

With the difference that things he describes still happen at large in the middle east and Africa, while Europe has moved past them long time ago.

>"He blazes by picking one bad thing that happened in a given culture, offering no further analysis other than to gawk at how much better our culture is, then moves on to an entirely different society where he happens to know one bad thing about them and repeats the process."

He offers multiple examples of why contemporary western/Japanese culture is superior in many sections, most notably "Degradation of Women".

You provided no evidence to counter the fact that the western/Japanese culture offers rights, protections and (equal) opportunities that are far superior to the ones that come with the cultures criticized in the article. You have also labeled and dismissed the author's findings as mere prejudices, despite there being mountains of evidence to the contrary.

Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#112

Post by adrianN »

leohutson wrote: post #61
xelxebar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more concretely, the terms better and worse are only capable of encoding relative positions on a linear scale. I find it instructive to look for those scales directly--e.g. rates of violent crime, GDP, life expectancy, etc. This also makes it more natural to recognize specific problems with such linear reductions.

All those scales are valued differently by different cultures. If I show a conservative American gun crime statistics that we agree on and we agree that are caused by American gun culture, I cannot tell them that American gun culture is inferior, because I just get back "Thats the price of freedom!" Life expectancy, "It's not the years in your life but the life in your years!" GDP is the most hilarious one, because i…

There are attempts to measure "happiness". They surely have their own problems, but if we could measure that relatively objectively it seems to me that "average happiness" would be a good starting point to use to compare different cultures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#114

Post by smnrchrds »

sooheon wrote: post #53

The author's Japanophilia masquerading as social insight is laughable. His cute anecdote illustrating the self aware remorse of the Japanese is of one doctor who has a shrine in his living room. I wonder if in his extensive travels he's ever visited Yasukuni shrine.

More laughable is that he assumes that there is not one person in the variety of cultures he collectively calls thar who has done something similar.

Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#115

Post by tehwalrus »

The central thesis (thar as a toxic value) seems plausible, but his examples are all crazy, and his deduction about economic prosperity is questionable at best.

Look at the UK as an example of somewhere with extreme classism and heredity of employment for hundreds of years, the bit in between the "honourable knights" and the industrial revolution (which happened in the midst of astonishing inequality of wealth and opportunity). If you don't think the Royal carriages plastered with gaudy decoration are about external honour then what are they about exactly?

Also, the idea that the successful societies succeeded because they weren't sexist is proposterous, since the key points in their development happened long before the (start of the) recovery from that awful vice, which still isn't over as the news from Hollywood and Westminster in the last months neatly illustrates.

As others have said, this looks like a post-hoc justification of prejudice, which sadly ruins an interesting idea.

Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#116

Post by dmichulke »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #89
c3534l wrote: post #62

I'm not sure why the author lumps together so many of the attributes he does, and when he does acknowledge exceptions, rather than learn from them and understand why they exist, he simply waves his hands an says Japan wasn't honor-bound enough or not in the right way or whatever else. His examples are cherry-picked and similar examples exist in the countries he holds up as exemplars. Saudi Arabia viewed cleaning as w…

The weirdest thing was the drive by defense of the Confederate flag. That tipping of the hand was downright parkinsonian.

There are historical views stating that the American Civil War was in fact a secessionist war against an increasingly powerful federal government and that slavery was just used as one cause, obviously the most "despicable" from today's view, in an effort to legitimize an otherwise illegitimate war against secessionist states.

You can see this partly in quotes from Lincoln, in constitutional law of the states (some explicitly reserved the right to leave the union) and the fact that equality before the law was not achieved until hundred years later (assuming the view point that it was achieved at all).

This view results in two things:

1. The confederate flag is not a racist symbol per se (it is used as one though as is the Swastika)

2. The war was just another war about power and money, such as pretty much every other war. Just ask yourself what was the last humanitarian war you witnessed?

Sources:

- Google for "Abraham Lincoln Racist". It is a very much divided topic.

- 2nd paragraph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_...

- There was a fantastic seminar on this topic (with downloadable Audio files) by Walter Block (a Libertarian) but I cant seem to find it.

Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#117

Post by leohutson »

int_19h wrote: post #104
khedoros1 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So, yes, every time you see a statement along the lines of "society X is better than Y", it comes with an implied "Based on my values, ..." But precisely because it is always there, there's no point spelling it out every time. The problem is: it isn't always there, even when it should be. Some people actually mean "Society X is better than Y in an absolute, not relative, sense."

From their perspective, it may well be - not everyone subscribes to moral relativism; it's part of those axioms. But even then, "Based on my values ..." is implied. It just comes with an assertion that those values are universal (which, if you're a cultural relativist, you'll treat the same as well, recursively).

Based on which values though? I don’t think they should go unstated, because if I don’t hold the same values then arguments holds no water with me.

A particularly annoying one is when people lie about their values or worse claim that their argument doesn’t stem from their values (are they embarrassed?), it’s purely “rational” and anyone who doesn’t agree is pc virtue-signalling cuck who is blind to reality.

Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#118

Post by nabla9 »

Nomentatus wrote: post #35

It's just not historically true that "northern European culture has been relatively free of the thar mentality." We weren't magically spared these traits. In fact few hundred years ago duels were the mainstay of the official justice system in England. These duels were, literally, trials. I wish I knew more about how we got away from all that.

Norse blood feuds are the basis of famous sagas.

However, many Nordic and Germanic tribes had working alternatives (mainly banishment or exile and compensation) that greatly limited the violence.

Compensation could be fairly sophisticated. "man value" was the total monetary value of a man. Murderers family had to compensate 100% of the man value for the family of the victim. For the impairment the compensation sums were fractions of the man value.

Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#119

Post by chrisco255 »

tehwalrus wrote: post #115

The central thesis (thar as a toxic value) seems plausible, but his examples are all crazy, and his deduction about economic prosperity is questionable at best. Look at the UK as an example of somewhere with extreme classism and heredity of employment for hundreds of years, the bit in between the "honourable knights" and the industrial revolution (which happened in the midst of astonishing inequality of wealth and op…

Sure, women were treated unequally in Western societies, but even in the 18th century, girls of the U.S. were educated in the same local schools. Contrast that with some societies where women can't even drive... Which economy's future would you bet on?

Re: The world's most toxic value system (2001)

#120

Post by leohutson »

taneq wrote: post #43
ajmurmann wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet we are hesitant to push out values on people from other cultures. It's a very different dilemma that I think Houellebecq portrayed fabulously in "Submission". Liberals are eager to defend other cultures whose values could hardly new more opposite. It's fascinating really and a tough position. It's admirable and pathetic at the same time and I'm not sure there is a good answer.

And in the same vein, Liberals show no hesitation in lambasting other people with markedly different values (such as central/southern U.S.) who they lump in as "the same culture" and so consider a valid target.

Haven’t you just done the same thing to liberals?
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