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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)

#121

Post by fellellor »

This whole thing read like sickening sanctimonious bullshit. So there are no instances of revenge, based on personal honor, anywhere in Japan or the western world?

Then he goes on to say:

>People infected with this attitude will be utterly incapable of recognizing wrongdoing by their own society, utterly incapable of taking criticism or recognizing the need for correction.

This is a prime example of the "only a sith deals in absolutes" meme.

What is more pathetic is that I am so underemployed right now that I had the time to read this whole garbage article in the first place. I guess it's time to move on.

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

#122

Post by jmngomes »

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…

>> Saudi Arabia viewed cleaning as women's work, sure, just like nearly every country in Europe 100 years ago.

Gender equality is still a big problem in Europe, actually: https://www.oecd.org/inequality.htm#gender

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

#123

Post by lucozade »

dmichulke wrote: post #116
DubiousPusher wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

I'm not sure I follow. It may well be that the north had ulterior motives beyond humanitarianism but that doesn't take away from the fact that the explicit reason that a number of states gave for seceding was to preserve slavery.

I'm not sure I get your point about the flag either. Of course, it's not racist per se, it's abstract. But it's almost exclusively flown as a symbol of pride in the confederate institutions that it represents. Those institutions were explicitly racist. As you say, it has direct parallels with the swastika.

> what was the last humanitarian war you witnessed?

And finally, this really doesn't take into account the period. It was not at all unusual, in the mid 19C, for countries to use military action for social aims. Now, I happen to think that an awful lot of it was on behalf of evangelism of "superior" values rather than humanitarianism. This was rife in British establishment thinking at the time and was prevalent in the northern states too.

In other words, I think it's justified to believe that these actions were driven by feelings of moral superiority rather than human equality. But to suggest that they can all be understood as power plays simply doesn't fit the facts.

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

#124

Post by vlehto »

yorwba wrote: post #23
narrator wrote: post #5

I would describe the "honor" system as like treating the world like a big MMORPG where the only goal in life is to accumulate "honor" points. The whole point of life is to grind away everyday to gain more honor points. Someone insults you = lose honor points. Revenge on the insulter = gain honor points. Wife cheats on you = lose honor points. Revenge on wife = gain honor points. Someone cheats you out of 10 cents = l…

You could replace "honor" by any other kind of value system and you could still interpret is as a points system. That's because of the Von Neumann-Morgenstern theorem [1], which basically says that any kind of well-behaved (i.e., not self-contradictory) preferences can be modeled as a points system (called utility function ). Heaven points. Money points. Sex points. Altruism points. Whatever you are trying to achieve…

I think the difference is that in "thar" culture you begin with 100 honor points and can only lose them. In western "honor" culture you start with 0 honor points and you are expected to gain them. The first system makes everybody paranoid, the latter system makes people compete.

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

#126

Post by Pyrhos »

jmngomes wrote: post #122
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…

>> Saudi Arabia viewed cleaning as women's work, sure, just like nearly every country in Europe 100 years ago. Gender equality is still a big problem in Europe, actually: https://www.oecd.org/inequality.htm#gender

>Gender equality is still a big problem in Europe

Men and women are equal under the law (in most or all European states) when it comes to labour.

Gender inequality in Europe is largely caused by individual choices. This is best demonstrated by the fact that in poorer countries of eastern Europe, women are much more represented in STEM as it's a good way out of poverty, while richer countries (such as Scandinavian) where women have more choice, the interest gap for STEM is much more skewed in favor of men.

It should also be noted that in countries where a company cannot fire you for going part time at work, it is women who overwhelmingly take advantage of this.

Also, equating the inequality of women in the middle east with Europe in any way is ridiculous.

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

#127

Post by pron »

While the author has every right to hold those opinions, he doesn't seem to be an anthropologist, sociologist or historian, as his entire analysis is completely devoid of context and the desire to understand. Value systems, while also a result of arbitrary progress, mostly arise to fit the conditions of the society that creates them. A face-to-face society is very different from a strangers' society. Europe in the middle ages was not much different from those cultures the author derides. Part of the reason why some cultures still maintain face-to-face values is because Europe, largely due to chance, progressed technologically before other cultures (after learning algebra from the Arabs), and travel and communication technologies are what create a strangers' society with its own, very different values. Then, Europe harmfully interfered with the progress of other societies.

Also, it is a little funny to call other culture's value "toxic" and your own "superior", considering that the European culture of rationality has been the deadly, violent and exploitative (of both people and nature) to a far larger scale than any other.

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

#128

Post by throw2016 »

A lot of societies are extremely similar as they progress in stages to some kind of 'modernity' - defined as access to basic resources, education opportunities, scientific advancement and some degree of prosperity.

You can easily see this by comparing pre-technology societies from 1 to 1600AD and the structures are essentially feudal and quite similar.

Post colonial european society managed to proceed at a far faster rate by bringing far more people into opportunity and wealth than previously because you now needed many more people and new systems to manage this expansion than the existing feudal power structures. This kicked off a technology scientific revolution and itself caused far reaching fundamental internal structural changes in these societies.

That's 400 years of near constant wealth, science and change others have not had and who now exist in a weird middle ground with access to some of the consequences of modernism but not the wealth, culture and history that made it possible because that cannot be replicated unless you want to kick off a new wave of colonialism.

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

#129

Post by usrusr »

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.

Given the geographic overlap, protestantism should spring to mind easily as a candidate (even if it can only be a cause if its effect take centuries to have meaningful impact). The differentiation between shame and guilt cultures used in the article resonates quite a bit with the perceived differences between catholic and protestant societies.

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

#130

Post by Meditato »

tmnvix wrote: post #60
nradov wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy to objectively measure which cultures are better. In general we can just look at long-term trends in voluntary migration rates by country / state / region (or whatever geographic area aligns with a particular culture). Sure there will be some noise in the data based on natural disasters and legal restrictions but those revealed preferences give a good first approximation.

People often move not for cultural reasons, but because of resources. An example would be Nepalese migrant workers moving to Saudi Arabia - they aren't doing that for the culture.

But the author even points out that the two are intertwined. Cultural problems will create resource acquisition constraints.
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