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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)

#171

Post by DubiousPusher »

m_mueller wrote: post #106
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.

Was it a defense? I thought he meant that it's a sign of 'thar' that people have become so emotionally (1) attached and (2) opposed to it, when it should just be something to be seen in history books at most.

I guess I'd agree if the conflict over the flag was between "black militants" and "white supremacists" but it's not. The conflict is between citizens who feel the public usage of the flag by their state and local governments should cease because it is not appropriate and those who believe it should not cease.

In this context, claiming the flag as bit of historical inertia seems like a status quo defense.

At the very least, there is a moral equivalence implied that is bonkers.

Edit: I'm open to the idea that I'm over reading this particular position. As a point of style, doing a drive-by on a highly controversial subject in a persuasive essay is poor form.

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

#172

Post by encryptThrow32 »

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…

This is reinforced if your belief system includes being able to bask in such honor in the afterlife. Universe Tip: it doesn't.

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

#173

Post by wfo »

DonbunEf7 wrote: post #169
wfo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Which economy's future would you bet on? This isn't a good metric. Countries with slavery, for example, can easily have a stronger economy than free ones. The amount of material goods a society produces is at best tangential to notions of morality or justice.

Are there any countries with slavery which are outperforming similarly-situated countries without slavery? AFAIK slavery is only useful in Civilization 4 (whip it! whip it good!) and IRL it is no substitute for citizenship.

The success of the United States economy was almost entirely built on slave labor. Dubai and Qatar, some of the most economically successful countries in their region, are essentially entirely built on slave labor. It is making a comeback in the US because of how efficient it is in the form of mass incarceration combined with prison labor. The inference 'economic success' -> 'morally good' is, well, horrifying. Slavery is a good counterexample but old since it's so abhorrent countries have mostly abolished it. Sweatshops are another good example.

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

#174

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

nradov wrote: post #50
bryananderson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something this author gets that most people (of all political stripes) don’t: whether a culture is “better” than another is not even a well-formed question. We must ask “better at what?” We must define some criteria to measure, and speak in those terms, not in ill-defined terms like “just better”. The author speaks mostly in terms of specific consequences of different value systems. This is not the same thing as decl…

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.

Plenty of pedophiles migrate to Thailand for increased access to child sex trafficking, does that mean they have a superior culture?

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

#175

Post by Chris2048 »

QAPereo wrote: post #139
Pyrhos wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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) wh…

Ah those famous “individual choices” which are perfectly spherical, and in a vacuum. /s

Are you saying those choices are influenced?

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

#176

Post by DubiousPusher »

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…

Absolutely. The cause of the war was succession. There was no legally defined process for succession and the withdrawal of United States soldiers from the territory of succeeded parties. If there had been, would the North have fought a noble war sacrificing life and treasure to free black people? Absolutely not. For god sake, they barely passed the 13th amendment. Abraham Lincoln himself said that if he could restore the Union without freeing a single black he would.

What is fiction however is that any other issue besides slavery led the South to succeed. Here are the "Declaration of Causes of Succession" made by four of the states.

http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~ras2777/amgov/secession.html

These documents were intended as equivalents to the Declaration of Independence made by the U.S. in which Thomas Jefferson outlined a list of grievances the colonists had with the king. The grievances you'll find in these documents almost exclusively revolve around slavery. The one from Texas contains this little gem.

"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable."

Yes, the war was about white people and their problems with each other but that does not mean the Confederacy was not a horrifyingly evil society. They desired to raise a nation founded on the principal of racist slavery. And people rightly object to being subjected to the symbols of that nation.

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

#177

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

At last, a rational argument for the moral superiority of Northern European societies! That was about time!

It's pitty this is such an old article, I'd love to hear the author's rationalist defense of the moral superiority of diverse historical phenomena originating in Northern Europe, like anthropogenic global warming, WWI and WWII, separately the Holocaust, Stalin and, well, why not? Colonialism.

Yeah, it's a rhetorical request. It's my attempt at a reminder of the real reason why educated people don't criticise others cultures so easily. Because they know where they themselves come from.

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

#178

Post by tcell »

Minor nitpick - he mentions the concept of Shame Cultures vs. Guilt Cultures and mentions the Japanese as a Guilt Culture, along with the European cultures. But this concept was first popularized in a book by Ruth Benedict called the Chrysanthemum and the Sword, where she claims that Japanese culture is a Shame (haji) culture where social norms are primarily enforced by fear of ostracism ("Nobody will be your friend/help you if you act like that!") versus internalized fears in a Guilt culture ("God will punish you if you act like that!"). It was written in the late 40's and it's been criticized by Japanese and others, but that's where the idea comes from.

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

#179

Post by Chris2048 »

darawk wrote: post #94

I super hard agree with the primary point of this article. Honor culture is unbelievably toxic. However, i'd like to quibble with this: > When a concept has a label that is diametrically opposed to the normal sense of the term, it's the wrong label. This has nothing to do with value judgment (although my value judgment is clearly stated), it is simply a matter of using words accurately. If you translate a foreign wor…

> These two seemingly unrelated acts fulfill recognizably similar roles in their respective cultures

How? Are street gangs demonstrating the obedience of their clothes?

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