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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)

#41

Post by leohutson »

ajmurmann wrote: post #37
bobthechef wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Officially, perhaps, but our coastal bubbles clearly believe that current liberal democratic values and attitudes are superior.

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.

You might say that multiculturalism is a cultural value in itself, and perhaps some might value multiculturalism more than the survival of their culture.

My view is that syncretic cultures are dominant because they are capable of absorbing other cultures and adapting to change, whereas rigid and intolerant cultures can only last as long as their particular moires are relevant.

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

#42

Post by exelius »

orbitur wrote: post #33

This takes a strange detour towards the end. > Even more disturbing is a rise in a mean-spirited resistance to any kind of honors for Confederate soldiers. Seems a bit contradictory to insist that we honor immoral people for the sake of... I'm actually not sure how the author got here. Especially after the bit about not accepting responsibility. The Confederacy was a moral failing, and the best way to take responsibi…

While the reasons behind the war and its intended results can certainly be called immoral, I don’t think we can apply the same label to enlisted / conscripted soldiers. Most of those guys didn’t join up to protect slavery but rather their homes; and many didn’t have a choice about fighting at all.

Agree that slavery was a moral failing; but the cause of the war was economic — the main reason people were pro-slavery was because they owned assets that would lose ownership of or they worked in the slave trade. Yes, that reasoning is morally abhorrent, but morality often gets tossed out the window when money is involved. It wouldn’t have been a war without the money.

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

#43

Post by taneq »

ajmurmann wrote: post #37
bobthechef wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Officially, perhaps, but our coastal bubbles clearly believe that current liberal democratic values and attitudes are superior.

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.

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

#44

Post by kenning »

jacobolus wrote: post #32
Declanomous wrote: post #7

This is interesting. At the risk of being lambasted for this view, I've often felt that this is the issue with a lot of places within the United States. For instance, I've always considered personal interactions in the South to be largely dictated by honor. I do not think it is coincidental that the poorest and least-educated areas of the country are the same area. I think a similar problem is at play in inner-city v…

My impression is that a lot of honor based societies perpetuate themselves at lower levels because they get battered hard by the overarching society / more powerful external powers. People feel that they need to protect themselves and their tribes from being stomped from above. Combatting power inequality and systemic violence/abuse is probably the biggest counter to turf fights, domestic violence, etc., at least on…

Yeah I'd say it's not necessarily a case of honor based systems causing poverty. It's also the other way around. Pretty straightforward.

If you make a long essay about how a belief system causes poverty you'll be demonized by the left; the other way around, and you'll be demonized by the right. Say they dovetail, and nobody cares.

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

#45

Post by kenning »

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.

Some old traditions like this are so bizarre, I can't even imagine why they were created in the first place. Dowry is also like this -- I always forget which side pays which, because the idea of someone paying for a marriage is so strange.

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

#46

Post by linkregister »

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.

I think that prosperity through the pursuit of opportunity leads to such changes.

The author derides the continent of Africa, yet ignores enormous economic and public health improvement among most countries there in the last 30 years. Attitudes and “honor” culture have changed as well; nowadays commerce and transactions are the norm in cities, rather than violence based.

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

#47

Post by drdeca »

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.

"outgroup" vs "fargroup" ?

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

#49

Post by leohutson »

sullyj3 wrote: post #39
leohutson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illogical to make value judgements about cultures, there is no objective way to do it. What makes one culture "better" than another? Survival? Virality? Honor? Piousness? Lawfulness? Every culture values these things differently. Calling it politically correct shows your own failing to comprehend something outside of your own cultural frame of reference. Notably I could make the same point about morality as the…

What you're gesturing at is that it's illogical to make value judgements, period, without a standard that your object of interest is being judged against. This fact, which is blatantly obvious once pointed out, is obscured by the shortcomings of our language. Usually the standard is implicit, but obvious from context, for instance if we were talking about racing, we could say that a Mclaren is better than a Volkwagen…

> For instance, by the standard of the general wellbeing of African Americans, it's manifestly obvious that modern American culture is superior to American culture of the 1850s.

But it might be hard to convince a 1850s white American to adopt that standard.

It's tautological to say that as by definition 1850s white Americans culture is extremely distasteful to a modern HN commenter.

Any culture that isn't similar your culture is by definition inferior when held to your cultural standards, so there is no reason to do so.

All you need to decide is if the other culture is similar enough to tolerate it.

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

#50

Post by nradov »

bryananderson wrote: post #22
georgewsinger wrote: post #3

> Created 19 November 2001, Last Update 30 August 2011 Looks like this was created right after 9/11. It's understandable why he wrote this. > It's considered bad form in many circles to criticize another culture's values. In addition, the social science literature contains a number of rationalizations for the "honor" mentality. One is that every value system makes sense to the people that hold it. Another is that eve…

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.
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