Bigot? Racist? Something Else?

@saab,

PS. Who the heck is giving Finn d´Abuzz a thumb down all the time?

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

These generic insults are not technical terms. They are subjective terms. They are personal attacks that mean whatever you want them to mean.

No one is objectively a "bigot" or a "slut" or a "moron" or an "asshole" or a "bitch". These are just nasty terms to express your own displeasure. You can call anyone you want a "bigot" or a "racist". Other people will probably disagree...

... when you are being judgmental, you are the judge. That is the whole point.

After all, who cares what insult you use?

Would "parochial" be less judgemental, yet explaining that a person is limited in one's viewpoint?

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@snood,

snood wrote:

Can't a negative description of someone not be an insult, but a reflection of reality? If someone has contempt for a whole group of people without having any personal experience on which to base that antipathy, isn't that person a prejudiced person, by definition? What's wrong with calling people who are prejudiced against a certain group bigots, racists, sexists, etc.?

I'm not sure, but those defining terms (bigot, racist, sexist) can be based on one's skewed vision of a correct society. Sort of like when someone who might have had trouble in his/her schooling, refers to someone disparagingly as an "intellectual." The intent being to lower that person in the eyes of one's like minded folk. It would be more honest, I believe, if everyone just said that they are prejudiced against those that act pompous, for example. Naturally, what constitutes "pompous"? Now the question is if many are easily swayed.

This thread could be a mobius strip with the thread on "ilk."

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@saab,

saab wrote:

Introverted means you do not open up very much to others.
Many authers are introverted - they prefer to write than to talk.
The same happens to painters.
It really has nothing to do with being uninformed or ingorant about things.
An introvert might know a lot, but does talk about it.
An extrovert might talk constantly and giving an impression about knowing a lot and it is just hot air.

The best definition of "introvert and extrovert," in my opinion came from a book of psychological definitions. As I remember, an extrovert cannot ignore someone coming into the same room (it being a brain thing), and would get stronger if one went to additional parties, as the night wore on. An introvert prefers one's own thoughts, or the thoughts of specific people, and needs time to "recharge in solitude" after being at a social gathering. Most people are supposedly extroverts in the U.S. society. Also, introverts understand what an extrovert is. An extrovert does not understand an introvert's ways, supposedly (missing all that enjoyable socializing).

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@perennialloner,

perennialloner wrote:

You must not read a lot of Foofie's posts. I mentioned it because Foofie calls people who do not care to involve themselves with others introverted. And he does not see this introversion, as he defines it, as a bad thing.
If it were me, I'd probably call this person close-minded or narrow-minded. Maybe egocentric, even.

Creativity is the result of introversion. Extroverts might make good supervisors, or others that seem to be ominipresent. It's not good or bad. It just needs to be the right person for the right effort. And, introversion is not a bad thing, in my opinion, and in the opinion of those that do not need to be a social butterfly of sorts. Extroverts can be close-minded/narrow minded, especially when one broaches the extrovert's political/religious beliefs.

Are your opinions based on educated definitions, or popular beliefs?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

...My point is that when you encounter another culture, you make judgements based on your own cultural lens (which happens to be a White Western lens)...

Better one say a "western prism," since there are divergent opinions based on religion (within Christianity), and a myriad of subtle differences (ancestors from northern Europe or Southern Europe, or other regions).

And, it's not just culture. If I was interacting with you in some work environment, etc., I would value your input, not based on your culture, but the intellect, I believe I discerned in your thinking. Not that I'd agree with you, but where you are on the bellcurve would have an effect on my listening ability, in my opinion.

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@saab,

saab wrote:

PS. Who the heck is giving Finn d´Abuzz a thumb down all the time?

A bigot.

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@Foofie,

I wasn't trying to define introversion. I was recalling what I think your definition of introversion is because I think it applies to the person described in the original post.

I couldn't make a judgment whether this person is introverted based on my understanding of the disposition. However based on chai's description of this lady, I believe narrow minded fits. She sees the world through a narrow lens in my opinion, because she feels no compulsion to broaden her perspective.

You'd have to tell me whether my interpretation of closemindedness fits with educated definitions of the word.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

If you could admit that you are just as susceptible to cultural indoctrination as these indigenous cultures we are discussing, it would be a big step forward.

You are mistaken if you believe that my disapproval of child marriage or female mutilation has anything to do with the condemnation of a culture. It has to do with what I see as an injustice done to a child, whether that be forcing a girl into a marriage with an adult male, or the pointless severing of a part of her body.

You see my position as an attack on a culture, and you want to label me as one who condemns cultures that are not like my own. But the fact is that I condemn pain, and I condemn placing a girl in a situation that she is not emotionally developed enough to understand.

1 Reply

@Glennn,

When you are confronted with the practices of another culture that differ from your own culture, you assume that your culture is right and the other culture is wrong.

Do you dispute this fact?

By judging other cultures (as you are doing) you are working on the assumption that your culture is superior to the other cultures.

If these indigenous cultures are equal to yours, than their opinion on topics like child marriage are just as valid as your opinion. You don't seem to be willing to accept this. Your opinion is just an opinion... you have no secret knowledge or wisdom that they don't have. And yet when you disagree with them you make the assumption that you are right and they are wrong.

In any objective sense, you have as much of a chance of being wrong as they do.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

When you are confronted with the practices of another culture that differ from your own culture, you assume that your culture is right and the other culture is wrong.

There is some cognitive dissonance going on here. I've just told you that culture is not my concern. I don't care where or when I see someone pointlessly severing a part of a girl's body, I'm going to express my disapproval of that act. You see fit to condemn my disapproval of such things as if culture falls under something akin to the diplomatic immunity rule. Do you think it unfair to a culture to condemn female mutilation? If your answer to that is yes, then it is true that you would defend the practices of culture, but would not defend the body of a young girl. Your concern is that culture not be offended even at the expense of a powerless young girl's right to not have her genitals mutilated. What kind of indoctrination would cause the kind of mental process that would lead you to such a conclusion?

You are incapable of separating cultural ideals from inhumane acts. You believe that culture trumps decency. So in your mind, condemnation of female mutilation, or condemnation of adult men with female children, is a condemnation of everything to do with that particular culture. But such an idea exists only in your mind. I only condemn the unreasonable.

1 Reply

@Glennn,

The cognitive dissonance is yours Glenn. The problem you are having is this: When you and someone from an indigenous culture disagree about something like child marriage, how do you know that you are right and they are wrong?

You are making the assumption that you are correct about child marriage and that the person from an indigenous culture is wrong? She feels that her culture is right and that your culture is wrong.

Why is your opinion better than hers?

Of course when indigenous cultures agree with you, you think they are right. The problem is that whenever they disagree with you, you believe that indigenous cultures are wrong. That is the textbook definition of cultural superiority. If you believed that these indigenous cultures were your equals, you would accept the possibility that they are right on the issues where you and they disagree. You don't seem to be able to even consider this possibility.

You are not treating these indigenous cultures as your equals when it comes to judging right and wrong. You are insisting on your judgement and you aren't accepting their judgement.

There is a way to resolve this where no superior culture's beliefs rule over other cultures. It simply means that we accept each culture as equal and allow them to develop according to their own beliefs and traditions. But this means that you need to accept them as equal even when you strongly disagree with them... because once another culture gets to judge your beliefs as right or wrong, you are no longer their equal.

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@maxdancona,

It seems you are proceeding under the assumption that there is no 'good' or 'bad'- that all is relative. Child marriage seems to me to be wrong because of the immutable fact that a child cannot consent to sex, making marital relations in child/adult marriages necessarily rape. And rape is bad by definition. I could easily, in good conscience, call a society that sanctioned rape, inferior.

1 Reply

@snood,

Sure snood, but...

You have this view of why child marriage "seem to be wrong" that is shared by 99% of us in Modern Western culture. This view was not shared by the great majority cultures in African, Asian and North America.

It isn't just child marriage, there are a whole bunch of issues that all Modern Americans agree are absolutely true... even though most other cultures outside of those with shared Western European roots would disagree.

So answer me. Does Modern Western society have some access to absolute moral truth that other cultures didn't have? Given the history of Western culture dominating these other cultures, it seems a little uncomfortable to even ask this question (but that never seems to stop me).

Either we treat cultures as equal and allow for drastically different ideas of right and wrong, or we assume that indigenous societies "sanction rape" (however our culture defines "rape") are in fact inferior.

Imagine approaching a a member of a Native American, or Pre-Colonial African, or Asian culture and telling them that the marriage customs at the center of their culture that they hold dear actually "sanction rape". This term would be completely meaningless to them. Of course, they had moral ideas that are likewise meaningless to us... either we treat these cultures as equals or we accept that we are their superiors.

Historically, of course, this actually happened. The fight against child marriage was at the center of the drive to Christianize Native Americans living in what is now known as California. The writing at the time talk about the "barbarism" of Native marriage customs that were so foreign to the European conquistadores. These Native Americans were converted and those that resisted were killed.

When you look at the crimes committed by absolutists, I am very comfortable being a relativist.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

You are making the assumption that you are correct about child marriage and that the person from an indigenous culture is wrong? She feels that her culture is right and that your culture is wrong.

You are attempting to defend your position by calling a young girl to the stand. However, you are also deliberately ignoring the fact that the testimony of a girl child who has been witness to such a cultural practice her entire life, and seeing other girls going before her, and being prompted by her parents, has no bearing on her thought processes. You deceive yourself.

In your mind, the determination of whether a practice is right or wrong has nothing to do with the effect that that practice has on a human being. You base right and wrong on geographical considerations. Basically, your contention is that if a bunch of people over there thinks something is right, then it is right, regardless of its affect on a girl's genitalia. Somehow, you have come to believe that you are not qualified to determine right from wrong because . . . you might be wrong.

1 Reply

I know a girl from Somalia who left with her very Somali family to the United States because her parents feared she'd have to undergo genital mutilation. Do you think it was Western cultural influence or unmitigated fear of their daughter's suffering that drove them to a place where she wouldn't be subjected to purposeful bodily harm?

1 Reply

@Glennn,

Quote:

You are attempting to defend your position by calling a young girl to the stand. However, you are also deliberately ignoring the fact that the testimony of a girl child who has been witness to such a cultural practice her entire life, and seeing other girls going before her, and being prompted by her parents, has no bearing on her thought processes. You deceive yourself.

I am calling only adults to the stand; indigenous adults, both men and women, who believe in their culture as strongly and as sincerely as you do. Yes, they have been brought up in their culture by parents in their culture. But they are no different than you in this fact.

You have also been witness to your cultural practice your entire life, and you have seen other girls go before you following Western customs, being prompted by your parent.

Why are your beliefs are any more valid then the beliefs of indigenous men and women who follow these cultural practices you can't accept.

1 Reply

@perennialloner,

Quote:

I know a girl from Somalia who left with her very Somali family to the United States because her parents feared she'd have to undergo genital mutilation.

These individual stories are heartbreaking, but they don't do anything to show that the American moral judgment is superior to traditional Somali culture. There are Americans who have gone the opposite way. In fact, this is happening right now as we speak. It doesn't prove anything.

There are plenty of indigenous women and men now, even in this time of cultural homogeneity and worldwide media, who purposely reject Western culture (Western Cultural imperialism is a real issue).

The idea of us going back to pre-colonial Africa to tell them about the superiority of modern Western marriage culture seems laughable.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

I am calling only adults to the stand; indigenous adults, both men and women, who believe in their culture as strongly and as sincerely as you do.

Did you notice how you removed the girl from the equation?

Quote:

Yes, they have been brought up in their culture by parents in their culture. But they are no different than you in this fact.

Except that I understand that a grown male adult has nothing in common with an emotionally and intellectually immature female. Do you care to challenge that point?

I also understand that female genital mutilation is an assault. I will leave it to you to introduce the context in which it is not an assault.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

If people who are isolated from Western influences can come to the same conclusion that most people in the world have about what's acceptable treatment of the female body, does that not suggest there's some overlap across human societies about decent behavior despite the various different practices among cultures.

1 Reply

Bigot? Racist? Something Else?

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