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"cultural relativity" phrase probably wasn't intended to justify "anything is OK"... so anything is "OK" as long as it has "tradition"? A mafia mob family with

"cultural relativity" phrase probably wasn't intended to justify "anything is OK"... so anything is "OK" as long as it has "tradition"? A mafia mob family with a "tradition" in killing ppl around is OK because it's "tradition"? What's next? Claiming that Nazi killing was a "cultural thing"?

hrktb 8y ago
What’s so cruel with the situation is that there are middle paths, for instance the tribe banning members it doesn’t want instead of killing them, and the rest of the society adopting them (like what happens with the Suzuki couple). It seems like a good compromise, but there is all that “traditions must be protected” mantra, coming from outside these tribes, that brings massive inertia.
azag0 8y ago
I guess it only applies to traditional cultures, which the Nazis weren’t.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  Completely made-up and arbitrary though, so the justification is just shifted somewhere else - the "reason" is none. It's like explaining anything with "higher forces", all it is is not explaining anything at all, instead putting the issue under the rug or on the shelve of "stuff we just accept without giving it any more thoughts". Which I think is actually okay depending on the context, since every human does it to a large extend out of necessity. Only when it extends to preventing others from looking deeper does it become a problem. Here it's a problem when it's used to set standards used to justify how to treat different people. I proofread the Ph.D. thesis of a friend of mine who wrote on transfer of organizational culture. The example was Western companies doing business in countries with a different culture. To cut a very long story short, the conclusion (well-supported by the evidence he had collected) was that instead of accepting the local culture at least in the examples he had looked the ones that succeeded by a big margin were those who imposed their own values from their home organization. The "details" matter of course: What did not work was imposing those values. He found that what worked best was to take a number of core people, bring them back to the country of the source culture and let them work there for a time and absorb the organization's culture (an active process, and that culture must be attractive and demonstrably be successful, or why would anyone want to adopt it in the first place). Then let these people build the new business. Don't give them direct supervision, i.e. no boss(es) from the source organization. Well, there are a few hundred more pages, but my point is that trying to always accept all kinds of cultures as the "best" way is just not true. We humans have "transferred cultures", often by force, for a million years, and in the realm of nature keeping everything as it is, forever, is not exactly a proven success story or how anything works.
grrtb 8y ago
Why even this comment is flagged? maybe downvoted by HN people who buried their children alive by tradition?
- tomhoward 8y ago
  Probably because it's a case of Godwin's Law (without justification), and is an over-simplistic and emotive comment that is likely to trigger a flame-war.
  - zbentley 8y ago
    So is GP, which is ad-hominem-ish.
  - grrtb 8y ago
    How it can be an over-simplitic thing? Is there any room for a valid argument/justification of killing a child (except for "cultural thing" bullshit)?
    - tomhoward 8y ago
      I find it troubling too, of course, but it is simplistic to not consider it in its anthropological and evolutionary context, and against our own societies' values around euthanasia. Dr Peter Singer, a prominent and respected professor at one of the world's leading universities, has expressed (and being condemned for) positions around this topic in the western world in recent decades. I find those positions troubling too and I don't agree with them or defend them. But it's not a simple issue, and complex, controversial issues like this need to be approached with caution, else we end up in hostile flame wars that benefit nobody.
watwut 8y ago
Nazi killing was cultural thing, quite literally. Also, they were not independently living group of people killing among themselves, Germans attacked nearby countries. They were threat to everyone else, Nazism was not some kind of cruel internal thing. That comparison does not work at all, regardless of whether you think tribes should be left to do what they do or not.

hrktb 8y ago

What’s so cruel with the situation is that there are middle paths, for instance the tribe banning members it doesn’t want instead of killing them, and the rest of the society adopting them (like what happens with the Suzuki couple). It seems like a good compromise, but there is all that “traditions must be protected” mantra, coming from outside these tribes, that brings massive inertia.

azag0 8y ago

I guess it only applies to traditional cultures, which the Nazis weren’t.

ItsMe000001 8y ago
Completely made-up and arbitrary though, so the justification is just shifted somewhere else - the "reason" is none. It's like explaining anything with "higher forces", all it is is not explaining anything at all, instead putting the issue under the rug or on the shelve of "stuff we just accept without giving it any more thoughts". Which I think is actually okay depending on the context, since every human does it to a large extend out of necessity. Only when it extends to preventing others from looking deeper does it become a problem. Here it's a problem when it's used to set standards used to justify how to treat different people. I proofread the Ph.D. thesis of a friend of mine who wrote on transfer of organizational culture. The example was Western companies doing business in countries with a different culture. To cut a very long story short, the conclusion (well-supported by the evidence he had collected) was that instead of accepting the local culture at least in the examples he had looked the ones that succeeded by a big margin were those who imposed their own values from their home organization. The "details" matter of course: What did not work was imposing those values. He found that what worked best was to take a number of core people, bring them back to the country of the source culture and let them work there for a time and absorb the organization's culture (an active process, and that culture must be attractive and demonstrably be successful, or why would anyone want to adopt it in the first place). Then let these people build the new business. Don't give them direct supervision, i.e. no boss(es) from the source organization. Well, there are a few hundred more pages, but my point is that trying to always accept all kinds of cultures as the "best" way is just not true. We humans have "transferred cultures", often by force, for a million years, and in the realm of nature keeping everything as it is, forever, is not exactly a proven success story or how anything works.

grrtb 8y ago

Why even this comment is flagged? maybe downvoted by HN people who buried their children alive by tradition?

tomhoward 8y ago
Probably because it's a case of Godwin's Law (without justification), and is an over-simplistic and emotive comment that is likely to trigger a flame-war.
- zbentley 8y ago
  So is GP, which is ad-hominem-ish.
- grrtb 8y ago
  How it can be an over-simplitic thing? Is there any room for a valid argument/justification of killing a child (except for "cultural thing" bullshit)?
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    I find it troubling too, of course, but it is simplistic to not consider it in its anthropological and evolutionary context, and against our own societies' values around euthanasia. Dr Peter Singer, a prominent and respected professor at one of the world's leading universities, has expressed (and being condemned for) positions around this topic in the western world in recent decades. I find those positions troubling too and I don't agree with them or defend them. But it's not a simple issue, and complex, controversial issues like this need to be approached with caution, else we end up in hostile flame wars that benefit nobody.

watwut 8y ago

Nazi killing was cultural thing, quite literally. Also, they were not independently living group of people killing among themselves, Germans attacked nearby countries. They were threat to everyone else, Nazism was not some kind of cruel internal thing. That comparison does not work at all, regardless of whether you think tribes should be left to do what they do or not.