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I'll never understand why people say outsiders cannot judge or critique other culture's practices. Of course we can. If society A and society B, who have never

I'll never understand why people say outsiders cannot judge or critique other culture's practices. Of course we can. If society A and society B, who have never come across each other before, were to meet, two-way judgement would be going on immediately (not to mention intrigue, wonder, learning, questioning etc etc). It is just one among many things that would happen. And it should. It is how we advance as a world and humanity in general. And today, we can form opinions and make judgments. Just today I saw this in my news feed: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48105731/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48105731/ns/world_news-south_and... Do you think there is an argument that can be made that justifies this (btw, if you say "yes", we have bigger issues so we can just stop now)? Of course not. We have an opinion, formed a judgement and deemed this action morally corrupt and no way justifiable, no matter the beliefs of the society. Lastly, on the matter of right-wrong and opinions, I'll leave this quote from Richard Dawkins: “...when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.” ― Richard Dawkins

einhverfr 14y ago
I never said we can't critique. However such a critique needs to take into account the totality of the other culture. It's not enough to say "everyone must recognize same-sex marriage." The critique needs to be bounded to the other culture and look specifically at it. My comment was against global campaigns. If we want to talk about a specific culture we can do that. There are huge dangers that come with the view that we can just remake the world in our cultural image. That's the view I am arguing against. If we are going to critique other cultures, we might at least make sure we are informed about them and understand exactly what we are critiquing first. As to your Dawkins quote, I would respond with "and more often, they both are." . Edit: Additionally... I would suggest that if we build our own society to be the most just one we can manage, then other cultures will adopt whatever they like from our society. If you look at Malaysia for example, despite the fact that it is a constitutional Islamic monarchy, the clear influence of the US constitution and structure in its founding is evident. It is in this way that the world is made better, not in remaking the world in our own image.
- fingerprinter 14y ago
  However such a critique needs to take into account the totality of the other culture. Why? Did we need to know all there was to know about Nazism to deem the holocaust "bad"? In the above link, do we necessarily have to understand every nuance of the society before we say killing someone to a cheering throng of people without a trial on hearsay of adultery is "wrong"? No, I don't think so. Those actions stand on their own and can be judged on their own. Now, if you are suggesting that we must completely understand a culture before we pass judgement on the entire culture, that has some weight to it. Individual acts or cross-sections, however, can be judged on their own. It might help to understand them in the larger picture, though it isn't necessary. As a last example, take lynchings in the south of the US. Easy to pass judgement on them as "wrong" for any outsider to the US without understanding the rest of the US culture. Sometimes things are just bad and we shouldn't be afraid to tell it like it is.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    Did we need to know all there was to know about Nazism to deem the holocaust "bad"? If all we need to know is that trying to exterminate another ethnic group is "bad" then I suppose not. However, I do think that something is missing in that analysis, and that is that when you start looking at the functions the holocaust fulfilled in the Nazi regime, it actually starts looking even worse. For example Himmler quite conspicuously used the death camps as places to expose possible dissenters (such as Fredrich B. Marby) to in order to try to secure their cooperation (Marby interestingly declined to cooperate and was left to make up his mind in Dachau, something he declined to do for the ten years in which he was imprisoned there, only to be liberated by allied troops and condemned again for his pre-war antisemitic writings--- I am not aware of any evidence he was antisemitic though post-imprisonment). Thus it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that the holocaust was a central part of the Nazi oppression of everywhere they conquered. It was, quite literally, how Himmler kept the nationalists in line. But there is a more subtle danger there too, and this is the tendency to take on others' authority that some evils were really good. The Holocaust was in its day a war crime. While Jewish residents of pre-1939 Germany could have been killed without implicating the Geneva Conventions, the GC's protected every civilian, Jewish or not, in every country the Nazis occupied. While the GC's might not have been sufficient to prosecute every death camp guard in every death camp, the vast majority could have been tied to serious crimes against the laws of war. The Nuremberg Tribunals could have imposed a rule of law based on the law at the time of the violations and dispensed real justice. But that's not what they decided to do. There were two problems with imposing the rule of law. First a few people they wanted to imprison (Doenitz, Raeder) might actually be innocent. Secondly they wanted something stronger. So they made up two classifications of laws after the fact and applied them retrospectively--- crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Interesting Raeder was sentenced to life in prison for treaty violations. Doenitz was convicted of violating the GC's and anti-submarine treaty violations but these violations were set aside because Admiral Nimitz filed an affidavit saying that everything Doenitz did was legal in the view of the US Navy, and indeed standard operating procedure in his fleet. However, he was convicted of crimes against peace and sent to jail for 10 years largely for fighting on the losing side of the war. The Nuremberg tribunals could have been what we typically think of them today-- an opportunity to dispense justice to real monsters, and in a very few cases they were (Gen. Keitel's conviction for GC violations is the best example--- he was the one who argued he wasn't responsible since he was just following orders). But in most cases they represented Soviet-style star-chambered justice and an evil in their own right. In our domestic law we have a much higher standard. These crimes against humanity and crimes against peace would have been thrown out as ex post facto. Additionally the crimes against peace counts are bald-faced victors justice that would not survive a first year law student arguing that they were unconstitutionally vague and thus adopted the primary method the Soviet Union used to put folks they didn't like in jail. That the Nuremberg Tribunals adopted the Stalinist model really has to be one of the great tragedies in the area of international law, peace, and justice.

einhverfr 14y ago

I never said we can't critique. However such a critique needs to take into account the totality of the other culture. It's not enough to say "everyone must recognize same-sex marriage." The critique needs to be bounded to the other culture and look specifically at it. My comment was against global campaigns. If we want to talk about a specific culture we can do that. There are huge dangers that come with the view that we can just remake the world in our cultural image. That's the view I am arguing against. If we are going to critique other cultures, we might at least make sure we are informed about them and understand exactly what we are critiquing first. As to your Dawkins quote, I would respond with "and more often, they both are." . Edit: Additionally... I would suggest that if we build our own society to be the most just one we can manage, then other cultures will adopt whatever they like from our society. If you look at Malaysia for example, despite the fact that it is a constitutional Islamic monarchy, the clear influence of the US constitution and structure in its founding is evident. It is in this way that the world is made better, not in remaking the world in our own image.

fingerprinter 14y ago
However such a critique needs to take into account the totality of the other culture. Why? Did we need to know all there was to know about Nazism to deem the holocaust "bad"? In the above link, do we necessarily have to understand every nuance of the society before we say killing someone to a cheering throng of people without a trial on hearsay of adultery is "wrong"? No, I don't think so. Those actions stand on their own and can be judged on their own. Now, if you are suggesting that we must completely understand a culture before we pass judgement on the entire culture, that has some weight to it. Individual acts or cross-sections, however, can be judged on their own. It might help to understand them in the larger picture, though it isn't necessary. As a last example, take lynchings in the south of the US. Easy to pass judgement on them as "wrong" for any outsider to the US without understanding the rest of the US culture. Sometimes things are just bad and we shouldn't be afraid to tell it like it is.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  Did we need to know all there was to know about Nazism to deem the holocaust "bad"? If all we need to know is that trying to exterminate another ethnic group is "bad" then I suppose not. However, I do think that something is missing in that analysis, and that is that when you start looking at the functions the holocaust fulfilled in the Nazi regime, it actually starts looking even worse. For example Himmler quite conspicuously used the death camps as places to expose possible dissenters (such as Fredrich B. Marby) to in order to try to secure their cooperation (Marby interestingly declined to cooperate and was left to make up his mind in Dachau, something he declined to do for the ten years in which he was imprisoned there, only to be liberated by allied troops and condemned again for his pre-war antisemitic writings--- I am not aware of any evidence he was antisemitic though post-imprisonment). Thus it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that the holocaust was a central part of the Nazi oppression of everywhere they conquered. It was, quite literally, how Himmler kept the nationalists in line. But there is a more subtle danger there too, and this is the tendency to take on others' authority that some evils were really good. The Holocaust was in its day a war crime. While Jewish residents of pre-1939 Germany could have been killed without implicating the Geneva Conventions, the GC's protected every civilian, Jewish or not, in every country the Nazis occupied. While the GC's might not have been sufficient to prosecute every death camp guard in every death camp, the vast majority could have been tied to serious crimes against the laws of war. The Nuremberg Tribunals could have imposed a rule of law based on the law at the time of the violations and dispensed real justice. But that's not what they decided to do. There were two problems with imposing the rule of law. First a few people they wanted to imprison (Doenitz, Raeder) might actually be innocent. Secondly they wanted something stronger. So they made up two classifications of laws after the fact and applied them retrospectively--- crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Interesting Raeder was sentenced to life in prison for treaty violations. Doenitz was convicted of violating the GC's and anti-submarine treaty violations but these violations were set aside because Admiral Nimitz filed an affidavit saying that everything Doenitz did was legal in the view of the US Navy, and indeed standard operating procedure in his fleet. However, he was convicted of crimes against peace and sent to jail for 10 years largely for fighting on the losing side of the war. The Nuremberg tribunals could have been what we typically think of them today-- an opportunity to dispense justice to real monsters, and in a very few cases they were (Gen. Keitel's conviction for GC violations is the best example--- he was the one who argued he wasn't responsible since he was just following orders). But in most cases they represented Soviet-style star-chambered justice and an evil in their own right. In our domestic law we have a much higher standard. These crimes against humanity and crimes against peace would have been thrown out as ex post facto. Additionally the crimes against peace counts are bald-faced victors justice that would not survive a first year law student arguing that they were unconstitutionally vague and thus adopted the primary method the Soviet Union used to put folks they didn't like in jail. That the Nuremberg Tribunals adopted the Stalinist model really has to be one of the great tragedies in the area of international law, peace, and justice.