4 ms·

"She had dragged herself [...] into the clinic, her genitals burned and fused beyond functional repair by the repeated intrusions of red-hot irons." What? This

"She had dragged herself [...] into the clinic, her genitals burned and fused beyond functional repair by the repeated intrusions of red-hot irons." What? This made me very angry. But how do we combat it if even law officials are aware of it going on and don't do anything to stop it? There's so much corruption, and the government legally acknowledges sorcery and punishment for sorcery as valid. In order for this to stop, the entire society and way of life would have to change. Is the United Nations looking to do this? It needs to be done.

i386 13y ago
The UN isn't a global police force. All it can do its organise sanctions to force the PNG government to do something about it or get nations to contribute to some sort of fund to improve education and policing domestically.
- vy8vWJlco 13y ago
  Nor should it be a global police force. I think people/countries that don't condone this type of behavior should be more willing to offer refugee status and provide the means to leave such places and situations, but people are pretty hard-mouthed about their borders... At the end of the day, we can't tell people what to do, only offer them alternatives.
derleth 13y ago
> In order for this to stop, the entire society and way of life would have to change. Is the United Nations looking to do this? It needs to be done. And here I thought "Cultural Imperialism" was a bad thing. This is a dangerous road down which to tread, especially when the entity doing the treading (the UN) contains members such as Iran, the PRC, and every country that rates "depicting Mohamed" as being worse than "killing Jews".
- dylangs1030 13y ago
  You make a good point; however, I'm not advocating we invade. I'm saying we need to do this as peaceably as possible, but certainly assertively. I'm not a politician, I don't know how it would be done, but would strengthening the economy even more help the situation and modernize perspective or serve to increase class divisions?
  - derleth 13y ago
    > would strengthening the economy even more help the situation and modernize perspective or serve to increase class divisions? Initially it would do the second. As we see from the modern PRC and our own Gilded Age (1870s-1910s), it takes a fairly active and honest government to force wealth out of the hands of the richest and into society as a whole. Until and unless that government comes into being, wealth creates cliques and oligarchs in a crony capitalist mode.
- hobs 13y ago
  Cultural Imperialism is bad. Using it as an excuse to stand by in the face of evil because of some sense of moral relativism is arguably a lot worse.
  - icegreentea 13y ago
    Yes. But ultimately it comes down to this. Trying to go and affect rapid change on a culture and society is no easy task. It is difficult to predict and control, and almost certainly full of unintended sideeffects and costs. To jump into any attempt to affect change without really REALLY carefully considering what the actual goals are, what the acceptable costs on the sides of all parties are, and even what tools and strategies are available or possible is literally how you end up with Afghanistan. For example, say we decided to go in there and change things. Do we go and punish those who partook in this? What happens if the potential backlash from imposing punishment is too way to even consider it? How then do you answer the cries of the victims asking for justice? Yes, you could answer with all sincerity and truthfulness that you cannot go after their tormentors for the good of all future people. But it still sucks, and if you're not careful, you can find yourself not just in a shitty situation, but also causing all sorts of unintended problems where you're trying to fix things. These are clearly not easy issues, and I do not mean to say that these problems or issues should always deter from action. What I do mean to say is that "OMG, that's terrible, can't we do -SOMETHING- about that?" is a fine, and acceptable first response. But if that becomes your guiding philosophy, then you're going to have a harddd time.
    - yummyfajitas 13y ago
      Forcing cultures to change their barbaric ways has been done successfully in the past. A quote, from Charles Napier (Britain's Commander in Chief of India), on the topic of burning women: "Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."
Cushman 13y ago
> What? This made me very angry. And anger is what made this happen in the first place. I'm not trying to draw any platitudes or grand truths here. Just... think on that.
- pyre 13y ago
  The lack of consequences ensures that it keeps happening...
  - Cushman 13y ago
    This strikes me as a rather lazy analysis of human behavior. We have had consequences for senseless violence for as long as we have had sense, and while it has been slowing it shows no signs of stopping. Can't we do any better than that?
    - pyre 13y ago
      We would not be looking at the same scale of operation of there were consequences. I'm not saying it would eliminate it, but having huge crowds of people gathered around to see a 'witch' tortured to death would be less likely to happen if they were all at risk of significant jail time. The idea of changing minds is nice, but that happens slowly, over longer periods of time. It's a nice long-term goal, but in the meantime, people are being tortured and killed. Would you throw these people under the bus rather than take a multi-tiered approach to the issue?
      - Cushman 13y ago
        I'm not sure I can do anything at all for Papua New Guinea. Not to sound callous, but I'm more worried about the state-sanctioned torture and killing that takes place much closer to my home. It is the very people whom we have entrusted with power to provide consequences who get away with these things -- in fact the violence and suffering inflicted often takes the form of those consequences themselves! So I really hope we can do better than "there should be consequences".
- 13y ago

i386 13y ago

The UN isn't a global police force. All it can do its organise sanctions to force the PNG government to do something about it or get nations to contribute to some sort of fund to improve education and policing domestically.

vy8vWJlco 13y ago
Nor should it be a global police force. I think people/countries that don't condone this type of behavior should be more willing to offer refugee status and provide the means to leave such places and situations, but people are pretty hard-mouthed about their borders... At the end of the day, we can't tell people what to do, only offer them alternatives.

derleth 13y ago

> In order for this to stop, the entire society and way of life would have to change. Is the United Nations looking to do this? It needs to be done. And here I thought "Cultural Imperialism" was a bad thing. This is a dangerous road down which to tread, especially when the entity doing the treading (the UN) contains members such as Iran, the PRC, and every country that rates "depicting Mohamed" as being worse than "killing Jews".

dylangs1030 13y ago
You make a good point; however, I'm not advocating we invade. I'm saying we need to do this as peaceably as possible, but certainly assertively. I'm not a politician, I don't know how it would be done, but would strengthening the economy even more help the situation and modernize perspective or serve to increase class divisions?
- derleth 13y ago
  > would strengthening the economy even more help the situation and modernize perspective or serve to increase class divisions? Initially it would do the second. As we see from the modern PRC and our own Gilded Age (1870s-1910s), it takes a fairly active and honest government to force wealth out of the hands of the richest and into society as a whole. Until and unless that government comes into being, wealth creates cliques and oligarchs in a crony capitalist mode.
hobs 13y ago
Cultural Imperialism is bad. Using it as an excuse to stand by in the face of evil because of some sense of moral relativism is arguably a lot worse.
- icegreentea 13y ago
  Yes. But ultimately it comes down to this. Trying to go and affect rapid change on a culture and society is no easy task. It is difficult to predict and control, and almost certainly full of unintended sideeffects and costs. To jump into any attempt to affect change without really REALLY carefully considering what the actual goals are, what the acceptable costs on the sides of all parties are, and even what tools and strategies are available or possible is literally how you end up with Afghanistan. For example, say we decided to go in there and change things. Do we go and punish those who partook in this? What happens if the potential backlash from imposing punishment is too way to even consider it? How then do you answer the cries of the victims asking for justice? Yes, you could answer with all sincerity and truthfulness that you cannot go after their tormentors for the good of all future people. But it still sucks, and if you're not careful, you can find yourself not just in a shitty situation, but also causing all sorts of unintended problems where you're trying to fix things. These are clearly not easy issues, and I do not mean to say that these problems or issues should always deter from action. What I do mean to say is that "OMG, that's terrible, can't we do -SOMETHING- about that?" is a fine, and acceptable first response. But if that becomes your guiding philosophy, then you're going to have a harddd time.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    Forcing cultures to change their barbaric ways has been done successfully in the past. A quote, from Charles Napier (Britain's Commander in Chief of India), on the topic of burning women: "Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

Cushman 13y ago

> What? This made me very angry. And anger is what made this happen in the first place. I'm not trying to draw any platitudes or grand truths here. Just... think on that.

pyre 13y ago
The lack of consequences ensures that it keeps happening...
- Cushman 13y ago
  This strikes me as a rather lazy analysis of human behavior. We have had consequences for senseless violence for as long as we have had sense, and while it has been slowing it shows no signs of stopping. Can't we do any better than that?
  - pyre 13y ago
    We would not be looking at the same scale of operation of there were consequences. I'm not saying it would eliminate it, but having huge crowds of people gathered around to see a 'witch' tortured to death would be less likely to happen if they were all at risk of significant jail time. The idea of changing minds is nice, but that happens slowly, over longer periods of time. It's a nice long-term goal, but in the meantime, people are being tortured and killed. Would you throw these people under the bus rather than take a multi-tiered approach to the issue?
    - Cushman 13y ago
      I'm not sure I can do anything at all for Papua New Guinea. Not to sound callous, but I'm more worried about the state-sanctioned torture and killing that takes place much closer to my home. It is the very people whom we have entrusted with power to provide consequences who get away with these things -- in fact the violence and suffering inflicted often takes the form of those consequences themselves! So I really hope we can do better than "there should be consequences".
13y ago