|
Cultures (pg. 2)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by tathi
Nihilist, Arbiter? |
No, and in fact I can think of few manifestations of nihilism so profound as the mechanical practice and transmission of simple beliefs, opinions, and behaviors from person to person and generation to generation with no sign of the individual will I know we are capable of.
Wherever I see culture I see machines masquerading as sentient beings - I see life with no life. What do these people really believe in, for themselves? Nothing. They are nihilists... |
|
|
| pkcRAISTLIN |
Rule #1. don’t argue with renegade when you’ve been smoking pot ;)
Good points mate, and noted. I’ll attempt to rephrase.
Im certainly not a utilitarian. However I do see that utilitarianism is at the core of most theory, in a basic sense at least. For instance you say that military intervention is only justified in extreme cases. And I agree. Essentially what we’re saying is that some activities cause enough suffering for us to be justified in causing suffering of our own for the greater good (tho im sure we both hate that term). Whilst it is problematic to quantify something like ‘suffering’, we still do it, even if its just in our minds and don’t realise it: 1 tutsi has been killed –well that’s hardly enough of a reason to act. Wait a minute, 800,000 have been killed. , lets do something.
I am not oblivious to the bitter irony of defending the US’ unilateral approach to global democracy. But I am not of the opinion that just becoz they acted mostly alone that this inherently dooms them to have done the wrong thing, anymore than multilateral action necessarily means the right thing is being done. It is so hard these days to get the nations of the world to agree on anything- who can forget the saber-rattling of the Russians during the Balkans conflict? sighs.
I think the world, in a way, has made the US the arbiter of all things moral. They get asked to do everything. They are more active in trying to help other nations moreso than any other. Its all too easy for national leaders to pay lip service to global affairs, point fingers etc, but there are big problems in the world that I can only ever see being changed by war. more sighs.
As for which nations to go after on human rights abuses- obviously we cant do everything at the same time. And some nations, like china, all we can do is our own saber-rattling. Which is a shame. I agree with world intervention in any country that doesn’t have an open democratic system, and especially in those nations that oppress 50% of their population becoz of their gender.
The problem is that many of the nations of the world have known nothing but autocratic govt, and without outside pressure I see no reason why this will change. Saddam would have merely transferred power to his sons. And them to their sons etc. how long must we wait patiently for the citizens of any nation to overthrow their brutal dictatorships? In theory many nations could last this way forever. And what can we do about it? In iraq’s case the economic sanctions only plunged the country into recession, and hurt the poor and the weak.
Most meaningful transitions of political systems come with the price of instability and violence- whether its an internal uprising or outside interference. Perhaps im a little naïve, but I would like to think that in 10 years’ time iraq could be a flourishing democracy, released from sanctions and back as one of the richer nations in the world, free from saddam’s greedy plundering. Yes, im hardly salivating at the thought of a despotic theocrat, however democracy has to begin somewhere and somehow, unless we choose to give up and let brutal regimes continue ad nauseum praying for a change that may never occur.
Having said all that though, youre right when you mention the opportunity cost, and perhaps the war chest could have been better spent elsewhere; however I would argue that ‘better spent’ *could* entail interventionist policies in another nation.
I guess we mostly agree; just that we draw a line in the sand at different points. As far as I can see, there are only ever 3 options:
Economic sanctions
Direct military intervention
Do nothing
They all have their price tag. |
|
|
| Aquarian |
| quote: | | The war itself is the cause of at least 20,000 civilian deaths and you could probably easily double that number if you included military deaths. |
I wouldn't put it so simply. The direct casualties from the war are only a base. The real death count should take into consideration the death counts of the inevitable hundreds of terrorist attacks that will follow. The anti-american cause in the middle east is far stronger now than it's ever been. How many more attacks will result from that - and how many more people will die in those attacks? How badly has the conflict been intensified? That is the real consequence of the war. 20 000 civilian deaths isn't much compared to that. |
|
|
| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
Rule #1. don’t argue with renegade when you’ve been smoking pot ;) |
Haha, I'd actually tend to think of that as an advantage... :stongue:
| quote: | | Im certainly not a utilitarian. However I do see that utilitarianism is at the core of most theory, in a basic sense at least. For instance you say that military intervention is only justified in extreme cases. And I agree. Essentially what we’re saying is that some activities cause enough suffering for us to be justified in causing suffering of our own for the greater good (tho im sure we both hate that term). Whilst it is problematic to quantify something like ‘suffering’, we still do it, even if its just in our minds and don’t realise it: 1 tutsi has been killed –well that’s hardly enough of a reason to act. Wait a minute, 800,000 have been killed. , lets do something. |
I'd agree with that: more extreme situations call for more extreme measures. If there is something that can be taken from the utilitarian approach, I suppose it's that differing scenarios call for differing - yet proportional - solutions.
In this regard, warfare must be viewed as the most extreme of solutions available to us (there certainly aren't any options more heavy-handed than a military invasion) and as such should always be reserved for the most extreme of situations. Was Iraq, then, in March 2003, an example of a most extreme situation that would necessitate war? Given that the situation in Iraq was hardly unique compared with other political situations around the globe (and given that Saddam's Iraq was not an immediate threat to other nations), I would suggest not.
| quote: | | I am not oblivious to the bitter irony of defending the US’ unilateral approach to global democracy. But I am not of the opinion that just becoz they acted mostly alone that this inherently dooms them to have done the wrong thing, anymore than multilateral action necessarily means the right thing is being done. It is so hard these days to get the nations of the world to agree on anything- who can forget the saber-rattling of the Russians during the Balkans conflict? sighs. |
The fact that they acted unilaterally does not make the action intrinsically "wrong" but it does erode the moral authority that would otherwise be present in a multilateral, globally-sanctioned invasion. Like I said, if the principles the US are defending are universal and the solution (i.e. the war) was self-evidently the best available solution, then why wasn't it sanctioned by more than the quarter of the globe that made up the "coalition of brib..." oh, sorry, "willing"? The fact is, if human-rights - as I believe they do - carry a universal application, then they should be enforced universally, namely through the UN or other official multinational bodies (NATO etc.). But you can't say that "this is, definitively, the right thing to do" when 75% of the world's countries disagree with you.
The morality of the war aside, the notion of "pre-emptive strikes" and the declaration that it is permissible for a nation to act militarily - without global assent - against those it considers "enemies", sets a dangerous precedent. What moral authority would the US now have to say, for instance, that a Russian incursion into Chechnya would be wrong? Or a Chinese incursion into Tibet / Taiwan, an Indian incursion into Pakistan, or a Malaysian incursion into Australia (after what Downer said about reserving the right to bomb any Asian country we don't trust)? Each of these nations has a claim against these other nations every bit as legitimate as the US's claim against Iraq, so where is the line drawn? If the US invasion was "morally right" why wouldn't these military actions be considered "morally right" as well?
| quote: | | I think the world, in a way, has made the US the arbiter of all things moral. They get asked to do everything. They are more active in trying to help other nations moreso than any other. Its all too easy for national leaders to pay lip service to global affairs, point fingers etc, but there are big problems in the world that I can only ever see being changed by war. more sighs. |
I don't think the world has made the US an arbiter of all things moral at all. The reason that the US is called to assist militarily is because it has the world's biggest military force by far, and because it claims to have an interest in fostering freedom and human rights. The difference is, though, the world believes that the US should fight for these principles through legitimate channels (as most other nations do), not unilaterally. The world wants to see the US participating globally, but the US's interest in persuing a unilateral foreign policy does not constitute "global" action at all, it's still - for all intents and purposes - political isolationism. When people ask "what if the US were to totally recede from the world?" I'd ask "what would be different"? Isolationist, unilateral policies carried out beyond one's own shores are still isolationist, unilateral policies. Capriciously starting wars on someone elses continent while completely ignoring global opinion is not the antithesis of political isolationism as many Republicans believe it to be, it is the very definition of political isolationism. What is isolationism, then, if not the disinterested disdain for the views of other nations?
| quote: | | As for which nations to go after on human rights abuses- obviously we cant do everything at the same time. And some nations, like china, all we can do is our own saber-rattling. Which is a shame. I agree with world intervention in any country that doesn’t have an open democratic system, and especially in those nations that oppress 50% of their population becoz of their gender. |
The irony is, for all that the US and Australia talk about the need to spread "freedom", "democracy" and "human-rights" we are each privy to some fairly serious human-rights violations of our own. I'm not sure if you were aware of this, but Amnesty International recently (as in, within the past 24 hours) published its annual Human Rights report, and it doesn't make for pretty reading for those in liberal democracies such as ours, always quick to call on smaller nations to abide by international human-rights conventions, but rarely willing to sort our own problems out first. In short, if we wanted to further the advance of human-rights as we say we do, we could start in our own backyards.
Edited to include:
| quote: | If and when President Bush comes to sign his Human Rights Day proclamation this year, Amnesty International believes that an honest appraisal would require him to acknowledge that the USA has violated and undermined basic human rights principles and the rule of law during his first term in office and continues to be far from the global human rights champion it proclaims itself to be.
[...]
The State Department explains that the USA seeks to "hold governments accountable to their obligations under universal human rights norms and international human rights instruments" as well as to promote the rule of law and greater respect for human rights.
Seeking to hold the USA accountable to its international obligations, meanwhile, is an uphill task. Over the years, this is a country that has repeatedly ignored or rejected resolutions and findings of international and regional bodies and experts, including the UN Commission on Human Rights, the UN Committee against Torture, the UN Human Rights Committee, the International Court of Justice, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, various UN Special Rapporteurs, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It has lodged unprecedented conditions to its ratifications of some human rights treaties and failed to ratify others. For example, although the State Department lists the promotion of children’s rights as one of the USA’s central policy goals, it is the only country apart from Somalia not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. |
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr511712004
(If you're interested in reading a summary of reports for each: [Australia], [USA].)
With the US's greater economic might, however, a greater form of hypocracy becomes apparent. They say (as you have) that war against Iraq was necessary to free the Iraqi people from the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein. As they embarked on this misadventure, they continued to support - economically and militarily - despotic regimes (each as open to the use of torture and murder of political disidents as Saddam's was) in places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and - I'm sure - many others. The hyprocracy, though, is particularly tragic in the case of Uzbekistan. When Karimov recently ordered his military to open fire on anti-government protests in the country, killing in excess of 1000 people, Scott McClellan - the spokesman for the nation that stands up for freedom everywhere - said "[W]e urge both the government and the demonstrators to exercise restraint at this time.The people of Uzbekistan want to see more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence". Right - apparently the protesters should have shown more restraint when being peppered with bullets by the Uzbek military, using weapons that were probably sold to it by the US in the first place under the US-Uzbek "bilateral declaration of strategic partnership" of 2002. Scott McClellan, you are a cunt.
What this highlights, though, is that if the US were serious about advancing human rights, they would make a good start by no longer propping up corrupt governments such as Karimov's, which would be much cheaper and much less messy than their current policy of starting wars with anyone they don't like. Still, what's the betting that, when Uzbek-US relations cool over the next decade, we'll be sending in a coalition of the willing to "liberate" the oppressed people of Uzbekistan? :rolleyes:
| quote: | | The problem is that many of the nations of the world have known nothing but autocratic govt, and without outside pressure I see no reason why this will change. Saddam would have merely transferred power to his sons. And them to their sons etc. how long must we wait patiently for the citizens of any nation to overthrow their brutal dictatorships? In theory many nations could last this way forever. And what can we do about it? In iraq’s case the economic sanctions only plunged the country into recession, and hurt the poor and the weak. |
Agreed, but see above. Often these dictators only come to power and keep power through support from the west. Remove the funding and I'd question how long these dictators would be able to last.
| quote: | | Most meaningful transitions of political systems come with the price of instability and violence- whether its an internal uprising or outside interference. Perhaps im a little naïve, but I would like to think that in 10 years’ time iraq could be a flourishing democracy, released from sanctions and back as one of the richer nations in the world, free from saddam’s greedy plundering. Yes, im hardly salivating at the thought of a despotic theocrat, however democracy has to begin somewhere and somehow, unless we choose to give up and let brutal regimes continue ad nauseum praying for a change that may never occur. |
I understand that war will lead to instability in the short term, but the problem is that the US didn't seem to plan for the inevitable period of instability at all. Even by the admission of Paul Wolfowitz (one the main neo-conservative proponents of the war), the US hadn't adequately prepared for post-war Iraq (I think they genuinely believed, in some way, that they'd be welcomed into Baghdad on a sea of rose-petals). Prior to the war - and this was one of my reasons for opposing it in the first place - the US gave absolutely no indication to the rest of the world as to how they would conduct the rebuilding process, or how they would go about setting up the new government, what form it would take and so forth. We're even seeing now that the Sunnis (20% of the population) have been shut out of the democratic process and the diplomatic wrangling for power between the other two main ethnic groups (the Shiites and the Kurds) continues. The fact is that Iraq is basically three different nations, unified by Britain last century and kept in place through a series of iron-fist regimes and western military occupation (the Brits were still in Iraq decades after granting it sovereignty - what does that tell us about the potential date for a coalition troop pull-out?). The fact is, that this was a very costly exercise (both in terms of money and human life) for a experiment that doesn't have a fantastically high chance of succeeding.
Having said that, now that we're there, I obviously hope that your vision of a "flourishing democracy" comes true. I supported the recent commitment of extra Australian troops to the nation - against most of my leftist bretheren - for this very reason. We started the war and - as a result - we have a moral and legal obligation to see the re-establishment of the nation through. If it does happen (that is, Iraq becomes the perfect model of a liberal democratic society) then there'll be few happier than me, but it still wouldn't invalidate the concerns that I had (and still have) about the manner in which it was acheived.
| quote: | | Having said all that though, youre right when you mention the opportunity cost, and perhaps the war chest could have been better spent elsewhere; however I would argue that ‘better spent’ *could* entail interventionist policies in another nation. |
I'm not against interventionalism at all. If that money had been spent interfering in Africa instead, ensuring that starving people were fed, then you wouldn't have heard me complaining. :)
| quote: | | I guess we mostly agree; just that we draw a line in the sand at different points. |
Inspite of my argumentative post, I agree. We are coming from the same place, I think, we just differ on the nature of the solution.
(Thread successfully derailed! :stongue: ) |
|
|
| Subey |
Pole 1: Culture is a cage that limits me.
Pole 2: Culture is a skeleton that supports me.
Participants in this thread please spread out between these two poles to create a spectrum of perception.
System Check:
1) At pole 1, what colour do you see? Blue. Roger.
2) At pole 2, what colour is the truth? Red. Roger.
3) You in the middle, what colour is reality? Green. Got it.
System check complete.
All systems are nominal.
Dorothy, my lovely co-pilot would you be so kind as to drop a few sand bags? I'd like to gain more altitude. |
|
|
| Yoepus |
freakin A... don't you hate when you can't get a post in because TA or your browser is experiecing problems..
if i could only get a word edgewise |
|
|
| Renegade |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
Pole 1: Culture is a cage that limits me.
Pole 2: Culture is a skeleton that supports me.
Participants in this thread please spread out between these two poles to create a spectrum of perception.
System Check:
1) At pole 1, what colour do you see? Blue. Roger.
2) At pole 2, what colour is the truth? Red. Roger.
3) You in the middle, what colour is reality? Green. Got it.
System check complete.
All systems are nominal.
Dorothy, my lovely co-pilot would you be so kind as to drop a few sand bags? I'd like to gain more altitude. |
Why hello there Mr. Transcendental McPhenomenological-subjectivism, the post-modern pilot, how's the weather up there from your lofty, anti-noumenal perspective? Have much faith in the objectivity of the navigation equpiment in front of you, seeing as how the inexorable relativity of perception necessitates deigning the truth-value of all individual perspectives to be illegitimate and of an inherently equal worth? :cool: |
|
|
| Yoepus |
St. Andrew, and others who think culture is stupid and has little to no use:
You must read this book!
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
by James Surowiecki
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=books&n=507846
I've already read it twice over, is defintely up there. Probably my third favorite book of all time.
Honestly, I really think we should start a book of the month club... |
|
|
| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
St. Andrew, and others who think culture is stupid and has little to no use:
You must read this book!
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
by James Surowiecki
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=books&n=507846
I've already read it twice over, is defintely up there. Probably my third favorite book of all time.
Honestly, I really think we should start a book of the month club... |
Sounds like a communist title, doesnt it comrade? |
|
|
| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
Sounds like a communist title, doesnt it comrade? |
Hmm, guess you're right.
Just go run to your book store and buy it you lazy opf! (now thats not very communistic is it?!) |
|
|
| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
Hmm, guess you're right.
Just go run to your book store and buy it you lazy opf! (now thats not very communistic is it?!) |
My nearest bookstore is like a 30 min run from here, so naaah i think i rather sit here and be lazy in my comfie chair  |
|
|
| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
St. Andrew, and others who think culture is stupid and has little to no use:
You must read this book!
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
by James Surowiecki
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=books&n=507846
I've already read it twice over, is defintely up there. Probably my third favorite book of all time.
Honestly, I really think we should start a book of the month club... |
I'm not going to waste sixteen bucks on what's probably nothing more than another pop science (fiction) waste of time and money, but it doesn't sound particularly relevant anyway.
For example, if we consider that the "many people" in the US have come up with different ethical and ontological conclusions and exhibit vastly different behaviors, beliefs, and opinions than, for example, the "many people" in the middle east then we can conclude that one, if not both, of these very large groups of people have come to some thorougly misguided conclusions.
But probably the most obvious question that his assertion begs is simple:
Given that it is the "wisdom of the masses" that experts' wisdom exceeds that of the crowd, if the "wisdom of the masses" is indeed generally superior, why is it so horribly mistaken regarding its own worth while he - a purported "expert" - is correct?
Perhaps these issues are adequately addressed in the book itself, but I personally doubt it. If you want a measure of the intelligence of the masses, go turn on MTV. |
|
|
|
|
