From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Nov 06 2005 - 00:23:33 GMT
Case berates David:
> [David]
> I disagree,
>
> What with the popular, of cultural relativism I actually think this is a
> dangerous standpoint to take. People are poor, people are rich, it's all
> relative; people live, people are killed, it's all relative; people lie,
> people are honest, it's all relative.
>
> It's not. What happens in one culture is not completely disrelated to
> another. Just because hedonism is bad in one culture and O.K. in another
> doesn't suddenly make hedonism 'relative'. Hedonism, i.e intellectual
> advocacy of biological quality, threatens social value and so it is bad not
> just for one particular person in one particular culture at a certain time,
> but for all people, everywhere.
>
> [Case]
> If this were just nonsense I could have let it slide, as I have no desire
> to get into this debate but this not just nonsense it is pernicious
> nonsense. Letting it alone is like leaving a loaded gun on a preschool
> playground. The idea that there are Moral Absolutes and that one culture is
> "right" and another is "wrong" is exactly the case the Muslim extremists
> make make and use to justify their guerilla wars against the Great Satan.
> It is a very bad idea to judge one culture from the perspective of another.
> This practice has been soundly condemned within the social sciences and
> rightly so.
Platt points out to Case a passage from Lila:
"A culture that supports the dominance of social values over biological
values is an absolutely superior culture to one that does not, and a
culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values over social
values is absolutely superior to one that does not. It is immoral to speak
against a people because of the color of their skin, or any other genetic
characteristic because these are not changeable and don't matter anyway.
But it is not immoral to speak against a person because of his cultural
characteristics if those cultural characteristics are-immoral. These are
changeable and they do matter." (Lila, 24)
So much for social science and the notion that all cultures are moral
equals. David got it right.
Platt
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