From: Case (Case@iSpots.com)
Date: Sun Nov 06 2005 - 05:50:41 GMT
[Platt]
I love you man but you need to find a new quote.
The culture that ignores or smothers biological value will die. The culture
that exalts the individual over the common good is likewise doomed. There is
no virtue, no quality in this quote the way you wave it. The goal of culture
is to strike a balance between social and biological needs between
individuals and collectives. It is always about balance. It is always about
making way for the next generation.
The conviction that the powerful have the right to inflict their beliefs on
the less powerful is held by many in western culture. Its fruit is slavery
and genocide; both in the past and in the present. There is no Quality in
this. There is no justification for it. We chose it at the peril of us all.
Case
-------------------------------
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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