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Aswad -> RE: Eradicating women. (8/22/2007 8:07:48 PM)
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ORIGINAL: SusanofO
What you have said in a nutshell, re: Eradicating the suffering of females in blatantly Patriarchal cutures, is tantamount to saying that you are against all forms of charity, and alleviating suffering, simply bevcause these practices are their "culture", and up to them and them only to alleviate.
What I have said is that you can lead a horse to water, but sticking a water hose in its mouth is cruel.
In a nutshell, at least. It's more complicated than that, of course. Look, my taxes go to charity (Norway gives more per capita in taxes and in personal donations than most, if not all, other nations, as I recall) and I give money to various charitable cases, as I did even during the period I was carving out a subsistance-level existance. I spent a week sorting and packing clothes and toys for an orphanage in Russia back in school, and a classmate who spoke Russian drove down there to hand it out to them in person. I stop to check if people who appear asleep are breathing. I carry first-aid tools. I help drunk people find their way home. I take in stray animals. I intervene when people appear to be about to get violent with each other. I help people fix their medications, and talk to their doctors. I lend a shoulder and sympathetic ear to crying strangers. I give money to beggars. I talk people out of committing suicide and sit suicide watch.
Obviously, I'm not opposed to helping people, or prodding them in what I think is the right direction.
What I don't do, is force them to accept my worldview.
If I were in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime with a private transport that I could get people out with, I'd take as many women as would fit in my plane that wanted out of there. I'm a big fan of the work of those people who have tried to educate women down there, and so on. And I'm not in favour of the prevailing conditions.
But if I were to adopt the attitude that it's my place to impose values I consider better (in my own worldview) on those people, I would also have to do the same for the west, as I see things that are equally silly, abhorrent, or what-have-you, around these parts. It simply isn't a viable approach for me. I am neither Noam Chomsky, nor G. W. Bush, Jr.
And, more importantly, if I were to adopt that attitude, I would be justifying others doing the same thing with myself, pushing their values onto me, which is something I would consider about as tempting as dying, probably slightly less tempting. Instead, I take the "live and let live" approach of not interfering. Change comes from within, as I have said. I will support change, and may poke and prod in a direction, but I also think people- in the final analysis- have to make the decision for themselves to take hold of their own lives and make a choice.
Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., loosely: "If someone have not found something worth dying for, they have nothing worth living for." There comes a time when one has to make a stand. But only the person making a stand can make that decision for themselves, I can't make it for them. People must want freedom enough to take it, at whatever cost, and then hold on to it. Nobody can give someone freedom.
Women's liberation in these country will come as it did in the west: through struggle and sacrifice.
Through enough women taking a stand to make a difference, quite simply.
Or, as I have said before, change must come from within.
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Well - the people living there don't particularly appreciate them a lot of the time, either. So I don't consider that interfering - I consider intervention (mostly financial and practical, within reason) to be helping.
If people are being forced into something they don't want to do, I'm all for helping them get out of the situation, which in this case probably translates to getting out of the culture that forces them, or financial support, or education, or whatever. The culture itself is, as all cultures, a changing and organic thing, however, and cannot be redesigned so easily.
If enough people want change badly enough, it will come.
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Also - not allowing charity goes against the traditions of almost any religion on the planet, regardless of the prevailing culture, or its Patriarchal (or Matriarchal) traditions. Thanks for letting me know that charity is tantamount to cultural interference - I will stop sending money to Amnesty International, the Red Cross and World Vision.
Charity is not necessarily cultural interference. It depends on the type of charity.
My argument against charity was directed at financially supporting an unviable economy in a band-aid manner.
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Also, the idea that many are in a position to simply "leave for greener pastures" in the immediate time-frame, is slightly absurd. Although over decades, maybe they will do just that.
It's never "simply".
If the communist party in Norway should ever gain a majority in parliament, I will have to leave. That will by no means be "simply" for me. But parliament, like culture, is really a matter of majority opinion. If majority opinion should change from the current 1 seat to the required 50+ seats for them to enact their policies, it would be wrong of me to stage a revolution against the majority, no? Hence, I would have to leave, despite lacking the finances to do so. In effect, that translates to packing my bags, trying to bring enough food or money for such, and heading for the border to Sweden, then onward to a place I might have a shot at citizenship. It wouldn't be easy. Changing the majority opinion to displace such a regime, however, would be no easier. And doing it by force would be wrong.
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I see many of these people as being in the same poisition as an abused child would be in.
As incompetent and/or unable to act?
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Moreover, the law as it stands simply has the deck stacked against females.
~nods~
I've been in a position where the law had the deck stacked against me. It was no fun.
It was, however, the majority opinion at the time, so I had to deal.
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Re: Child Labor. Maybe a hundred years ago, I would have agreed with you. Today, however, there are plenty of other countries willing to aid India in stopping having to resort to things like child labor. Ditto for China, Thailand, Vietnam, et al.
Care to point out the reasons they have not succeeded at doing so?
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We are living in the 21st century, not the 18th century.
Thankfully, yes.
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**What you are is basically a political isolationist - which is fine.
While I don't consider democracy a good form of government, I respect it. An extension of that is respecting cultural majorities, religious majorities, and so forth, even when I dislike them. If the Indian government asks for international aid in boosting their police force to deal with the violations of the law, I'm all for providing it.
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Traditions are not always necessities - although perhaps at one time, it was seen as necessary.
Traditions are never necessities.
But we have a million unnecessary traditions in the west, as well.
I'm pretty confident there are more than a handful you would fight hard to hold on to.
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As far as licensing parents, I think the idea is a good one.
Glad we agree on something. [:D]
Note, though, that I dislike the practice in India as much as you do.
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However, that leaves the problem of governing everyone who is attempting to pro-create at the moment of conception - which is pretty much impossible to do.
Tradition is the only obstacle to securing children's rights.
A cultural problem that I don't see myself as entitled to intervening in.
As I said, first time, prevent abortion (or try it as murder), second time use reversible sterilization.
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But I do not consider parenthood some kind of "inalienable right".
~nods~
To make it an inalienable right would confer inalienable rights over other living beings.
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I've just seen too much child abuse, I guess.
Me too. Though that's not my only reason for that POV.
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The real problem would be, IMO, that any bureaucracy given the right to decide what is a fit parent, would probably be subject to bribery and also -bottom line - what makes a fit parent it is still a subjective judgment - beyond providing things like food, water, medical care, education and safety. So it's a conundrum, IMO.
Of course, but it's the same problem as faced with anything else, like driver's licences.
There will be lots of lobbying, political campaigns, bribery, and so forth.
Such things are dealt with the same way as for other things.
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P.S.: If change always comes from within- then why is there such a thing as (non-civil) war - at all?
I never said it always does.
I said it should.
Replies to that particular subtopic would be straying rather far afield, and be a thread in its own right.
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