EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 9483
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On December 11 2017 18:13 IgnE wrote: If you think "black culture" has meaning why do you find "white culture" to be such a preposterous idea? You have no compunctions about using "black culture" freely, or making broad generalizations based on statistical trends in the black community as a whole, and yet you so strongly object to the idea of a "white culture" or to a "whiteness." Why is that? I see no point in wasting my time continuing to answer your questions if you find no time to answer mine. I'd actually like to build some nuance to why cultural arguments aren't fully diminished by the author's race/socially constructed race. But I've spent a lot of time trying to get a little movement from you on related topics that you appear wholly uninterested in, and now I'm out of time for this evening. You're probably more dogmatic than I originally assumed, or maybe less exposed and inclined to academic topics vivified in popular culture than my initial read. Anyways, hope to read some more broad explanations of your thoughts on the subject soon. I'm done trying to coax it out of you. | ||
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Schmobutzen
Germany284 Posts
@xDaunt, for the record, I am a cultural relativist. You can not objectively rate cultures by metrics. Then, you will run into a very feisty problem: in its most extreme, you can not condemn the killing of the Jews by the Nazis. Therein lies one problem of cultural relativism. Also, yes you were right, Murray is a right-winger. I typed it while thinking of the German right-wingers, meaning nearly a Nazi. In US standards, of course, he is. And the graph of cultural superiority is just a very stupid thing to use. Every undertaking of science can be riddled with failures. It wasn't his finest hour! But to say, that Murray is a racist is a very far stretch. | ||
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pmh
1351 Posts
On December 11 2017 18:19 Grumbels wrote: @xDaunt, for the record, I am a cultural relativist. You can not objectively rate cultures by metrics. off course you can. there is one very good metric for this actually and that metric is (military) power. not saying that I like it,but that is just how it is. its a darwinistic approach,free from moral and value judgements. there are quiet a few arguments for why this would be a good approach to this subject | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
On December 11 2017 18:02 Danglars wrote: Those two quotes are from Jockmcplop. They are from his observations of how "whiteness" as a construct is used (the 'misapplied' aspect, not the 'science at its root level is totally flawed' aspect) [...] No they aren't, rofl. They draw vocabulary directly from the article. They clearly are attempts to refer to the content of the article, not to some vague things that the left is saying in other contexts. jock's quote: "Well it starts with the assumption that racial imagery is the single most important factor in all decisions where race is a factor. [...] It sounds like the sort of assumption that would be made by an academic who's trying to justify their area of study." I feel like I should also say something about Schmo's last post but I don't know where to start really. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
On December 11 2017 08:11 xDaunt wrote: I am considered on the right. Maybe perhaps it's time you stop this, "anybody who disagrees with my white supremacy rubbish is on the left" bullshit. There's only so many times that you can paint everybody who disagrees with you as "y'all on the left" before you sound completely barmy.For all of the bitching and hand-wringing that I see from you leftists regarding my cultural arguments, what I have not seen are any compelling rebuttals. Why don’t you put down the tissue and get to work? The constant crying is getting old. If you want a hint on where to start, go look at Igne’s posts. However, his posts will only take you so far given that he understands that his critique is grounded in Western culture, which obviously makes arguing against my ultimate point rather difficult. ___ Anyways, I don't recognise this white culture/black culture concepts. They are an American concept that isn't quite valid even with America, never mind the rest of the world. What the heck is white culture? British culture is different from Swedish culture, different from German culture, different from French culture, different from Spanish culture, different from Italian culture; I am sure you get the idea. Also different from American and Canadian and Australian and South African culture. There may or may not be some similarities within the group, but those same similarities are so vague as that they can be attributed to outside the group, thus rendering them pointless as an identifier of said group. Meanwhile black culture is originally the culture of a specific group of ex slaves in USA popularily denoting their arts and cultural production, and used by academics in specificity for various political and social dynamics that may or may not exist for the individual or a group. Words have meaning but these words seem particularily meaningless. Not to mention, that white supremists appear to have taken the words and their meanings and twisted away with it to give their philosophies a veneer of rigour. | ||
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pink_disaster
15 Posts
On December 09 2017 00:32 PoulsenB wrote: I'd say that it's about how the USA recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel basically means that America accepts the exclusive Jewish claim to the city that is sacred for all Muslims (and Christians). Oh, I see. But they shouldn't all get affected by this. I mean, at the end they have to decide on that and not Trump. But it was said that a lot of presidents before him wanted to do that, but none of them had the balls to do so.. | ||
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farvacola
United States18819 Posts
Edit: BTW, this thread is almost to its ten millionth view :D | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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ahswtini
Northern Ireland22207 Posts
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Kickboxer
Slovenia1308 Posts
Just ask yourself "what kind of culture would I like to live in", and then consider the negative of that. There's your metric. Right now I'd very much love to live in Europe, so that's quite fortunate for me since I was born here. On the other hand I would fucking hate to live in Saudi Arabia or any other hardline Islamic state where people need to go underground to enjoy rock music and beer, or anywhere in Africa where people chop each other to pieces with machetes. How is that relative in any way shape or form? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22742 Posts
On December 11 2017 21:53 ahswtini wrote: early reports of an explosion at NYC's Port Authority bus terminal. hopefully it's just a false alarm like that "attack" in london a few weeks ago https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/940201300721053699 Early reports are small device 1 injured 1 in custody (same person) On December 11 2017 21:32 farvacola wrote: The last thing Israel and its encouragers need is more "balls" lol Edit: BTW, this thread is almost to its ten millionth view :D Gratz man. They said it wouldn't last  + Show Spoiler + Prolly time to update the photo | ||
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brian
United States9610 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
On December 11 2017 22:13 Kickboxer wrote: Cultural relativism is beyond idiotic. The very clear metrics for the relative quality of a culture are individual freedom, public health, potential for self-actualization, freedom from external dogma, fairness of law and potential for upward mobility. Just ask yourself "what kind of culture would I like to live in", and then consider the negative of that. There's your metric. Right now I'd very much love to live in Europe, so that's quite fortunate for me since I was born here. On the other hand I would fucking hate to live in Saudi Arabia or any other hardline Islamic state where people need to go underground to enjoy rock music and beer, or anywhere in Africa where people chop each other to pieces with machetes. How is that relative in any way shape or form? This does not prove superiority of culture, it just proves that Saudi Arabia is a repressive state. That is the problem with ‘rating culture’, you can not consider it outside of the wider context of economy, environment, politics. Whenever you compare two cultures in isolation you just give fuel to essentialist, reductive arguments that benefit rightwingers. You can be against repression in authoritarian states eithout blaming Arab culture (like Ben Shapiro does). The second argument in favor of cultural relativism is that culture is an ill-defined, and incredibly broad notion, and that cultures are in many respects so different from each other that you can not contrast a limited set of metrics in order to rank culture. It will just depend on your choice of metrics, and on your normative assumptions such as whether traditional gender roles are good or bad, or whether economic productivity is good or bad etc. The fact that notions of social justice are subjective should not prevent you from having an opinion about them, in any case. By the way, I am sure that a typical conservative Christian will defend the West at all costs as superior, and then turn around to lament the widespread degeneracy infesting modern society, all without seeing the contradiction. Finally, the fact that almost everyone genuinely prefers the culture in which they grew up, should have people reconsider whether one culture can really be superior. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Meanwhile the state of Alabama is set to elect a man who thinks Muslims and Jews all go to hell, women shouldn’t hold public office, attacks the free press, and says gays should be jailed(or maybe put to death after trial, he isn’t specific about the punishment). | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7814 Posts
On December 11 2017 22:13 Kickboxer wrote: Cultural relativism is beyond idiotic. The very clear metrics for the relative quality of a culture are individual freedom, public health, potential for self-actualization, freedom from external dogma, fairness of law and potential for upward mobility. Just ask yourself "what kind of culture would I like to live in", and then consider the negative of that. There's your metric. Right now I'd very much love to live in Europe, so that's quite fortunate for me since I was born here. On the other hand I would fucking hate to live in Saudi Arabia or any other hardline Islamic state where people need to go underground to enjoy rock music and beer, or anywhere in Africa where people chop each other to pieces with machetes. How is that relative in any way shape or form? Congratulation, you are rating other cultures with the criteria of your own, like everyone else. If you had been an Aztec, you would have said “Cultural relativism is beyond idiotic. The very clear metrics for the relative quality of a culture are how many prisonners are sacrified to the sun, that’s obvious”. As for “where I would like to live”, it’s just as short sighted. Your taste have to do with your background, and your culture. tl;dr: Everyone judges other cultures through the values and the tastes if his own, making the exercize pointless. I live in the country I consider the best in the world, Norway for the exact same reasons you mentionned. It’s basically the enbodiement of western liberal values. Well, most africans / south europeans / south americans I have met here REALLY suffer in Norway. I can’t recall how many somali taxi drivers have told me how much they missed their country and how weird, cold and inhuman norwegian society seemed to them. I’ll start to take arguments against cultural relativism seriously the day I meet one of their supporters that doesn’t claim his values and his culture are the better / superior ones. Until now, I have only see the likes of this thread’s far right usual suspects, who basically think that white heyerosexual males are superior to everyone else (include bs about white culture and claims that women are not suited for brainy / leadership jobs), or, say, arab second gen immigrant friends I’ve had who would bullshit you all day about how authentic muslim cultures are, compared to the nihilistic and empty western values and societies (which is just as infuriatingly dumb). | ||
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Kickboxer
Slovenia1308 Posts
A formally capitalist culture is, as history would suggest, always superior to a formally communist culture. Just ask anyone who actually lived under communism. Thought police and economic oppression aren't nice. A culture with clear ideals and values is always superior to a relativist or postmodernist culture, because having ideals and values gives you direction in life and cancels out existential dread. I could list many more examples. These things aren't relative, because it's not where you'd want to exist and you know it. The rest is semantics and virtue signalling. There's a very clear reason why nearly the entire planet tries to move either to USA or Canada, or to Europe, or to South Korea and Japan, and only completely insane people are moving to places like Pakistan or Chechnya. | ||
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