Originally Posted by deprav

Just like african-american slaves, they were doing perfectly fine before the yankees gave them some ideas of emancipation & freedom. Or Tibetans, they were doing perfectly fine with the chinese government before western values messed up with their minds. Or women being excised in some poor african countries, they were doing perfectly fine before they started hearing about western values.
Ahhhh those western values... xD

Originally Posted by ImmortalPig

Lol your examples are of problems from one culture forcing itself on another........................................... ....

Irony!

Originally Posted by protonitron

So western culture involved everyone being a slave? I am pretty sure inslaving another country's citizens is not a cultural invasion, it is oppression. I just felt I should point that out. I am not saying that your original point about Western culture was incorrect (or correct), just that Your counter of Deprav's point seems a little weak. It is thus not really so ironic and even if it was it didn't deserve an exclamation mark.

Originally Posted by deprav

Slavery isn't a culture forcing itself on another, it's human traffic & exploitation mixed with racism.
The "excision exemple" is intra-cultural, and I'm pretty sure it's religious.
Only the tibetan issue is about the chinese culture & politic forcing itself upon them.

Even tho, the point about women being oppressed in certain islamic countries having nothing to do with "western values" would still stand.

Originally Posted by ImmortalPig

No, it doesn't. But for slavery to exist at least some people have to be slaves, right? White slaves were used, then blacks were added to the mix when the African slave trade kicked off.

African-american slavery is definitely a product of colonialism. You can't seriously think that pre-colonial slave trade was just as excessive, right?


The concept of slave trading just happened to coincide with colonisation huh? Well ignoring that trade customs and rights are an essential part of a culture, I guess you could argue that it's "just enslaving people and forcing them into another culture". By the way, it has nothing to do with racism - any source of slaves was used, it was just convenience.

Religion is a part of culture - quite a big part at that! Not sure why anyone would bother to argue otherwise...

And yes, China forcing their culture onto Tibet certainly is a problem.

Judging Islam by western values (especially modern values) is most certainly forcing western ideals onto another culture. Every culture has their own sense of right and wrong you know?

Originally Posted by protonitron

So you honestly believe that as long as something is part of someone's culture then it is fine? This seems a little hard to understand for me. Although I don't want to get sidetracked I would appreciate an explanation of this view, since you have mentioned it several times without much justification.

I try to stay impartial until I can fully understand things but I can't help but be doubtful of the logic behind your culturally based moral compass, even if some aspects of it are similar to my own thoughts on the subject of morality in some ways.
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Or are you a Nihilist who believes morals are a social construct? Because that would rather complicate matters.

Originally Posted by ImmortalPig

White slaves were used, then blacks were added to the mix when the African slave trade kicked off.

Originally Posted by ImmortalPig

Whether or not morals are a social construct aside, I think we can all agree that morals are dictated by your culture. Muslims living under Sharia law haven't all been walking around thinking "Sharia law is bad and oppressive but I'm going to stick with it anyway". The fact that morals change with the times should make it obvious that there's no such thing as universal morals.

Since morality is subjective, how can we judge someone else's culture? Naturally we can judge it by our standards, which boils down to "if it's different it's wrong". It is fairly obvious in this thread that this is what is happening. Some people are literally calling Islam barbaric or out-dated. Judging traditional values by modern values is an imposition, and it acknowledges that morals can change.

I don't believe one culture is more correct than another. Just because the west is the most prolific culture, does that mean we should westernize all countries? Just because right now we are pro-everything does that mean everyone else should be? In the past we changed our mind, in the future we might again.