Posted on 12/02/2008 8:58:40 AM PST by Graybeard58
Cultural relativists insist it's improper to judge the way people in distant lands act, and Americans have no right to criticize the conduct of others because we are viewing things from our own limited perspective. They argue we have no business trying to impose our ideals and values in Southwest Asia or the Middle East.
And then, an inescapable reality exposes how fatuous their pious theorizing is. Such a case occurred recently in Afghanistan when police arrested 10 Islamic militants involved in an attack in Kandahar. The victims of the attack were 15 women, most of them teens. Their "crime": going to school.
In trying to gain an education, the young women were defying Taliban ideology. Girls were forbidden to attend school under Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, and in Kandahar province, Taliban influence lingers. Only 10 of the province's 232 schools are open to girls.
The suspects told police the plan was to punish the students and to so terrorize other girls that they'd stay home. To that end, high-ranking Taliban fighters paid the suspects $2,000 to squirt acid on three groups of teachers and students. Several of the girls suffered burns on their faces, and one teenager couldn't open her eyes for days after the attack.
That sort of conduct, and the attitudes that underlie it, are what the Taliban, al-Qaida and America's other foes in the Middle East and Southwest Asia would like to spread to the rest of the world. That sort of thing is what our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are defending us against.
Despite the hand-wringing of cultural relativists, it is not chauvinism, narrow-mindedness or bigotry to declare squirting acid onto the faces of young women to scare them out of attending school is wrong. Nor, despite any whining about the need to respect the viewpoints of others, is it imperialism or colonialism to prevent that sort of fanatic, militant evil from spreading.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Please show me some cultural relavists approving this incident, then the editorial might make some sort of sense.
Would that then mean that people from SW Asia and the ME do have a legitimate arguement and do have business trying to impose their ideals and values in North America and Europe?
With no pressure, there is no incentive to make positive changes, the idea that young women are fair game for attack for going to school is disgusting, a barbaric practice of a backwards culture, sufferers of that culture should be ashamed.
“Please show me some cultural relavists approving this incident, then the editorial might make some sort of sense.”
No; please show me some cultural relavists DISapproving this incident. It seems that they can only criticize Western cultures
Please show me some cultural relativists who have heard of the incident and have been given a forum for comment. This editorial is the the first time I’ve heard of it.
You don't get to pick and choose what the "relativists" approve of. You are employing the logical fallacy known as DENYING THE ANTECEDENT.
Relativists do say that people shouldn't judge other cultures, no matter what. Don't deny it, that is what they say. I say, how about cannibals? There are people who'll say we shouldn't judge them. Hard to believe, but they are among us and they're called liberals.
A while back, I had a conversation with a young lady (in her late 20’s, early 30’s, I’m guessing) who thought Adolph Hitler was no better or worse than Mother Teresa, since he probably had his reasons for the decisions he made and so did she.
Breathtaking.
I love cultural relativism.
Every time I talk politics with a liberal... and they get incenses about my positions, I tell them “How dare you judge my culture!”
Their sputtering shock is priceless.
(And they usually end up denouncing cultural relativism as the diseased pile of cr@p it is.)
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