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don't judge others badly merely because they are not in your shoes, nor you in theirs
How about certain "religious" organisations where the man can have multiple wives, who benefits from this? The same religion, when the man is excommunicated his wives are either shared out amongst the other men or given to one single man, who benefits from that situation?
Quotedon't judge others badly merely because they are not in your shoes, nor you in theirsI don't have to be in the shoes of a woman, who has been set on fire by a husband because she has transgressed in some way, to know that the practice is just not right. Battered husbands is only a significant occurrence in disfunctional sectors of our own society, remember. Like male rape - it is nothing like as common as the other way round. and cannot be used as a counter argument. Male rape is 99.99% male-on-male, in any case.But, really, A-S, you are just kidding us.You really do have some empathy with the oppressed,You don't really excuse abuse on the grounds of tradition.Do you?
But that would imply that historic societies were 'broken' societies - and while all societies (including our own) are imperfect, it would not make sense to regard them as 'broken'.
oops, i did mean to add that some of the "extra" wives are between the ages of 11 and 17. Simply put it does not matter if the "wife" is a child. This does still happen, and is happening right now in places in the US.
No, don't think I said that. I think what I said was that it wasn't ideal. What I meant to imply was that, as with so many things, technology has now moved on and we ought to be able to do better.
I take your point about the difference between intention and outcome, but I would say that if we're going to compare systems at all it has to be the outcomes and not the intentions (in whatever woolly way we define intentions... whose intentions? those of the writers of the rules? those of the people implimenting the rules?)
And about independence vs responsibility... don't see how you can have one without the other...
The whole thing is about spheres of influence. Women, often older women, may have dominance in the home (not sure how this applies in different cultures), especially where several generations live together, but if men have control over who leaves the home and when then they have a much more important form of power.
But, really, A-S, you are just kidding us.You really do have some empathy with the oppressed,You don't really excuse abuse on the grounds of tradition.Do you?
it is in my view unjust to label huge swathes of them as evil oppressors
Quoteit is in my view unjust to label huge swathes of them as evil oppressorsIt may be taking 'justness' a bit far if one doesn't condemn what is clearly a cruel action on the grounds that it 'may' involve a judgement of the person carrying out the action. Whoever is setting fire to a woman, the experience of the woman, surely, deserves at least some sympathy. The man may be following accepted tradition but that takes none of the woman's pain away. There must be a stage where the analytical approach can be set aside and an emotional response is quite appropriate.Is it possible to visualise the above scenario without one's emotions telling you that is is just plain WRONG? I should have thought that it would not be too much to admit to.
setting light to people always has been, and remains, a tool of war
Quotesetting light to people always has been, and remains, a tool of warWhat has that got to do with the woman - the individual, in a bad situation? And how does your statement justify anything? How can you condone a culture where this is accepted as just? Do you have no absolutes in your life? Try imagining it was happening to you. Would you be quite as uninvolved? Would you excuse the act on the grounds that you couldn't really condemn your torturer as being a bad person? I don't think so.I can't continue this. Every time I introduce an idea based on personal suffering , you skate around the subject with abstract ideas and intellectual fencing.My point is that all this stuff should be taken very personally and, where possible, openly condemned - not just discussed like how many angels there are on a pinhead.When politicians and rulers can divorce themselves from what they are doing, they order many unspeakable things. Unspeakable in an absolutte sense - not just relatively unfortunate or not in the best interests of someone, they are actually bad things. Sometimes the unspeakable act represents the lesser of two evils but, in many social situations, the acts carried out against oppressed sections of society have no justification at all. A disinterested attitude is not justified, either. I cannot see how you can reduce every moral statement or question to simple logic. Isn't humanity part of your vocabulary?We will have to stick to dry, inanimate subjects like Physics - about which you have some very respectable views, A-S.