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I’m ‘stolen valoring’ a post from the Sunday thread and reposting it here for higher exposure (ht @odd_primes):
Recently there was a viral explosion on Kiwifarms > Twitter about a nebulous low trust Indian cultural behavioural trait. This honor culture trait isn’t something that is unique to India. There has however been a huge influx of Indians into the West both through immigration and through internet presence that has left cultural ripples. The memetic word is called ‘Izzat’ even though this is an Urdu word that only vaguely venn diagrams against the concept.
I’m beating around the bush, but I’m pretty much talking about scam culture, being the winner, getting one up on the people that are outsiders to ‘my group’, and getting status points for exploiting my outgroup.
I’d like to reiterate that this isn’t an Indian only issue, but it’s a culture clash between high and low trust cultures and is worthy of discussion.
Edit: Don't drunkpost. This is a culture war issue that should have been given better care in an OP.
2nd edit: Actually quoted the post.
Lack of izzat is a massive problem among westerners if you ask me. The level of disrespect they show towards not only other people but also other things means a lot of the time I'm interacting with (especially lower class) people I'm subconsiously thinking "didn't your parents teach you any better?". Same with how westerners send their own flesh and blood parents off to a care home when they start becoming too much of a burden on them. The lack of respect here is galling: your parents took care of you when you were nothing more than a little shit machine and this is how you repay them???
The kiwifarms post is a half truth (well actually more like a quarter truth), which makes it worse than a total lie. Some elements of it are correct, but others (like how you can rape and murder with impunity if you have enough izzat) are totally 100% false (rape and murder are the number 1 way you an destroy your whole extended family's izzat in a very short space of time for generations).
God in Heaven, the discourse is actually "oh rly? yur low class shitbags are scummy too, my low class shitbags aren't even that bad, lol".
I don't mean to pick on you BurdensomeCount. Many other posts in this thread are as bad or worse from the other direction. I'm not Indian (dot or feather), this thread is the first I've heard of this izzat concept. The gist I get is that it is an extremely broad and nebulous concept akin to prowess / craft / vigor / doing the needful. Indians being asked to comment on izzat as though their opinion means anything would be like me trying to provide an accurate, non-controversial definition of rizz.
To answer your rhetorical inner voice: no, of course their parents didn't teach them better, they are low class shitbags. Often their parents were also not taught better. Many such examples in every culture through every period of every time on every corner of this earth. Encountering a low class shitbag should produce zero units of Surprise. Low class shitbag is the human default, you should only be amazed that there exists anything better.
If I may now be part of the Problem, this entire line of inquiry is based around the lived experience of the individuals sharing their opinions. If I'm not mistaken, you are an Indian immigrant to the UK? It's possible that you are treated extra poorly across the spectrum, but especially by the low class shitbags, because many people in the UK sincerely believe that you - personally - are part of a serious problem straining their society. (If you began thinking of reasons they are wrong, please stop. You are only sabotaging yourself This is not a factual question. The actions of a human being are rooted in their beliefs, not something as abstract and fake as a "fact".)
I can only answer for my own experience and cultural milieu. Coming from a conservative part of the Southern United States, though born in the mid 80s and therefore only getting a watered down version by that time, I can tell you the expected response my culture would have for an individual encountering you in the context of your presence being part of a phenomenon widely believed to be harming my community's culture / prospects / lives / etc: to treat you poorly. That is what would be expected of someone raised correctly and making their parents proud.
Perhaps some of what you're encountering is good behavior within a society / context / culture / folkway of which you are not a member.
Edit: To clarify, I've heard my grandfather ask aloud your "but where were their parents?" question about people in his community who are kind and welcoming towards Yankees. The same behavior can be a signifier of low class, high class, or even completely class neutral contextually.
Thats the greatest insult you could have given him, he's Pakistani
My apologies. That is a significant difference; unspeakable pains have been inflicted, huge numbers of human lives have been cut short based around those identities. It is a legitimate horror that such things occur.
The great news is that for the mindset I'm describing those differences are washed away. These people, assuming they were raised right, will not piss on the Pakistani or Indian immigrant alike to put them out if they were on fire and they'd make absolutely sure the immigrant in question knew it. There is no Us without a Them and the details of whatever makes one of them Them are only meaningful to better craft insults. To do otherwise is trashy.
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As in their lack of immediate obsequious submission for the better person (for he has money for he gets to armwrestle in the zero-sum Finance fields, unlike those peasants)? I wouldn't consider Indian culture especially defined by inter-class respect, at least going downwards, but if the Western culture didn't have a peculiar glitch in which lower classes were afforded a minimum of respect and voice and given an opportunity it'd be hard to imagine modern immigration existing as it does.
I do agree with the parenting thing, but I'd argue a confluence of factors (Small family sizes, Westerners tend to be more mobile both for work and for Florida in their dotage, housing is brutally expensive, modern medicine allows for stupefyingly long armwrestles against mortality by people with massive care requirements) means that the equation's a bit different than in a more-settled setting where labor is absurdly cheap and families are large.
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