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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34498 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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IS MY CLASH WITH THEMOTTE POSTERS PURELY VALUE BASED

Let's assume that your poorly-developed, unsourced arguments are all 100% true. They're not, and throwing music and novels in there is almost absurd enough to suggest parody, but I don't want to deal with your Gish gallop, so I'm going to use my imagination.

Why should I care? If, as you seem to think, [redacted] are unfeeling automata who may neither comprehend art nor build genuine rapport...I'm not seeing the problem. Explain to me why the existence of such people is a bad thing. From: @netstack

17 upvotes!

Now, the fascinating thing about this post is it takes my position far further than I could ever imagine doing so and then confronts me with a person who claims it would be irrelevant if this extreme position were fully true. That "unfeeling automata" might, if representing a substantial portion of your elite, convert your somewhat free country into a nightmare where you never saw an unmasked face again, seems not to bother him in the slightest.

Now I'd be tempted to ignore this as a one-off but then there's this response to my comment on foot-binding.

"...Furthermore, similar laundry lists of objectionable practices would be possible to assemble concerning any race of people or, indeed, of the human race. Even assuming the Chinese are every bit as bad as you say, that doesn't make them special.** Even assuming the [redacted] are every bit as bad as you say**, that doesn't make them special." - naraburns

Now this is fascinating to me, because while I can intuitively understand the conditions leading to things like genocide, or more to the point physical child abuse, footbinding falls within the entirely alien moral universe world to me. Given the choice between an otherwise loving family who bound my feet, and an otherwise violent one that didn't I cannot possibly imagine choosing the latter. I'm pretty sure this isn't just my gender speaking for another gender, and I'm more than willing to entertain what might be considered misogynistic thinking. Yet @DaseIndustries hits me with this.

"...Read some interviews of surviving women from traditional families who have had that done to them, see what they think of it."

Now, I don't doubt that someone of Dase's intellectual caliber understands why the testimony of a person, victimized irreperably by loved ones, in a cultural context where this was normal; might be less than reliable. So I'm left, once again with the feeling that our underlying basic instincts must just be different in some way. How would we go about figuring out whether this is the case?

  • -28

This will be sort of speaking on the meta level on @Lepidus's comments, as I don't really have a response to this specific post. I've been in East Asia for a few months now (and not my first time visiting,) and I really love the people here. So kind, smart, organized, polite, I adore the aesthetics and so many aspects of the culture here. Being on public transit where people don't talk and just follow basic rules of etiquette is about three million times nicer than any ride on the bus or train in Europe let alone America. But I'm somewhat sympathetic to Lepidus's underlying point as well, though I don't think he's particularly good at rhetoric. What I'm specifically referring to is that I find the political and social structures of East Asia to be quite restrictive. I don't want to live under a regime that is treating me like I'm East Asian. I love visiting the area for the novelty and to experience something different from the West, but the lack of individual freedom here is hard to cope with as a relatively libertarian American person. There certainly are values that Chinese hold differently from the West and it isn't a waste of time to worry about that, given the geopolitical situation.

Agree that Lepidus's tone is combative and the posts are a bit incoherent but since no one seems to be taking his side I just thought I'd try to throw a bone out to maybe spark discussion in a different direction.

Yeah, but that's not really racial - you'd probably find medieval europe or rome significantly more restrictivre, and Chinese that come to America become as liberal as anyone else.

What specifically about east asian social/political structures did you find 'restrictive/lack of freedom/different values'? Like, specific experiences or things you saw, it's a better discussion-starter.

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