Okay, for starters, I personally am an atheist. I have no specific respect for any religion or religious tradition, and do not consider religion to be a good reason for a society to decide to do anything.
However I’m also not dim enough to mistake a resistance to cultural annihilation for a lapse in argumentative skills. If you have even the slightest nanoscopic awareness of jewish history -if you have even *heard *of World War II- you ought to be able to piece together why jews might not be super into pushy gentiles telling them to abandon their religious and cultural history.
Now, yes, I will agree that from a strictly analytical application of cold logic, “I don’t like pushy gentiles trying to annihilate my culture (which is often accompanied by slaughter)” is an argument from emotion, not from reason. You know, exactly like your argument for ending male circumcision is!
I did not blast past anything. When Johnny Bravo asked why I used G*d and G-d, I gave a short answer that you can see in yesterdays postings. Then in the posting below, I gave the more complete answer. In fact, as I recall, I had looked up G-d in Wikipedia some time before this, and I was aware that it has to do with reverence for the name of God and not erasing it.
Once again, I decry my general ignorance about Judaism, but I am not totally ignorant or unfamiliar with Jewish culture and there is no reason I cant be an admirer of it.
On the other hand, if you are accusing me of the PC crime of cultural appropriation because I used G-d, I will tell you what I tell all PC accusers. Get stuffed!
You know, I’ve lived near black people all my life, I’ve been in their homes, I’ve been to their worship services, I even understand much of the urban dialect. I still don’t claim to be any sort of expert on their culture.
Why?
In fact, the Jewish half of my family was opposed to the foundation of modern Israel and last I had contact with them were fairly critical of them. While many, even arguably most, Jews are pro-Israel not all of them are and many are not “unrestrained”. Being pro- or anti-Israel, or critical of the nation as it currently is, does not function as a litmus test. These guys are Jewish, but not in favor of the current modern state of Israel
I don’t know - are you also aware of the negative aspects of their culture as seen by the mainstream? Because if you refuse to see the negative along with the positive you’re not seeing them as full human beings, you’re seeing “fantasy Jews”.
Which is why I predicted that it was most likely a Jew member of the Dope checking in here would be opposed to ending circumcision, and at least one posted in that manner. You see their rationality, love of education, and many enlightened members but fail to recognize that they are as attached to their irrational beliefs and practices as anyone else.
There are Jews NOW who think maintaining payot are a requirement for being a good Jew. Jews are far from monolithic in their practices and beliefs. Pointing to any one group among them is like pointing to the Mormons and saying they represent all Christians. They don’t. In fact, some Christians don’t consider them Christian at all.
First, let us look at the horrible attempt by this pushy gentile to annihilate or slaughter the Jewish people (can you believe you have gotten to this level of ranting?)
What I said in my OP is simply:
This is why I would like to ask my Jewish friends and relatives: Would you consider setting aside circumcision so that the Western cultures can have a logical, consistent position in the world-wide fight against child (male and female) genital mutilation. Can you join with the anti-circumcision movement to proclaim that human rights and the right to biomedical integrity of one’s genitals begins at birth?
I went on to say in that the fight against genital mutilation would have to be fought over centuries, that Jews are NOT the only supporters of circumcision (I expect Islam to be much tougher because it has no real tradition of resonable accomodation with changing values.) I suggested that Judaism might consider just a symbolic pin-prick to to the intact foreskin.
I simply stated that attempts to suppress jewish culture have often led to or included slaughter. This is absolutely, unequivocally, undeniably true. And also very obvious and well known. Still though, on the off chance you hadn’t heard of WWII, I thought I’d try to clue you in to why jews might be just a touch more sensitive to attempts by pushy gentiles to change their religious practices than, say, the unitarian universalists would be.
The fact that you chose to interpret this helpful reminder as ranting rather than getting the frickking point is more illustrative of you than it is of me.
And yet you managed to elicit an outraged response from a jew over being a pushy gentile dabbling in cultural annihilation. Who could have predicted it, huh?
I find your implication that I might not have heard of WWII the equivalent of a childish insult.
I read, write and speak German, French and English and have read extensively on WWII and the Holocaust. When studying in Berlin a few years ago I familiarized myself with the story of that City’s Jewish Communty, including a tour of the streets given by an elderly Holocaust survivor. I kept leaning down to read the Stolpersteine on the sidewalk and after reading several that detailed the young Jewish children and their families that had lived there, I started crying. The old survivor pulled me to my feet and when he saw I was cryng said: Never mind, it happens to a lot of people.
I don’t care to have someone like you ask me if I have heard of WWII!
a) breaking some of your spouse’s bones with a hammer is super wrong, a 10 on my scale.
b) Slapping your spouse’s face in the heat of an argument, especially if he or she just slapped your face, is still wrong but less bad than a). Probably a 3 on my scale.
c) throwing a cushion at your spouse as you storm out is still violence and assault, but most police forces and prosecutors would have more to do than worry about that. But I still rate it as a 1.
I still think you’re missing the point. Saying ‘how can we address FGM without also addressing circumcision’ is like saying ‘how can we address a man-eating tiger when my aunt Ethel got scratched when she tried to brush her cat’s teeth’.
As stated several times, circumcision isn’t comparable to ear piercing, it’s comparable to clitoridal hood removal. And clitoridal hood removal is forbidden.
Ear piercing doesn’t affect an highly innervated area. It doesn’t alter sexual function. In fact it doesn’t alter any function at all. It’s not even remotely as painful as circumcision (and I already stated that I remember both). And on top of it even disappear by itself, while a prepuce isn’t going to regrow. You’ll need foreskin restoration surgery, which in fact isn’t trivial. Note that the fact that such a surgery exists should be an hint that a number of people have actual problems as a result of circumcision. I could add also that even though I don’t have figures, I strongly suspect there are less people who suffer from significant damages as a result of ear piercing than circumcision (botched surgery or infections).
Comparing circumcision with ear piercing is at best ridiculous, showing that people didn’t stop 5 seconds to think about it. Otherwise, this comparison is done in bad faith, or it’s denial, to avoid having to face an issue that make people uncomfortable. I stand by my statement that circumcision, if it was a practice imported from some developing region of the world, instead of being something that is routinely done in western countries, would never be allowed. Would you honestly disagree?
No, it’s not a good enough response. Maybe you’ve never heard of the concept of bodily autonomy. And, for the umpteenth time, would you say “naah, I disagree, I think it’s not all that bad” wrt clitoridal hood removal? There wasn’t a thread recently about an American case apparently involving such a surgery. And I don’t remember you coming at the rescue of the sentenced woman saying "“naah! not that bad!” In fact, nobody did.
And no, making the comparison isn’t sexist. This comparison, contrarily to the ludicrous “ear piercing”, is totally apt. And since people in the western world, and particularly in the USA, have integrated circumcision as a culturally acceptable practice, and don’t question it, or, worst, try to find justification for it in the shape of imaginary medical benefits, the only way to make them open their eyes is to make them face their contradictions.
I already asked, and I’m asking again : since apparently you think that some form at least of genital mutilation “aren’t all that bad”, which minor but permanent genital mutilation would be in your opinion equally acceptable on baby girls? Can you think of any you would approve?
And I don’t care to have someone like you accuse me of ranting when I am very obviously not.
(Full disclosure: I know little about the properties of “someone like you”, except that you just used the term in an attempt to vaguely insult me out of the pit. For my own part, I assume that “someone like you” is a human, and I tire of humans insulting me.)
Your OP is a variant on whatabouitism: the notion that we can’t convince folks from the third world to drop one cultural practice unless we convince a minority here in the first world to drop ANOTHER cultural practice, which you already admit isn’t particularly comparable.
So far, we haven’t seen any evidence that this strange thesis has the slightest basis in reality - that if every single Jew in the West suddenly ceased circumcising it would have the slightest persuasive power over anyone in the third world re FGM, or that the lack of legal proscription of Jewish circumcision has had any effect on FGM.
The basis of whataboutism is an argument via an allegation of hypocrisy: that ‘you’ have no right to judge ‘me’ for doing X, because ‘you’ do Y, which is ‘just as bad’ as X.
Your argument is similar, only it is more convoluted than the usual type, and makes less sense: ‘they’ will not give up practice X because ‘you’ have not given up practice Y; though Y isn’t, in point of fact, “just as bad” as X.
The hook Valteron seems to be hanging his argument on appears to be twofold:
Parents shouldn’t have the unlimited right to choose what surgeries their kids get.
Male circumcision is super awful.
I was trying to find out how hard he was hewing to point 1. The response I got back was “apparently not super hard.” The issue isn’t that parents shouldn’t be allowed to poke holes in or otherwise physically modify their children; the problem is that male circumcision is super awful. (Allegedly.)
I honestly disagree, because you’re rolling a really vague hypothetical. The methods by which male circumcision became common in the west were slow and complicated, and it’s disingenuous to blindly compare it to a procedure being thrust upon the west by raving savages. You could just as easily and with equal accuracy argue that the west wouldn’t import appendectomies from savages if nobody gave them a reason to.
This is, of course, your cue to declare that there were no good reasons to do male circumcisions. At which point I’d say that that ship has long since sailed; now you have to argue that there’s a good material reason to stop doing them.
I’ve already rejected the screaming baby argument, by the way.
I’ve heard that you think that piercing a child’s ears is okay, so screw body autonomy for children - it’s clearly not an issue that anybody honestly cares about.
Not that I would grant the idea anyway - it’s clearly not the case that children have complete control over their bodies and their parents can’t do anything or have anything done to them against their will. That’s absurd. But at least if you railed against the ear piercing thing you’d be being consistent.
I don’t know jack about clitoral hood removal, but I’m willing to take your word that they’re awful and completely incomparable to male circumcision and your above statement equating them was completely false and as disingenuous as hell.
I’m not going to make this a sexism issue - I’m going to make it a “stop using bad analogies” issue. If you want to argue against male circumcision, that’s fine, but enough of this bull of trying to pretend that differing surgical procedures are equivalent. Which I do realize was the point of this thread - to hang an anti-male-circumsicion argument on dubious comparisons between it and other procedures. Meaning that, since I’m tired of hearing that crap, there may be nothing more of use for you to say.
I at least honestly cares about it. So, that’s at least one person who has been circumcised and wants circumcision to be banned. As I mentioned, you could also include men who had a non trivial foreskin reconstruction surgery. Presumably, they have a quite strong opinion about it. On what basis do you dismiss us?
You are inconsistent. I’m not.
I didn’t say that. I said at the contrary that they’re similar. If anything, I suspect that clitoridal hood removal is less of an issue, because the physiology of male and female genitals makes me assume that clitoridal hood removal is likely to have less of an impact of sexual sensitivity because the clitoris is more protected.
What makes you think that I’m disingenuous?
How much thought did you put into actually considering the issue at hand, the negative consequences of circumcision on at least part of circumcised men, about the principle of bodily autonomy in general and how it should apply in this case? I don’t think you tried hard. I think you put all your energy instead in contradicting me. And, as I already said, I believe you want to feel comfortable about accepting a practice of your culture that you would otherwise have to reject if you were morally consistent. You don’t want to have to choose between rejecting bodily autonomy and being for instance accused of antisemitism, so you have to saying something as obviously ridiculous as stating that circumcision if similar to ear piercing to avoid the cognitive dissonance (even though Jews aren’t the main issue. The wide majority of people practicing circumcision are Muslims, not Jews. How comes that on both sides, only Judaism was mentioned, I wonder )
And I note that once again my question was ignored. Since you believe that some level of permanent genital mutilation on infants is acceptable, what permanent genital mutilation on baby girls do you approve of for the sake of honoring traditions?
You know, you seem to be having a similar problem with multiple posters. Perhaps you should consider that the problem is not our failure to comprehend but your failure to communicate.
And that proves… what?
You still strike me a clueless when it comes to understanding Jews in both general and in particular groups.
Every nerve ending in my body is screaming not to get involved with this ridiculous thread, but…
The OP’s question is absurd. It’s like asking “Can we eliminate heroin addiction while still allowing casual pot smoking?”. One is near-universally agreed to be horribly damaging; in the case of the other, the debate is whether the harm done is nonexistent or just very minimal. One is engaged in by a tiny percentage of the population, the other is much more widespread. If you’re actually interested in eliminating the bad thing, the* last* thing you want to do is link your campaign to eliminate it to a much more controversial campaign to eliminate something else.
And as far as your specific question to the Jews:
Yasher Koach! (Which means “Bravo, Johnny!”). Religious Judaism is an incredibly diverse tradition, but circumcision is one of the few issues practically everyone agrees on.
Here is a quote from the Guide to Jewish Practice published by the Reconstructionist movement, the extreme liberal fringe of religious Judaism. If there were any Jews sympathetic to your argument, it would be these guys.
Anecdotally: I am a member of an extremely liberal congregation. A few years back, it was suggested that we should hold our Passover seder after Passover was over, because holding it at the “right” time would conflict with Easter and be inconvenient for those families who celebrate both holidays. In 99.9% of Jewish congregations, nobody would ever dream of suggesting such a thing, and even in ours, it was roundly voted down. One of the people arguing against it sarcastically said, to general laughter and approval “What’s next? Are we going to sew our foreskins back on?”. The point being that on a gut level, even Jews who have no problem with eating bacon or working on the Sabbath view abandonment of circumcision as anathema, tantamount to abandoning Jewish identity itself.
So, no, there is no realistic likelihood that Jews are going to abandon this practice anytime soon, and pressure from Gentiles to do so is going to have the exact opposite of the desired effect.
And FTR, despite the explicit Torah commandment to do so, at no time in recorded history has any Jewish court ever actually executed anyone for working on the Sabbath, nor has it been seriously suggested that they should do so. So the OP’s analogy fails; he is comparing a law which has been universally observed for thousands of years with one that was never observed by anyone. And yes, before you ask, it’s the same deal with executing teenagers who insult their parents. Obviously, there are many longstanding Jewish traditions which some modern communities have chosen to abandon; but, with all due respect, the decision to abandon them was taken after extensive discussion among people who have a much greater knowledge of the tradition than the OP demonstrates.
