# Construct: Are you for real? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 11, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501 "2015-08-11T00:12:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/241 "2015-08-29T10:25:58Z")
No, you idiot. I realize religion is part of culture but the two are not the same. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/242 "2015-08-29T11:10:42Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > Oh sure, it’s certainly not going anywhere, but it’s reassuring to know that we’re correct. Though as von Bismarck said, “It is not through speeches and majority decisions that the great questions of the day will be decided, but by iron and blood.” In the end, the truth doesn’t really matter, because might makes right. Things like genetics and cultural are long lasting, but they are not eternal. Given enough time, we can reshape the world to conform to our vision of reality. :dubious: That was vaguely Nietzschean. Not, like, Friedrich himself, just “Nietzschean,” maybe by way of Robert Hewitt Wolfe. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/243 "2015-08-29T11:13:31Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > There are no white children, there are only varying shades of beige. Usually whatever color dirt is where they live. > > (PS: what moves you to capitalize the “w” in “white”? Is it because “white” is the absence of anything interesting?) Hey, now, I’ve seen some interesting fair-skinned humans. Not so much children. Just, anyone whose veins easily show through pale thin skin is “interesting” looking. Kind of scary… ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/244 "2015-08-29T11:17:12Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > And, finally, Islam is not the religion of a pedophile. They don’t believe he was a pedophile. Which means they agree pedophilia is wrong. You can’t be the religion of a pedophile if you think pedophilia is wrong. :cough: The ones who follow that Hadith seem to disagree on that point. But that is a subset of a subset, yeah. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/245 "2015-08-29T12:04:59Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s revealing that you do not hesitate to speak for all Muslims, Yes because of course to say we reject the condescending fake concern dressed up in a fashionable language of “progessivism” means it is a hive mind… Or it is as simple that sweeping hate and ignorant bigotry can be rejected easily. We do not need your hypocritical dressing up of the White Man Burden bis to make your conscience feel better in the fake “progressive” terms and fool only yourself for your gross bigotry, it is obvious. There is no difference between this discourse and that of the old racist and bigot discourse of the 19th century white man burden in the foundation, only a change in some terms. Of coruse then the muslims were said to be degenerate by the ‘progressive uplifters’ because of the tolerance for the gays, and not because the fashion has changed it reverses. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/246 "2015-08-29T12:07:22Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > :cough: The ones who follow that Hadith seem to disagree on that point. But that is a subset of a subset, yeah. There is no significant school that accepts the concept of the pedophilia in any way justified by a hadith. There perhaps are the tribal traditions in local places, but it is not in any way accepted among the greater scholarship. of course of several billions of the muslims and that we do not have any priesthood, I am sure that there idiots who have said and published idiot things. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Why_Bother)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/247 "2015-08-29T13:06:00Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > Yes because of course to say we reject the condescending fake concern dressed up in a fashionable language of “progessivism” means it is a hive mind… I’ve asked you this a couple of times before, I think, but how do you tell the difference between real Western concern and fake Western concern? After all, there are plenty of places in the Middle East where women _are_ treated like cattle and that _is_ concerning. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/248 "2015-08-29T13:29:46Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s revealing that you do not hesitate to speak for all Muslims, which kind of illustrates the exact problem I have with the majority of Muslims. But I don’t doubt that you do speak for the majority of Muslims, which also neatly illustrates the exact problem. As **BigT** pointed out, whenever people like you try to “help” with your studly armies and your White Man’s Burden, you just end up fucking things up and making things worse. Just ask the people of Iraq. > [@](#): > > Over the past decade, I have read many articles that quoted a minority group of Muslims, mostly Afghani feminists, who were very much _not_ eager for US forces to withdraw. In fact, they saw those forces as being the very thing that protected them from the Tallban and which allowed them to keep their schools for girls open, to be able to walk around freely (in Kabul at least) without covering up, and things of that nature. That’s their right. But there are a lot more who are[plenty eager to see the troops leave](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/30/afghanistan-women-feminists-burqa), because [the invasion hasn’t really done a whole lot to help women in Afghanistan.](http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/1/afghanistan-feminismnatooccupation.html) Afghanistan, in fact, neatly illustrates the problem with your “solution” - the US came in, messed up what little hadn’t already been messed up by the _previous_ invasion by a non-Muslim country, backed a bunch of puppets like Karzai and the Northern Alliance warlords to rule the country who aren’t exactly _friendly_ to the idea of women’s rights, made a whole lot of hollow, empty promises and bumbling hamfisted failed attempts to “help the poor women of Afghanistan”, and then had to pull out because invading and occupying a foreign country and attempting to impose a whole new social and cultural order by force from the outside only ends in casualties for the occupiers and destruction, deaths and disruption for the occupied. > [@](#): > > If you did a poll of all Alabamans in the 1960s to see how many of them liked having federal troops enforcing desegregation there, even if you made sure to get a representative sample including so-called Negroes, the majority would have said “Yankee go home”. But among the minority who said the opposite, there would have been a large number of black people afraid that the North would at some point lose interest and let things slide back into darkness, just as happened at the end of Reconstruction nearly a century earlier. And this is a perfect example of a country and culture dealing with its own problems. China didn’t invade the US to occupy it, depose President Johnson and Governor Wallace, and impose an end to Jim Crow from the outside! ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/249 "2015-08-29T14:22:53Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > Why do you hate White children? > > **SlackerInc** , I totally understand. I love white children. Why do you hate brown children? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/250 "2015-08-29T14:26:54Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > Well, except for the fact that[96-97%](http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/02/how_mixed_are_african_americans.3.html) of self-identified Whites have no non-White ancestry. > > I capitalize White as a signal to other members of the alt-right, so they can recognize me, and because it subtly promotes the idea that Whites are a defined and meaningful group. The idea that “white” is a defined and meaningful group (and the derivative feelings that black and brown and yellow and red are defined and meaningful groups) is responsible for an enormous amount of suffering in this world. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/251 "2015-08-29T14:39:03Z")
> [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](#): > > I’ve asked you this a couple of times before, I think, but how do you tell the difference between real Western concern and fake Western concern? by the ignorant bigotry and the superficial sweeping statements, like this one: > [@](#): > > After all, there are plenty of places in the Middle East where women _are_ treated like cattle and that _is_ concerning. Leave us to our own resolutions and not your ignorant statements and the gross bigotry to supposedly help us. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/252 "2015-08-29T14:50:51Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > Well, except for the fact that[96-97%](http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/02/how_mixed_are_african_americans.3.html) of self-identified Whites have no non-White ancestry. > > I capitalize White as a signal to other members of the alt-right, so they can recognize me, and because it subtly promotes the idea that Whites are a defined and meaningful group. this person knows how to play the sdmb regulars very well. it is impressive how long it will keep up. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/253 "2015-08-29T14:59:36Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > As **BigT** pointed out, whenever people like you try to “help” with your studly armies and your White Man’s Burden, you just end up fucking things up and making things worse. because it comes in with the contempt and the hatred, dressed in the language and the clothing of “concern” - and then because of the ignorance is easily duped by the grifters who sell these type of people the words they want to hear… > [@](#): > > That’s their right. But there are a lot more who are[plenty eager to see the troops leave](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/30/afghanistan-women-feminists-burqa), because [the invasion hasn’t really done a whole lot to help women in Afghanistan.](http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/1/afghanistan-feminismnatooccupation.html) of course it is very much like the very ostentatious “feminism” and womens rights promotion of the regimes of Ben Ali and of Mubarek. “Progressive” language of promoting the womens rights often parroted by the elite wives of the corrupt men attached to the ruling clans. But the real impact, the real change outside of the cirlces of the shopping ladies and their cliques is very little, even none. This is what we saw with Ben Ali and with Mubarek - they found it was easy to fool these hypocrite haters with the language dressed up with women’s concerns but which was mostly instrumentalised to promote their own families corrupt interests… and what have we found is the result? a decredibilisation of the true feminism, the secular or the islamic, because of the corrupt instrumentalisation. It is the same effect as the decredibilisatoin of the secular idea. from this experience I have only contempt for the internet “concern” expressed by these here, the ignorant hatreds and bigotries are too easy to see underneath the thin cloth of the veil of progressive language ideas. our own feminism from our own sources will achieve more change than that faked to get cover up the gross corruptions. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Why_Bother)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/254 "2015-08-29T16:03:40Z")
**Ramira** - I’m beginning to lose faith in the notion that you’re intent on engaging your critics honestly. Frankly, you seem more and more to be just another one of those ranty-shouty “Bigot! Bigot! _Bigot!!!_” types who just hand waves away any criticism of the way women are treated in any Middle Eastern culture as ignorance without ever taking a moment to acknowledge that, maybe, your critics have a point, or even good intentions. When Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban, women were not allowed to leave their houses without a burqa and a male relative. They weren’t allowed to speak loudly in public. They were not allowed to ride bicycles or motorcycles. They weren’t allowed to continue their formal educations past the age of 8. They were not allowed to be treated by male doctors. All cosmetics were prohibited. According to one survey, 97% of women in Kabul showed symptoms of depression, which is surprising only for the fact that 3% _didn’t_. Cases of women being threatened into quitting their jobs, or lashed for violating the Taliban dress code were plentiful. The Taliban basically nationalised the wholesale abuse of women. There are no two ways about it. While conditions for women have modestly improved under the Karzai government, such improvements as the Karzai government has implemented do not, in practise, extend to the parts of Afghanistan still controlled by the Taliban. But even the women lucky enough to reap the benefits of Karzai’s reforms are still very much second-class citizens. For example, women are still not allowed to travel without a male “guardian”, and in 2013 the U.N. published statistics showing a 20% increase in domestic violence against women. Men can divorce their wives without needing their agreement, but not vice versa. Abortion in Afghanistan is only legal if the woman’s life is in danger, or if the child will be born with a disability. A new [law](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/afghanistan-law-victims-violence-women) forbids relatives of men accused of violence against their wives from testifying against them. Manizha Naderi, head of the charity Women for Afghan Women called the law a “travesty”. Needless to say, if a woman is violent to her husband, her relatives can testify against her as much as they damn well please. As recently as 2011, an international [poll](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13773274) of experts on gender issues concluded that Afghanistan is the most dangerous country in the world for women. These are facts, and no amount of screaming “Bigot! Bigot! Bigot!” is going to make them go away. If pointing this out and daring to be concerned about it makes me a bigot in your eyes, then fine. That’s a very, very, _very_ small price to pay, and I’ll happily choose to just stop giving a fuck about what you think. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/255 "2015-08-29T16:31:11Z")
> [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](#): > > **Ramira** - I’m beginning to lose faith in the notion that you’re intent on engaging your critics honestly. please in ten years I have seen this repeated here… I have no faith in the ignorant people or their opinions and faux concerns based on some half understood informations. > [@](#): > > … Middle Eastern culture as ignorance… When Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban, since Afghanistan is not the middle east at all, I already know you are an ignorant and using this ignorance to lecutring me about my own region and culture - which is not the south asian afghanistan - only increases my contempt. we have no need of the concern of recreational outrage and the new White Man Burden to bring enlightenment to the unter-menschen peoples. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/256 "2015-08-29T16:39:47Z")
> [@](#): > > …These are facts, and no amount of screaming “Bigot! Bigot! Bigot!” is going to make them go away. … What do these facts prove, exactly? That humans, especially ignorant and ill-informed humans, are often fanatical? That they hunger so profoundly to “make sense” of their world that they seize upon an ideology or a religion to the exclusion of reason? Is that somehow remarkable? As an orthodox Cecilian, I hold that ignorance is, itself, inherently evil and destructive. But even this should be considered in the light of reason, we should not assume that simply jamming facts into people’s minds will enlighten them, a humane acceptance of frailty and failure should inform our views. (For instance, I do not despise the French Impressionists, even though Scripture advises that a love of Monet is the root of all evil). Sheer fact is not an improvement over ignorance without humanity, humor, and acceptance. Despise the sin, not the sinner, the one good thing about being wrong is that it can be cured. But you do not reduce darkness by snuffing out a candle, you do not reduce bigotry by offering a counter-bigotry. That way lies madness. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/257 "2015-08-29T17:07:17Z")
One day you might try to stop trying to be clever in the belief you are clever. it is doubtful it will change of course. Of course if you wish to be "cecilian’ you could observe that the facts are not about the claimed area, and you do not learn anything about the protestant of the hills of your west viriginia in writing about the catholics of the mountains of peru. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/258 "2015-08-29T17:22:35Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > One day you might try to stop trying to be clever in the belief you are clever. it is doubtful it will change of course… No doubt at all, actually. If you would like an invitation to the celebration, I could make a note in my will. ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/259 "2015-08-29T17:36:14Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I love white children. Why do you hate brown children? I don’t care very much for brown children, but I guess all else equal I’d like to see them succeed. You, however, have indicated that you want White people to go extinct. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/260 "2015-08-29T17:40:36Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > No, you idiot. Whoa, that took me off guard. :eek: (I followed a link from another thread to get here; said link did not mention it being the BBQ Pit and I didn’t notice.) I am not used to the ways of this zone, but I think for now at least, I will refrain from responding in kind. > [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](#): > > I’ve asked you this a couple of times before, I think, but how do you tell the difference between real Western concern and fake Western concern? After all, there are plenty of places in the Middle East where women _are_ treated like cattle and that _is_ concerning. You’re not allowed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501.md?page=14)