Recently, 21 men received jail sentences of 3 years in Egypt for practising homosexuality. According to the article, homosexuality is taboo, but not illegal in Egypt. So, the men were tried under “moral laws”.
There has been strong criticism by foreign groups, e.g.
At the end of the article, it states
This begs the question, just when should a value be universally applicable and when should it be the byproduct of a culture?
From a practical point of view, does it matter? Does the consideration on the above grounds even come into the picture? For all we know, universal human rights at a point in time could be those agreed upon by those who more-or-less drive the development of the world.
They are. There are no natural rights, we made them all up.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be able to impose our values on their culture though. Effectively, the argument cuts both ways. Those guys who were locked up for homosexuality were practising their culture, and the government of Egypt imposed a foreign culture on them. While it may be nice for governments to claim they speak for everyone, it’s never the case that they do.
We can only make judgements according to our own culture and our own philosophies. It’s not an excuse to invade their country or force them to abide by our standards, but there’s nothing to stop us from saying “we think you’re wrong,” just like they can call our liberal, sinful western values wrong.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be able to impose our values on their culture though.
What is the scope of imposition implied?
[ul]
[li]Is the limit a verbal or written dissent (statement)?[/li][li]In addition to above, economic and political pressure?[/li][li]Use of military might?[/li][/ul] the government of Egypt imposed a foreign culture on them
Of course, the meaning of ‘foreign’ should be defined here. Presumably, these 21 individuals were born and brought up in Egypt. They were most probably aware of the common perception of homosexuality and the punitive action imposed by the authorities, should they be caught. Yet they continued to engage in these activities. What are the bounds of cultural strain that any mass culture should be expected to accept and embrace and who/what gets to decide those bounds?
McDuff: You do realize that your pragmatic obervations don’t add much to the debate. You’re essentially saying, things are what they are. On the basis, there’s not much to debate in “Great Debates”. Let’s pretend that we have influence in these matters. What should be the answers?
Well, my opinion here is that I happen to be right. (Obviously, if I were wrong I’d change my mind) And, after long days spent with various political philosophers, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best system of government is one which works on something of the same principle of an electronic circuit.
Bear with me here.
Most people here probably know about Maximum Power Transfer. In layman’s terms, this basically means that if the Impedance, or total opposition to the current, is equal at both ends of the circuit, it operates at its optimum efficiency. If the input or the output has vastly more impedance than the other end, the power is lost.
In government, this translates analogically (is that even a word? I don’t know, it’s late) to the principle that everyone should operate at the maximum amount of freedom that does not allow them to unduly restrict the freedom of others. If I have too much freedom to do what I want, I can restrict your freedom, and vice versa. Thus, at some point there is a balance that can be struck where everyone’s respective freedoms are roughly equalised - nobody can do everything they want to do, but everyone is operating at the same level and nobody can take unfair advantage of anyone else. Old school liberalism, see Emery Reves for more details.
I also believe very strongly in democracy. “Sovereignty,” or the power and authority to rule, comes from the people. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Our government is in charge of us, and yours in charge of you, because the population got together and said “OK, you can be in charge.” If we don’t like them, we take them out. As a result of this, I have a hard time when people claim to respect the “sovereignty” of states ruled by dictators. Where do they get their power from? Who grants them their authority? In the old days, when we could just say “God,” it was great. Nice, easy answers. These days, I question God’s judgement a lot more.
The old ideas of sovereignty are clashing with our ideas of moral right and wrong. Of course, the idea that we are morally superior to everyone else isn’t exactly new. Cultural Imperialism by any other name still smells as foul, some say. On the other hand, there is a strong suggestion that at least some of what we do in the west is watched and copied by people who would like to do the same - not least our little democracy experiment we’ve been running for the past 300 years. And those “Human Rights” we made up, quite a few people want to get hold of those, too.
The question is, how do we get the good stuff out of our culture, democracy, liberalism*, human rights etc, into their cultures, without doing all the things which colonial powers have tried to learn not to do. We tried the “forced market” principle, where we set up a McDonalds in every Mosque and wondered why people got annoyed. We’ve tried just going in there and forcing them to be like us, for which the British Empire will always be justly remembered as Tyrranical, no matter what benefits we may have brought. So what can we do?
By and large, it seems like the most constructive things we can do is sit on the borders and “hurrumph” loudly. We can apply a certain amount of pressure, trade, political, and importantly peer pressure, to get people to swing round to our point of view. “You want to be like us, Egypt? We’re the cool kids!”
Of course, there is a certain amount of pride amongst those in power in opposing this new influx. And in any population there is fear of change and of the new. But, by and large, our influence has already spread out to places like the former soviet states in Eastern Europe. Turkey is doing more to address its human rights failings than ever, because if it doesn’t we won’t let it be in the EU, and it really wants to be in the EU. The people of Turkey want the things we have; the simple, materialistic things like food and healthcare, and the government is gradually swinging around to the idea.
I don’t know, really, why we can’t apply the principle to the rest of the world, to places like Egypt. Given that it works, wheras “voicing written consent” or “condemning the actions of Government X” is ridiculously futile, and invading with a military force is a touch of overkill, it seems like an excellent idea to me.
*by which I mean not beating up women, blacks and Jews, and allowing freedom of speech, that kind of thing.
You meant to say, “if I thought I was wrong I’d…” but that’s a nitpick.
The problem I see with this theory is that human freedom and purpose doesn’t have the homogenuous purpose assigned to power transfer. IOW, in electricity, all you care about is getting a specified number of electrons (or charge carriers) from location A to location B in time ‘t’. Whereas, human purposes don’t just possess quantitative concerns but also qualitative. In the theory you believe, suppose 10 of us were living together and had to formulate such a set of “maximum cohabitable freedoms”, it’s very likely that the standard created using 10 of us might be utterly unsuitable for 2 of us. The reason it’s adopted is because if the 2 standouts were given special or due consideration, the standard might be unreasonable for all of them. IOW, just because a standard adopted is the “maximum cohabitable” doesn’t mean it is cohabitable to any degree by everyone.
Yes, but that’s primarily due to the spread and dominance of Western media. Who’s to say what the accepted ideals would have been had Arabian, Japanese, Indian, African media thrived internationally as well?
Oh, they’d have been completely different, probably. It’s all cultural conditioning, isn’t it?
But, we are where we are right now. And, as much as I can hypothesise about what possible differences might have been, I can tell much more accurately where we are, and also where I, personally, would like us to be.
Your mention of the profligation of our media is quite interesting - there are a number of amusing anecdotes which time will not permit me to go and look up in full now, but “Cop Shows” like Starsky and Hutch have led to citizens of countries like Turkey and Uzbekistan demanding that they be read their Miranda rights, and having to have it explained to them that they don’t have them. Then there was that country somewhere (man, I’m Mr Details today; South America, I think) that rebelled, apparently, because the state owned media cancelled “Days of Our Lives” or something equally bizarre.
And, by and large, although we might sometimes lust after the weather and the “alternative” religions of India or South America, we tend not to look at Argentina and go “I’ve got to get me some of that spiralling depression,” or at Chile and say “Man, that Pinochet character sure runs the country well!” On the other hand, people are literally queuing up at the borders to try and live the American Dream.
Now, if we could somehow sell that dream to them back home…
But, we are where we are right now. And, as much as I can hypothesise about what possible differences might have been, I can tell much more accurately where we are, and also where I, personally, would like us to be.
But that’s kinda my point. Since, we don’t know how things would have been, there shouldn’t be an eagerness to promote the Western viewpoint. Isn’t your goal of “would like us to be” limited on our fleshed out experience of the past? The people in third world countries are bombarded by Western media. They won’t have the opportunity to experience alternate conditions in order to see if those are more better suited to that existing culture.
It’s a good point, and I can see how you can come by it. I, personally, don’t. (Which, although it is, through implication of other things said in this thread, as good as saying “You are Wrong,” I hope can be taken with the good natured grace of humanity. After all, it may, in actual fact, be I who is wrong!)
Let’s look at the situation. When faced with any given circumstance, such as an evil dictator, we have an intial choice that runs as follows - Do Something, or Do Nothing. If, after weighing up the potential costs and benefits, and imagining that maybe it will work out better if we steer clear (even if this takes a considerable number of years to happen), Do Nothing is a reasonable choice to make.
But, there are a number of reasons why I don’t feel Do Nothing is ever a reasonable option. Firstlyt, when considered in the actuality of Now, there are a few factors on the ol’ “Quality of Life” scale which I think are pretty much standard across the board. While arguments can be made for Democracy vs. Benevolent Despot, or Secular vs. Theocratic governments, there isn’t nearly as much play between Starving to Death vs. Having Enough Food, or Being Shot By The Militia vs. Not Being Shot By The Militia. In these cases, we can assume that (statistically, over the whole of the population) we enjoy a better quality of life than the people in countries such as Zimbabwe or Ethiopia, at this precise moment in time. We can also assume that, although change will happen, as change does, it will not happen very quickly without external pressure. Pie in the Sky in the future is all very nice, but, were I in that situation, I would far prefer change for me and my kids NOW than a hypothetical possible utopia some time in the future.
Added onto the case for Do Something is that we have, thoughout history, been Doing Something, and our influence cannot be excluded from the current situations that these various nations find themselves in. Our fates are already intertwined with theirs by history.
Again, it is possible that, in isolation, all nations could have achieved enlightenment independently. However, we shall never know this, because history happened as it did. Nations did not evolve entirely in isolation. Our actions affected those nations in the grip of poverty and despotism right now, and their actions have similarly affected us. (Indeed, it could be argued that the situations could, in fact, be seen to be reversed - that keeping clear and “leaving them to their own devices” would be Doing Something, namely pissing about with traditional links and roles, wheras Doing Nothing would be to merely carry on bumbling through the same as we always have done.)
However, leaving such musings aside, I am convinced that the case can be made, in the actuality of here and now, of Doing Something. The question, of course, is “OK, but what?” The answers to this are, of course, many and varied. We should Do Something in Iraq, but I do not believe that that Something should ever involve something called “Operation Shock and Awe.” We should have Done Something in Afghanistan six years before we actually did it, and we should still be doing it now that we have, apparently, forgotten about its very existence.
I don’t, frankly, believe that cultural isolation is ever actually going to happen, least of all now, when the magic of Teh Intarweb Thingy means you and I can converse on this issue, and others, regardless of our geographic location. We will continue to affect other cultures by our very existence, doing that thing we do, and they, likewise, will do the same thing for us. Once we acknowledge this as true (although you can feel free to disagree if you like, I don’t mind ), we have to at least make a conscious decision to affect others in a way which benefits us and them the most, or at least seems to inasmuch as we can tell the future at all.
The only references we have for these decisions are What We Are Now and Where We Have Been. (By we, of course, I’m talking about the whole human race.) Some pick (shudder) a return to colonialism. Others, such as myself, would prefer to tread paths less well paved with fragments of human bones, such as the federalist route, which, although far from perfect, has had a far better success rate than colonialism and empire building thus far.
I don’t think there are technically any universal rights. Territoriality & support of your territorial clan (currently called patriotism) seems to be the only universal human right, beyond that it is all cultural.
), we have to at least make a conscious decision to affect others in a way which benefits us and them the most, or at least seems to inasmuch as we can tell the future at all.