Hi,
Thank you for a well written and considered rebuttal. Always a pleasure. 😊
I’m going to start with your statement, “I cannot accept your apparent endorsement of Rousseau's majoritarian doctrine that 'the will of the majority ... must be followed.' A civilised society can, no... it must respect the sensitivities of minorities while not sharing their beliefs.”
I think to understand what Rousseau was getting at one has to look at the broad spectrum of human beliefs, practice, and culture. In my native South Africa, when AIDS and HIV were at its heights, it was quite common for grown men to rape babies because they believed that by having sex with a baby, they would be cured of AIDS.
Then there’s ‘muti’ – the magical medicine prescribed by shamans. By eating a man’s genitals, one will enhance one’s own. So here are more murders that are particular to a particular culture of people.
In the years I lived in London, I befriends a young Hindi girl who was later murdered by her parents because she dated a Brit. This is part of Hindu religion. At one point, I nearly got tossed out of a window by a Muslim because I had dared to shake his hand.
These are examples of cultures and traditions that are outside of western culture. In fact, they are so far outside western culture that they clash with it.
There are many who would respond that people would need to obey the laws of a country. Well, the laws of a country are made by the majority, and so while murder is not outlawed by many cultures, it is generally outlawed in western societies.
So, when people who come from cultures have practices that are at odds with Western culture, and when those practices are at odds with western laws, how is it you would say that western societies must be sensitive to them? Bear in mind that these are minorities.
There is an old saying that one man’s meat is another man’s poison. That is true. The cultural practices of humanity vary so widely that it is clear that some of them clash outright. The survival of one depends on the death of the other. They cannot live in peace.
Earlier today, I was listening to the debate ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ by Intelligence Squared on Youtube. I found it interesting that at the start of it more people supported that motion, but at the end of it, there had been something like a 41% or 46% swing to not supporting it.
Why? Because we tend to interpret religion according to the culture we live in, and so while to many Islam might be a religion of peace, if you have actually read the Koran and if one knows the history of Mohammad, it is a religion of war. Mohammad instructed his followers in Jihad – the holy war – where those who would not accept Allah were to be murdered and maimed. More than half the religious texts in the Koran are of varying degrees of violence. When the audience realized this, they understood that Islam was not a religion of peace, and so they changed their position.
As with my experience of when I, in western tradition, put out my hand to shake a Muslim’s hand, his response was to attempt to murder me.
You also say, “'if one has... migrated to a particular nation or culture, then one must respect the mores & belief systems of that nation' is simplistic. A culture consists of an accumulation, interaction & development of all its inputs. Migration inevitably changes host cultures... for the better. Indeed, without its nourishment they ossify & die. (Consider Japan.)
I am going to disagree. I’ve had the privilege of having lived in many countries in the world – both first world (US, UK, EU) and third world (several countries in Africa). There is always conflict when cultures are too different from each other. This becomes extreme when there is extreme inequality. It’s not without accident that South Africa is the rape capital of the world, and before the Mexican cartel wars, South Africa was also the most violent country in the world outside an active war zone. There are numerous cultures and perspectives – polygamous marriage as well as monogamous marriage – abortion is an accepted practice, as is the practice of magic and shamanism.
https://www.rt.com/news/406000-shaman-woman-murder-south-africa
So how is it you think that it’s okay for one must be sensitive to people who believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with killing someone else for their body parts or murdering their daughters because they decided to marry a man from a western culture? These are not criminals who are doing this. These are people who are following their traditional beliefs.
So if they move to a western country, do you think they ought to be able to continue to practice their beliefs?
https://www.lifegate.com/malawi-albinism-massacre
My argument is not simplistic. It comes from a great many years of study, analysis, and experience with many cultures over a long period of time. Migration does not always change the host culture for the better. It often impoverishes the host culture if it is a non-western culture. Your definition of culture is incorrect.
Certainly, people of different cultures can live together peacefully if they agree on many things – like education, peace, etc. If, on the other hand, one culture is into cannibalism, sorry, it’s not going to work.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/what-is-culture/
My point about Sir Thomas More was that he had one idea of what was acceptable (as have you) and the State had a completely other idea of what was acceptable. It was not realistically possible to have both living side by side. Either the church instructed the state or the church and the state had nothing to do with each other. People who feel very strongly about these things go to war.
And while Thomas More would not have been executed for stating his beliefs today, many journalists are now being killed for reporting facts.
Essentially, the only way a democracy can work is when it is accepted that one has to respect the laws agreed to by the majority.
Thank you for a stimulating argument. 😊
