Elsewhere (3)
Keith Windshuttle on adversarial culture.
The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures, no matter how uncomfortable we might be with their beliefs and practices. However, there is one culture conspicuous by its absence from all this. The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.
Peter Risdon on the cruelty of Polly Toynbee.
One thing, and one thing only, keeps people trapped in the kind of poverty of mind where they don’t feed their children properly even when they could, and shit in their own stairwells. It’s a lack of ownership; a lack of self-reliance. It’s a lack of the very concept of self-reliance. It’s an idea that the mere thought that they should be self-reliant is immoral, evil, callous and cruel.
Elaine McArdle on men, women and work.
An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women – highly qualified for the work – stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else. One study of information technology workers found that women’s own preferences are the single most important factor in that field’s dramatic gender imbalance. A certain amount of gender gap might be a natural artifact of a free society.
And, via Stephen Hicks, some heinous cultural imperialism.
There are about 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., more than the number of McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and KFCs combined.
It’s oppression, I tell you.
Re: Windschuttle – I love the Napier quote:
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
David, is it too early for some music?
Well, I suppose it’ll soon be time for brunch… http://fp.ignatz.plus.com/tweedle.mp3
David
I was recently reading “The Argumentative Indian” by Amartya Sen. Sen shows how most of the values we think of as western have also been argued for independently in India, long before the British showed up. Most of them are just good ideas, and are not really culturally western in the sense that, say, eating fish and chips or drinking warm beer is culturally British.
Sen’s analysis of the Bengal Famine of 1943 leads him to conclude:
“No substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press.”
Georges,
“Most of them are just good ideas, and are not really culturally western in the sense that, say, eating fish and chips or drinking warm beer is culturally British.”
I don’t recall using the term “Western values” in an exclusive, proprietary sense, and I tend to use the term in quotation marks. Though it would, I think, be fair to say that Western societies have generally been the most vigorous and innovative in codifying and championing those ideas and making them normative.