185 réponses à ce sujet

[TobyHasEyes]

Kappa Neko wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 But what if our ideals are that morality should be applied universally? Then by your argument I should continue to apply them universally.. although your argument is trying to suggest the opposite is the case

 So actually, you haven't compelled us to do anything except carry on as we were

 (Don't mean that to sound rude, but I do just feel like cultural relativism is a huge farce)

Yes, that's why cultural relativism  is only an intellectual construct. It doesn't work when dealing with real problems.
But being stuck in your own world view is a fact. Being made aware of how much of what we consider normal and right is not universal is very important. Only by realizing just how much our culture influences our thinking can we learn to accept morals that are different to our own. Which to me is a vital step to making this world more peaceful.
Of course, accepting other ideals as equally valid is a western idea (just like human rights).
All I can do is state what I consider the right approach. You *need* to relate to the world in some way!
When it comes to dealing with a military threat, it boils down to defending your society all the same.
No nation would accept an invasion, thinking it's wrong to accuse the aggressor of wrongdoing based on cultural relativism.
Being tolerant only works as long as everybody plays along and nobody gets hurt. (Which is seldom the case)
It's difficult to determine when a country or culture turns into a threat to other societies. In my opinion the western world has been an aggressor far longer than the Middle East.
All I'm stating is what I, as an individual from  Europe think about the issue of judging other cultures/races by our morals. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now I'm going to bed

 I have no qualms with your expression of how you feel about judging other cultures morals. My objection is to the idea that recognising moral values as being non-universal in origin (subjective) means that you should only act on them in your own culture. Nevermind how much moral values are not universally held within your own culture (yet you judge them to be applicable, unlike in other cultures), the point surely is this..

  The form of moral relativism you are prescribing pictures moral standards thusly

 - moral values, what you should and shouldn't do, how actions may be judged - in one category (1)

 - you should not apply your own moral values outside of your culture - in a second category (2)

 You argue that it is wrong to suggest that the morals in (1) should be applied universally, yet you argue that it is right to suggest that the morals in (2) should be applied universally.. but when both are subjective / non-universal, what is your justification for the difference?

 I appreciate that you gave justification for adopting the 'don't apply moral values to other cultures' principle by reference to the consequences of not adopting that principle, but then what makes that different to those people like myself whose (1) moral values are based on consequences? 

 In other words, as applied, you have the moral value that slavery is wrong, due to the negative consequences of it upon people (1), and the moral value which says that you shouldn't judge the Batarian Hegemony by your own standards (2) .. what reason is there to say that (2) should trump (1) in this instance?

 I recognise that you might suggest that you simply prefer (2) to (1), or simply personally feel that (2) outweighs (1). That is fair enough, all I would say is that I am trying to show that that view does not necessarily follow from the recognition of moral values being subjective. And as such it is coherent to act to stop those Batarians who engage in slavery from practising it (against other Batarians or other races), whilst recognising that the motivation which spurred you to act was only subjective

[Katamariguy]

Why they haven't revolted?

Considering how many real regimes were never toppled...

[bobdooly]

Kappa Neko wrote...

Oh my, I've been missing out on a debate about cultural imperialism... Damn!

marshalleck wrote...

Hilarious. All these people whining about batarian slavery and the Hegemony, then in the same breath they go and espouse some cultural imperialism with talk of overthrowing the batarian government and letting their people "start over." How ****ing arrogant can you get? Who says they need your liberation, or need to 'reset' to some human standard?

Here's a thought: let the batarians worry about batarians. They can govern themselves, and their government will be one befitting their culture. Trying to force them into some other species' standard of acceptable social norms just as foul an attitude as the particularly hostile and racist tone batarians direct at humans. No wonder.

So much this!
Why is it that so many people don't realize that the "help" they force upon outrageously oppressed people of different cultures (read sarcasm), is based on ideals that aren't any more right that the "wrong" ideals of others.
How do you decide what's right and what's wrong? There's nothing to measure it with! There is no universal right or wrong. Slavery is not necessarily wrong. It serves a purpose within the society that supports it.
Personally, as a member of western society, I consider slavery wrong, yes. Oppression of women = very wrong. But I will never support military intervention in order to "free" people from a culture that is considered wrong only by us.
It's in fact very arrogant to consider your own culture as the only right one. Unfortunately it's also the only way people can relate to the world. You can't believe in your world view and at the same time negate it. If what you believe in is right, what contradicts it has to be wrong *sigh*
Only it's not that simple. Cultural imperialism is a very dangerous thing. It's as bad as actually forcing people by military power to surrender to your will for profit. Which is still happening today, too...
Things get a lot more complicated when more and more people belonging to a society rebel against it. This is currently the case in the Middle East. Some of the things going on there do not represent what the people want.
And that leads to the West getting all smug about doing everybody a favor by sending their military forces to promote democracy. Only they don't want the same thing as we want them to want! And that's fine!!
We have no right to tell other countries what to do. We have a right to defend our ideals and lives, yes. But so do they!
How would western countries feel if China sent their troops to help us embrace the only right social order that is a one party goverment? I bet there would be resistance....
If the people of Iraq want change, we should let them accomplish it themselves, just as European countries did back when the monarchy got abolished. Europe built new ideals on the ruins of the old order. Let the Middle East or Africa or Asia do the same.
It's demeaning to treat other cultures as incapable of taking care of problems themselves.
I very much dislike foreign aid for the same reason. It's yet another face of cultural imperialism. Provide the money and demand things to go the way white people want.

By the way, the Batarians can't be a mirror of human culture (singular), since there is no universal human culture. It should say a mirror of what white people don't like about themselves or other cultures.
I agree with that. Even though I would consider the reapers as the most fitting mirror of human arrogance.

I don't like Batarian society. Nor do I like the militant Turian society or the aggressive Krogan society. Don't like humans, either
But no race deserves to be eradicated. Because no judgment can be wielded without falling back on highly subjective cultural criteria. Live and let live!

They "need" help because they enslave other species. Slavery is wrong. If they kept to themselves, then whatever. I'll let them deal with it. But when they say it's their natural right to enslave the galaxy, the humans/asari/quarians/what have you should be allowed to defend themselves. And that might mean pulling the weed out at it's roots.

BTW you know a game company is good when people have opinions on a fictional species/governement as though it were real.

[Homey C-Dawg]

I wish people would not imply that people wanting to help the batarians are "slaver lovers" or "slaver defenders". It's such a twisting of words that it makes it hard to take some of those arguments seriously.

OT- While I agree with some that letting the batarians possess their own culture is important, the truth of the matter is that you can't always get what you want. As different cultures come into closer and closer proximity to each other, they come into conflict with each other more and more frequently. Ideals are the most powerful and destructive weapons people possess, and they frequently are incompatible with each other. At some point either the cultures will merge (if compatible enough) or cultural conflict will become such a problem that one has to go, either through spacial separation or annihilation.

Earth today is feeling major growing pains from the former (merging) as evidenced by anyone who looks around and sees that the human race is in the process of developing a "world culture". As a result however, there are parts of this world where some places who's incompatible cultures have been safe through "separation" (as in the rest of the world wasn't affected by them and let them be) are being forced to deal with the morals of the majority, hence things like the middle east conflict. There's hardly any more room on this planet for cultural separation (especially since the internet let us merge like we have). Since the "vastness of space" in the ME universe seems as cramped as Earth (ie. they won't just leave us alone because we ask) our options are...

1) to let the incompatible batarian culture be as they are, meaning they keep killing us because they were taught to and won't keep to themselves.

2) Annihilate them, effectively eliminating the culture as well as the mindset that maintained it.

3) Uplift them, forcibly integrating them into the society that every race and culture has agreed upon, allowing them to maintain the aspects of their culture that don't impose on other cultures.

I'd pick option 3. The truth is that we can't just ignore the batarian threat because it simply won't go away. I would never advocate genocide though (yes I'm one of few it appears who still consider genocide the worse thing you can do) so I would choose uplifting them. Somehow I think if you showed much of the downtrodden batarian populace what kindness and free will actually are, they would love it.

Just my 2¢ again.

[tjzsf]

A couple words on the burden of proof: it's really on the side of anyone who makes a claim.

So let's say I wanted to claim all Muslims are violent terrorists. I'd have to put up some evidence of this, so I bring up 9/11 and how it was all Muslims behind it and how in Iraq all the militants are too cowardly to come out and have at it so they hide behind civilians when they fight instead and how they can't even get their act together enough to build their country instead of kill each other.

Now let's say I don't agree with this. It is then my burden to provide counterexamples. This I do, by pointing out all the many MANY Muslims who aren't like that and showing the aforementioned violent terrorists are a minority.

Extrapolating to Mass Effect:

I want to prove batarians are terrorists and slavers. So I point out the events of Bring Down the Sky, how they resorted to terrorism after they tried to pick on the new kid on the block (humanity) but got punched in the face instead. I point out Midnoir, and the Skylian Blitz, how they keep picking fights with humanity despite humanity's only "crime" to be settling in an area of the unsettled frontier where there were already some batarians presence, but not enough for it to be recognized as batarian space. I point out how humans were *never* the aggressor in any of the human-batarian conflicts, that it was always they who started it. And I point out how the game explicitly tells you that slavery is an integral part of their culture, that they're not going to give it up voluntarily.

Now let's say you wanted to prove otherwise. You present...what, exactly? Cathka and Salkie not being utter jerks to you for those brief 5 minutes you meet them doesn't disprove the above points. Neither does the sick batarian on Omega, nor the merchant who will sell you his stuff (especially that guy - he's condescending to you from the start, and makes it pretty clear he doesn't think too highly of humans, but only bothers with you because you will buy his stuff).

tldr: "You don't know that they're all slavers and terrorists" does not meet your burden of proof.

[GMagnum]

batarians r hella ugly anyway

[Porenferser]

GMagnum wrote...

batarians r hella ugly anyway

Congrats Mister, you just won the Award 'Most pointless and stupid post in this thread'

@ Kappa Neko
I couldn't agree more.

[knightnblu]

Could be because the race as a whole promotes the enslavement of sentient species, could be that they work said species to death in a manner reminiscent of the Soviet Gulags, or possibly because they ran a shadow war against humans in the Verge using criminals and pirates to carryout their proxy war. Or it could be that they assault human ships and colonies in order to abduct humans in order to turn them into slaves and summarily execute anybody that they don't want.

Other than all of that, I am sure that they are all salt of the earth.

[InvincibleHero]

Plain and simple they were created for the purpose of being an enemy people could justifiably hate. They put a couple instances in 2 where they are portryed a bit more evenly such as Anto and the ones holding Mordin's assitant hostage, to a merchant, and finally to the mechanic everyone brains which seemed like a decent enough fellow.

[Kappa Neko]

Porenferser wrote...

@ Kappa Neko
I couldn't agree more.

Twice this month. It's starting to get a little creepy
Didn't even know you posted here. Was really surprised when I read who the OP was.
*thumbs up*

Don't have time to write any more eleborate answers this week, though. Sorry. Not much left to say, either, actually.

[tjzsf]

relevant quote:
"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."
Charles James Napier, governor of India.

To OP: we didn't only meet criminal batarians; their culture promotes/encourages/sponsors activites that everyone else considers criminal.