it's an oppressive point that every human requires the same sort of government to achieve maximal justice. It is, the very argument that the US has proffered to engage in interventionary invasions of the Maghreb - "we're bringing them democracy".
If anything, the worst crime of which history will accuse America is of taking excellent stated ideals and subverting them for the purpose of oppression - thus discrediting the original excellent ideals.
Hanlon's razor. But the difference here is, in this case it is impossible to not be incompetent. Just as it is impossible to deliver what you intend for the world without being incompetent in the sense of being 'non-oppressive'.
That's vastly different.
Children among the Hopi are raised to believe literally that the Kacina dancers are literally gods from somewhere else who have come to work miracles on the village. Once every 3 years, the children ages 7-9 are gathered together for induction into the religious community of the village. This induction involves ritual beating and betrayal (showing that what they have been taught all their lives is a carefully constructed lie), and thus induction into the religious community is also a somewhat temporary and violent initiation into atheism as well. However this tearing down of belief in relatively visceral and violent ways is considered necessary for passing on the Hopi understanding of religion.
The problem I have with this sort of international humanism is that it leaves no room for cultures like that. I mean Think of the Children!!! They are being abused!!! and so we go out of our way to impose our own culture on everyone else in the way of proving that nationalism and ethnocentricity must go.
[1] see Gill, Sam D. 1996 "Disenchantment: A Religious Abduction." In Readings in Ritual Studies, edited by Ronald L. Grimes, 230-39. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
I don't think religion has any bearing on whether something is acceptable or not. The Hopi may beat their children for religious reasons, but plenty of parents beat their children for non-religious reasons. What matters in the question of whether this should be allowed is not the reason why they do it, but the consequences of doing it. Laws regulate actions based on their consequences, not based on their motive.
The fundamental question is how much deference we give to culture generally and who is making these decisions. Do we want white folks telling Hopi they can't have what remains of their culture anymore? Do we want folks from China and India telling white Americans what should constitute free speech?
My view is that if we don't allow for local culture and decisions about such things to be made at the local and cultural level then we lose our basic humanity. For cannibalism or ritual sacrifice, if it is internal to a population group, I think that this is for that group to work out. If it is between groups, well then that's cause for war.....
A lot of things in culture are really structurally variable. For example is it a human right to be able to choose not to ever have children? Does this mean that cultures that expect retirees to be cared for by their children are violating human rights and every culture must have something like social security? Now, if you agree that's a cultural issue, then something like same-sex marriage also must be a cultural issue too.
(Religion, in my view, isn't about God. Religion is about community.)
That said, I don't for a second believe that there's any reason for us to accept that all cultures are worth saving, or that some cultural norms should not be actively fought. However I see that as an entirely orthogonal issue to the first.
> That said, I don't for a second believe that there's any reason for us to accept that all cultures are worth saving, or that some cultural norms should not be actively fought.
The question is who has the right to fight them and how. It's one thing to critique another culture. It's something else to go out to try to force them to see the error of their ways. The problem is that the latter is usually just an exercise of nationalism if we define nationalism as hating other national/cultural groups.
The question is, how sure should an outsider be of the context of an action? Or is this better left for the members of the culture to navigate and evolve as meets their needs? I side generally with the latter unless it involves conflict between cultural groups. That's different and poses different problems.
Is it more abusive to subject children to a single coming-of-age ritual designed to teach them to think, or to allow children to transition to adulthood physically unharmed yet full of ideas designed to hold them back from full enjoyment of their faculties?
It seems that the Hopi would be entirely justified in saying that all other Americans are guilty of child abuse.
Which brings me back to my point. Who gets to make the rules?
Isn't the greatest justice served and the greatest abuses of power prevented by keeping these decisions as local as possible?
That's federalism, not nationalism.
Nationalism is "Deutschland Uber Alles"