Posted on 08/23/2009 2:15:28 AM PDT by Cindy
“I have lived in Asia and very much enjoy Asians and their Asian Culture.”
By culture if you mean respect for elders and guests, that’s universal.
I get the gist of you cultural reference.
But, really, the cultures are very, very different and equating a Chinese culture with Thai or Japanese is going to get you in trouble over there.
Japanese think the Chinese are impossibly dirty people and the Chinese really do hate the Japanese and have not forgotten WWII.
And yes, cruelty is not simply a cultural phenomenon, but it is the human condition.
We are all beasts carefully hiding under these laws we have created to manage our natures.
Incidentally, I really, really, really liked your photo gallery on your about page ......... especially the Bond girl, Eva Green!
I totally agree with you.
Virginia must be so very proud of Senator Webb......
Spot on! Just as there are myriads of cultures in Europe, there are myriads of cultures in Asia...from work ethic, and Eastern mysticism, to Yin and Yang and Feng Shui! Western secular education doesn't lend itself to understanding culture...we seem to get hung up on the 'cult' part.
We don’t usually think of Sicilians and Swedes as sharing the same culture, since they are very different. However, all European cultures, being based on the Christian religion and the ancient classical heritage, have a great deal in common.
Many “Asian” cultures, by which I assume PM really means “East Asian” cultures, are much more different from each other than any two European cultures.
Their cultures just look similar to us, because what we focus on is their common difference from ourselves.
You make the statement that Asians have a culture that is more cruel than others. When others point out the atrocities committed by other races, you insist that the Asians are worse. Yet, you don't provide any explanation or analysis for your belief. If you are going to assert a belief perhaps you can explain it more. Either you have a rational basis for your opinion or you might just be a bigot.
How were the Vikings tied to "ancient classical heritage?" Christianity came late to them.
Why don't the Afghans share European culture. After all Alexander brought Greek "ancient classical traditions" to them?
After the fall of Rome, Europe was overrun by Asians bringing new ethnicity and culture to the continent.
The roots of common European culture lie more in the thinking starting in the Renaissance than that from Greek and Roman culture. This was the beginning of the modern secular order that began to erode the power of absolute monarchs and the Church and began to promote the idea of the individual. It took several hundred more years to develop into democracies across Europe.
I think that is a well-put point. But, I do think that there's some truth in the belief that generally speaking, eastern cultures and specifically Asian cultures don't place as much value on the individual life as western cultures do.
Much of it has to do with the philosophies that the cultures are built upon. Individual liberty is an ideal that flows from Greek and Roman statesmen and philosophers. We really don't see a similar or as pronounced equivalent in any of the Asian cultures, which are much more feudally based.
I'm not a theologian - by any stretch - by there's also a marked difference in the three respective leading religions in both cultures - with Christianity in the west and Islam and Buddhism in the east. Christianity's foundational premise is about individual salvation through the willing acceptance of Jesus as the Christ.
Islam, on the other hand, is completely and entirely about submission to Mohamed and Allah, quite different. Also, Buddhism is more collective in nature. It's about finding "harmony" in nature, about blending in with everyone and everything around you. It's primacy is the collective balance of nature over individual achievement or existence.
In short, western civilization celebrates the individual and the inherent (some say God-given) primacy of individual life and liberty. Eastern cultures tend to do the exact opposite - the collective supersedes the individual.
I believe what you are responding to is a cultural/religious issue. The sanctity of life and the importance of the individual as a child of God is a concept which gained influence through the JudeoChristian ethic and spread by Christian missionaries and teachers. Nothing like it in Islam or the oceanic spiritual philosophies of the Orient.
Christendom has had no lack of examples which reflect failure to live up to the creed, but the creed is there; and the fact is that reverence for individual human life is not universal.
Sherman?
even some high Asian cultures like Japan showed not long ago their capacity for savagery
yet at that same time a very high Western culture was pretty savage too to those it deemed a threat to their goal and a medium "White" culture went savage for 75 years till Magnus drove a stake through it
this is stuff is hard to peg but yes the more primitive the culture the more likely to go violent and if they have access to modern weaponry or nicer edged weapons than the stone or bronze aged stuff they had only recently then there you go...it ups the ante
human have to learn to behave with one another, it's the old struggle of good versus evil inside all of us
i for one think Christianity helped but not without some bumpy spots but overall it has smoothed out folks where it existed...Islam has done just the opposite.
I can’t take it anymore.
First, I'm not making a statement about how good or bad the people in the region are. I was posing a question: Why does cruelty seem to be more generally acceptable in the area. You might possibly simply say: "It's not." That may be the answer, I'm just looking at the following and posing the question. If you can back off your knee-jerk reactions and assumptions for just a moment and stop putting words in my simple question you MIGHT see something in it. Suicide is an accepted way of life in many Asian countries. Suicide soldiers (not just in Japan) are revered as heroes. Suicide for honor is respected as honorable. As far as I know China has the only state MANDATED abortion policy in the world.
The simple answer may be that Asian CULTURE generally values the whole over the individual. Sacrificing an individual apparently is not as big a deal as it would be say here.
When is the last time you saw a business executive commit suicide over honor and be lauded for it in the west? When have you seen American protesters setting themselves on fire?
I realize I changed the argument a little by going from cruelty to valuing human life. But they MAY be related.
I admire Asian culture(s)(all of the permutations) a great deal. So it's rather ironic that I would be attacked as a RACIST for a simple statement.
I doubt you need much exercise because you seem to get plenty of exercise by jumping to conclusions.
Perhaps they first articulated it. Sure didn't do a very good job of hanging onto it, though!
BTW, their individual liberty was always premised on the existence of a large slave class allowing them the leisure to exercise their personal liberty and think fine thoughts.
The liberty of the America Revolution is actually based more directly on Christian theology, which states that all men are children of God and therefore in some ultimate sense equal. This is a much more solid foundation for liberty than the rather selfish desires of classical aristocrats. This idea of human equality never crossed the classical mind, or indeed that of any other human society.
What???
Shermans March to the Sea.
From Atlanta to Savannah burning and killing pretty much everything in his path.
It’s also not a particularly uncommon first name.
I chose Sherman Logan as particularly obscure literary reference.
No reference to the great General Sherman was intended.
It is odd that he is remembered for his march across GA. While everybody at the time agreed he was much harsher during his march across SC, everyone has forgotten about it.
I just picked the more common reference. it was not a reference to you.
Cruelty is common throughout history. Sometimes it is the result of a psychotic and sometimes from people who have become numb to the horror.
The organized version lead by a psychotic leader seems the worst in my opinion.
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