How 'Rational Atheists' spread anti Islam pro US military propaganda

wrong thread

  On 10/1/2015 at 6:22 AM, Friendly Foil said:

wrong thread

I can see some truth in this statement. Very succinctly put, btw.

Thank you goDel.

I appreciate

it.

Even if

it

was a coincidence.

Or maybe

not?

not swinging on greenwald's balls as much anymore but this discussion was pretty good from oct 4th

i like points of view:

  Quote

 

Criticism of opposition Tolerance versus human rights

Anthropologist Eric Silverman wrote in 2004 that FGM had "emerged as one of the central moral topics of contemporary anthropology." Anthropologists have accused FGM eradicationists of cultural colonialism; in turn, the former have been criticized for their moral relativism and failure to defend the idea of universal human rights.^[236] According to the opposition's critics, the biological reductionism of the opposition, and the failure to appreciate the practice's cultural context, undermines the practitioners' agency and serves to "other" them – in particular by calling African parents mutilators.^[237] Yet Africans who object to the opposition risk appearing to defend FGM.^[238] Feminist theorist Obioma Nnaemeka – herself strongly opposed to FGM ("If one is circumcised, it is one too many") – argues that the impact of renaming it female genital mutilation cannot be underestimated:

Obioma Nnaemeka: "Westerners are quick to appropriate the power to name ..."^[239]

In this name game, although the discussion is about African women, a subtext of barbaric African and Muslim cultures and the West's relevance (even indispensability) in purging the barbarism marks another era where colonialism and missionary zeal determined what "civilization" was, and figured out how and when to force it on people who did not ask for it.

[

240

]

Ugandan law professor Sylvia Tamale argues that early Western opposition to FGM stemmed from a Judeo-Christian judgment that African sexual and family practices – including dry sex, polygyny, bride price and levirate marriage – were primitive and required correction.^[241] African feminists "do not condone the negative aspects of the practice", writes Tamale, but "take strong exception to the imperialist, racist and dehumanising infantilization of African women."^[241]

The debate has highlighted a tension between anthropology and feminism, with the former's focus on tolerance and the latter's on equal rights for all women. Anthropologist Christine Walley writes that a common trope within the anti-FGM literature has been to present African women as victims of false consciousness participating in their own oppression, a position promoted by several feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, including Fran Hosken, Mary Daly and Hanny Lightfoot-Klein. It prompted the French Association of Anthropologists to issue a statement in 1981, at the height of the early debates, that "a certain feminism resuscitates (today) the moralistic arrogance of yesterday's colonialism."^[242]

As an example of the disrespect arguably shown toward women who have undergone FGM, commentators highlight the appropriation of the women's bodies as exhibits. Historian Chima Korieh cites the publication in 1996 of the Pulitzer-prize-winning photographs (above) of a 16-year-old Kenyan girl undergoing FGM. The photographs were published by 12 American newspapers, but according to Korieh the girl had not given permission for the images to be taken, much less published.^[243]

Comparison with other procedures

Obioma Nnaemeka argues that the crucial question, broader than FGM, is why the female body is subjected to so much "abuse and indignity" around the world, including in the West.^[244] Several authors have drawn a parallel between FGM and cosmetic procedures.^[245] Ronán Conroy of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland wrote in 2006 that cosmetic genital procedures were "driving the advance of female genital mutilation" by encouraging women to see natural variations as defects.^[246] Anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi compares FGM to breast enhancement, in which the maternal function of the breast becomes secondary to men's sexual pleasure.^[247]Benoîte Groult made a similar point in 1975, citing FGM and cosmetic surgery as sexist and patriarchal.^[248]

Martha Nussbaum argues that a key moral and legal issue with FGM is that it is mostly conducted on children using physical force.

Carla Obermeyer maintains that FGM may be conducive to women's well-being within their communities in the same way that rhinoplasty and male circumcision may help people elsewhere.^[249] In Egypt, despite the 2007 ban, women wanting FGM for their daughters discuss the need for amalyet tajmeel (cosmetic surgery) to remove what is viewed as excess genital tissue for a more acceptable appearance.^[250]

The WHO does not cite procedures such as labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction as examples of FGM, but its definition aims to avoid loopholes, so several elective practices on adults do fall within its categories.^[251] Some of the laws banning FGM, including in Canada and the US, focus only on minors. Several countries, including Sweden and the UK, have banned it regardless of consent, and the legislation would seem to cover cosmetic procedures. Sweden, for example, has banned "[o]perations on the external female genital organs which are designed to mutilate them or produce other permanent changes in them ... regardless of whether consent to this operation has or has not been given."^[252] Gynaecologist Birgitta Essén and anthropologist Sara Johnsdotter note that it seems the law distinguishes between Western and African genitals, and deems only African women (such as those seeking reinfibulation after childbirth) unfit to make their own decisions.^[253]

Arguing against suggested similarities between FGM and dieting or body shaping, philosopher Martha Nussbaum writes that a key difference is that FGM is mostly conducted on children using physical force. She argues that the distinction between social pressure and physical force is morally and legally salient, comparable to the distinction between seduction and rape. She argues further that the literacy of women in practising countries is generally poorer than in developed nations, and that this reduces their ability to make informed choices.^[254]

Several commentators maintain that children's rights are violated with the genital alteration of intersex children, who are born with anomalies that physicians choose to correct. Legal scholars Nancy Ehrenreich and Mark Barr write that thousands of these procedures take place every year in the United States, and say that they are medically unnecessary, more extensive than FGM, and have more serious physical and mental consequences. They attribute the silence of anti-FGM campaigners about intersex procedures to white privilege and a refusal to acknowledge that "similar unnecessary and harmful genital cutting occurs in their own backyards."^[255]

Posting in a compson thread?

Fuck FGM and cultural relativism

(While there are no right ways to be a culture, there are indeed wrong ways)

Not to mention the issue of informed consent

If you brainwash a kid into thinking they actually live in a universe

Run by a God who would *strongly* prefer that they cut their (say) right ear off

And then you ask that kid for their consent to remove their right ear

And they (surprise surprise) say 'yes'...

Is that informed consent?

I hope it's clear that the 'informed' part is highly problematic

(Maybe keep this in mind next time you hear about burqas, as well...)

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what informed consent do you (or anyone here really) have having been brainwashed by western culture?

I agree totally

(Assuming your question is rhetorical)

I think we've all consented to a life, society, world

Where we didn't even realize there was a choice one way or the other

But that's slightly more esoteric then the specific matter of FGM

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I think the discrete example of raising a child to believe

that the universe is run by a being that wants them to (say) donate a kidney

(With the implicit understanding that their eternal soul is at stake)

Then is it informed consent when that child 'willingly' consents

To donate a kidney?

Again, I hope it's clear how that's problematic

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then what's the problem with it really?

  On 10/5/2015 at 6:00 PM, eugene said:

then what's the problem with it really?

Show me an example in western society

And I will find that problematic as well

Are you saying you don't find the informed consent aspect of FGM problematic?

I mean, the whole point of the word 'informed' is that you learn the relevant mechanisms, consequences entailed in your choice

If I tell a child "give me ten dollars or God will punish you"

He would be giving his consent based on bad information

This is clearly not informed consent

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nah, all that informed consent biz is superficial. in general, the only way you'll find those things problematic is when you judge them from western pov, which of course is pretty easy, silly and pointless to do. if you had an argument against it as an african (that's broad but i can't be arsed to find where those practices are actually taking place) anthropoligist, as in anthropologist who's been born into that culture and studies it, now that would be something worth listening to i guess.

but all that pointing fingers and "oooh but they're not doing the same as we do and don't have the same values as we do" is just childish really.

so if there was a south american tribe that today still practised human sacrifice for beneficial crop growth, you'd be cool with that? and to complain about it would be childish?

  On 10/5/2015 at 6:39 PM, eugene said:

nah, all that informed consent biz is superficial. in general, the only way you'll find those things problematic is when you judge them from western pov, which of course is pretty easy, silly and pointless to do. if you had an argument against it as an african (that's broad but i can't be arsed to find where those practices are actually taking place) anthropoligist, as in anthropologist who's been born into that culture and studies it, now that would be something worth listening to i guess.

 

but all that pointing fingers and "oooh but they're not doing the same as we do and don't have the same values as we do" is just childish really.

Errr....

It kinda sounds like you don't think that informed consent is important, or that nothing is truly informed consent, or everything is or something

Either way...that's just silly

Secondly, why is the opinion of westerners invalid?

This whole fear and criticism of 'value colonialism' is frankly one of the most embarrassing attitudes to come from the left (as usual, disguised as 'tolerance')

Humanism and human rights are not just trivial western niceties

The 'they just do things differently' argument is idiotic on its face

The line between the west and Africa is arbitrary

Why not make the line between your house and your next door neighbor's house?

So when your neighbor goes to saw his daughter's clit off

You can just shrug and be like 'I guess they just do things differently'

due to fears of promoting western imperialism

It's just the pathetic vestiges of postmodernism

Still hanging about

Nagging at us like

"Who are YOU to say child abuse is wrong?

That's just your western imperialist tendencies speaking"

It's dumb

And moreover it's moral cowardice

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  On 10/5/2015 at 7:16 PM, caze said:

so if there was a south american tribe that today still practised human sacrifice for beneficial crop growth, you'd be cool with that? and to complain about it would be childish?

i'm not cool with it because i'm from the west where we value human life and deny superstitions and bla bla bla, but anthropologically speaking, of course it's kinda pointless as we have absolutely zero understanding of what is the purpose and meaning of those practices and what denying them would do to their cultures.

  On 10/5/2015 at 7:19 PM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 10/5/2015 at 6:39 PM, eugene said:

nah, all that informed consent biz is superficial. in general, the only way you'll find those things problematic is when you judge them from western pov, which of course is pretty easy, silly and pointless to do. if you had an argument against it as an african (that's broad but i can't be arsed to find where those practices are actually taking place) anthropoligist, as in anthropologist who's been born into that culture and studies it, now that would be something worth listening to i guess.

 

but all that pointing fingers and "oooh but they're not doing the same as we do and don't have the same values as we do" is just childish really.

Errr....

 

It kinda sounds like you don't think that informed consent is important, or that nothing is truly informed consent, or everything is or something

Either way...that's just silly

 

Secondly, why is the opinion of westerners invalid?

This whole fear and criticism of 'value colonialism' is frankly one of the most embarrassing attitudes to come from the left (as usual, disguised as 'tolerance')

 

Humanism and human rights are not just trivial western niceties

The 'they just do things differently' argument is idiotic on its face

The line between the west and Africa is arbitrary

Why not make the line between your house and your next door neighbor's house?

So when your neighbor goes to saw his daughter's clit off

You can just shrug and be like 'I guess they just do things differently'

due to fears of promoting western imperialism

 

It's just the pathetic vestiges of postmodernism

Still hanging about

Nagging at us like

"Who are YOU to say child abuse is wrong?

That's just your western imperialist tendencies speaking"

 

It's dumb

And moreover it's moral cowardice

 

 

 

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informed consent is important to us because we believe it is important and it has certain functions we deems as useful, but i'm not sure how does it holds for non-western cultures.

the opinions of westerners are usually invalid because they're mostly completely ignorant, but it's not like it's completely impossible to get to understand other cultures, that's what anthropologists do with some degree of success.

and let's no delve into stupid exaggerations, the line may be arbitrary but there's pretty sharp differences between the culture of some tribe you don't even know exists and your neighbor's, your conceptions of suffering and right of wrong will be much more alike.

humanism is nice and all but it is a western nicety after all, nothing more.

also stop writing like a retard if you want to keep communicating with people here.

1) This west/non-west distinction is completely arbitrary, and

2) No, humanism is not just a western nicety

P.S. Your view on human sacrifice Is the same as

those people who though abolishing slavery would be bad for morale and the economy

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1. it's not completely arbitrary, things are fluid (and there are arguments by some anthropologists that the west pretty much colonized every nook and cranny) but some differences are very sharp.

2. it's exactly that, a western ideology invented by the westerners. not to say that some elements are not found in other cultures as well, and some diffusion is quite possible, but to speak broadly it's just a western thingie that westerners really like, nothing more.

3. and they were right too! it did fuck up their economy and their morale because of that, lel.

but it's really the same thing, they held the beliefs that some people are worthless and can be owned and enslaved, others held different believes and were more powerful and managed to subdue those who liked slavery. that's why it's not popular anymore.

I'm glad I'm cut, is all I gotta say. and FGM is abominable.

jesus christ this thread turned into a discussion on FGM again? what the fuck guys

those sam harris touchstones just get you everytime. hope somebody in here who is still terrified of muslims and thinks they pose an enormous threat checks out that video above

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/64151/bacha-bazi-pedophilia-progressives-can-feel-good-about

  On 10/5/2015 at 9:03 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

jesus christ this thread turned into a discussion on FGM again? what the fuck guys

 

those sam harris touchstones just get you everytime. hope somebody in here who is still terrified of muslims and thinks they pose an enormous threat checks out that video above

we're all still waiting on you to come back with those completely-not-taken-out-of-context quotes proving Harris' bigotry.

  On 10/5/2015 at 9:03 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

hope somebody in here who is still terrified of muslims and thinks they pose an enormous threat checks out that video above

I'm pretty sure there's no-one on here that's actually terrified of Muslims and think they pose an enormous threat (aside from delet maybe). It's perfectly reasonable however to be terrified of certain specific Muslims (and certain specific Muslim ideologies), and realise that they do post a threat (which at this point is mostly a threat to other Muslims).

  On 10/5/2015 at 9:03 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

jesus christ this thread turned into a discussion on FGM again? what the fuck guys

 

those sam harris touchstones just get you everytime. hope somebody in here who is still terrified of muslims and thinks they pose an enormous threat checks out that video above

You and your sister's dislike of Sam Harris is adorable

Why do you think SH has anything to do with this GFM discussion?

You seem to be so fixated that you think everything is SH-related

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Sam Harris went on JRE and called her out on some bullshit and ever since then JE has mentioned in him in 80% of his posts.