User:SlRubenstein (archive 1)

Hi, slrubenstein! Welcome to Wikipedia... Yes, nice spot on my spurious subconciously... sjc

---

Thanks for your thoughts on sexual morality and so on, on my talk page. I'm going to hold off from editing that article and similar controversial ones while I digest your advice. Ed Poor

you are welcome -- I hope I was clear!

---

you do not need to get defensive -- the correction you made on the "cultural relativism" page is an adequate response to my concerns. SR

I certainly thought so. After all, I make sure to reflect other people's point of view when it's legitimate, or carefully explain exactly why it's illegitimate.

I get defensive because it seems like the onus is always on me to do that. It seems like a lot of people can't think for themselves and I have to do their thinking for them on top of doing my thinking for me.

Tell me, do you seriously believe in the anthropologists' view of culture and history? Have you thought of what it implies for child abuse? How do you reconcile it with the modern acknowledgement that child abuse exists and is widespread? With the long and extremely well-documented unbroken history of child abuse stretching back millenia, with abuse getting steadily worse as you look further back in time? With the fact that the results, effects and consequences of infant abuse cannot possibly be modulated by culture in any way since infants have no culture? Do you even realize that anthropologists' worldview posits and pushes a specific (obsolete, unrealistic and abhorrent) theory of child and adult psychology which they are unqualified for at least as much as most psychologists are unqualified to do anthropology? IOW, how do you reconcile cultural relativism with modern reality?

It doesn't make me a happy camper when I have to explain all of these basic things to people who seem to be hostile and unlikely to listen and understand. -- Ark

Since you have asked me politely -- I think for the first time -- I will try to answer. There are all sorts of things people do that profoundly upset me, especially when I see one person doing harm to another. If I were absolutely certain that I were right, and that I could end the practice without doing more harm, I would. But I have doubts, both as to being right, and as to the effective response. This does not mean I give up, or think anyone should give up. It does mean that there should be more study by academics AND more discussion and dialogue among non-academics AND perhaps small-scale experiments in different solutions, so as to gage the efficacy before trying to institute a large-scale solution. Let me give an example. I believe slavery is wrong, and I am sure slaves think it is wrong. In response to reports of lsavery in Africa, some American school children have raised money to buy, and in effect emancipate, slaves. Some people have suggested that the resulting increase in demand for slaves will only lead slave-raiders to capture more slaves. Others have suggested that these slaves are not really slaves at all, and that this is a scam to get money from naive Americans. I do not know if either of these suggestions are true. I do know that even if only one of them were true, then what some thought was the right thing to do is in fact ineffective. I do not want to get into a debate with you over slavery -- perhaps you think only an idiot would think that buying individual slaves would be an effective solution; perhaps you think any one who criticizes this action is a cynic; perhaps you do not believe slavery even exists any more; perhaps you do not care. I do not care and do not want to go off on a tangent: I raise this case ONLY as an example of how the effective solution to a problem is not always evident.

When it comes to sexual abuse, I think you and I simply have opposing views. I am not trying to convince you of my view, but given that you asked politely, you deserve an answer. Frankly, I do not think anything you can say will change my mind -- think of me as you wish.

Of course I am against "sexual abuse," since "abuse" by definition is wrong. But I am not sure that everything you consider sexual abuse, I consider sexual abuse. Not only do I not think it is self-evident, as you seem to believe; I am especially wary because of a history of colonialist discourse (often constructed by Christian missionaries) that described non-Western sexual practices as deviant, wrong, unhealthy, etc. Given that these discourses were used to promote, authorize, and legitimize conquest, genocide, and ethnocide -- things I am CERTAIN are wrong -- I am especially wary of jumping to conclusions about sexual practices I do not understand. They may be abusive, but they may not be, and I would not intervene until I were sure. ALSO, I would hesitate to intervene unilaterally, because even if I were sure I was right, I doubt that unilateral intervention would be an effective solution.

Unlike you -- and I sincerely apologize if I am mischaracterizing you -- I do not believe that "primitive" people are insane or irrational. I believe that they are reasoning and reasonable, even if they often do bad things for bad reasons (as we do). I believe that if they are involved in something that is truly bad, they, or some of them, know it, and would welcome allies in a local movement to change local practices. In other words, if a group of PNG or Australian aborigines started a movement, or called for help in starting a movement, to end what they consider child abuse, I would try to be as supportive of that movement as I could.

What if no PNG or Australian Aborigine believes that sexual abuse is occuring in their society? Then I call for a dialogue. I would call on a group of Westerners and Aborigenes to meet and discuss the practice, and learn from one another. Perhaps we would learn that what is going on is not a form of abuse. Perhaps they would learn to see it as a form of abuse.

You make think me naive; well, I obviously would not agree but when all is said and done I would rather be naive than a conquerer/colonialist. I am not a strict relativist, because I am not claiming that they are unconditionally right, or that there can be no dialogue between us. On the contrary, they may be wrong, and they and us should be able to discuss and confront these issues. BUT I do not assume that they are wrong and we are right; if I have any bias it is that our understanding of them is wrong, but this is a provisional position and I am willing to change my mind -- I simply expect those who are biased the other way, to privilege our own notions of sex, sexuality, morality, and health, will also accept the possibility that they may be wrong. Finally, I do not think that any meaningful diaologue between Westerners and non-Westerners will be effective if it takes place in the context of domination (i.e. colonial rule).

I have tried to answer you as best I can. I believe there are others who have sketched out this position more eloquently than I, and perhaps with stronger arguments. No disrespect, but I do not see what I can add to this. As you say, it doesn't make me a happy camper when I have to explain all of these basic things to people who seem to be hostile and unlikely to listen and understand. SR

I will track down the missing talk later for you. No problem on the intervention. NPOV is a central wikipedia policy and should always be defended. Please don't tire of defending it. --maveric149

In response to reports of lsavery in Africa, some American school children have raised money to buy, and in effect emancipate, slaves.

Slavery is wrong and buying slaves does raise the demand for them. However, that's completely besides the point since the reason for the slave raiding is not to get slaves but to do ethnic cleansing. And whether or not you buy back the slave at the end, they're just as ethnically cleansed. So your difficulty isn't with finding a solution; it's that you haven't even fully characterized the problem!

The effective solution to a problem is always evident when you've fully characterized the problem. I know this from personal experience. And I know this because that's how the human mind works. Finding solutions is only difficult because most people can't zero in on the essentials of a problem.

I sincerely apologize if I am mischaracterizing you

No need to apologize. They are insane and irrational.

you are projecting

Do you even know what the word means?

Actually, nearly all people are irrational. It's just that most people today, in modern societies only, aren't so irrational as to be insane. I say most people because a lot still are. You have an extremely idealized image of human nature; a few psychology texts or courses would cure that.

I doubt that unilateral intervention would be an effective solution.

It would be very effective since infanticidal parents are eager to get ride of their babies. So you just take away all the babies they're willing to give, put them in foster care with intense therapy, and after a few generations the society will die away. They've been stuck with the same dead-end mentality for millenia; they won't suddenly change it just because their society is dying.

I would call on a group of Westerners and Aborigenes to meet and discuss the practice, and learn from one another. Perhaps we would learn that what is going on is not a form of abuse. Perhaps they would learn to see it as a form of abuse.

Again, you have an extremely idealized view of human nature and it's just wrong. The PNG are incapable of empathy.

again, you are projecting

Now that's just insulting. Are you claiming that I have an idealized view of human nature or that I'm incapable of empathy? Either of these claims is so absurd that for you to even make them is insulting. -- Ark

I am insulting you? Now you are most definitely projecting!

Do you understand what that term means in psychology?

yes

Given how much you've been butchering its meaning, I don't think so.

That makes them psychopaths. And no therapy of any kind has ever worked on psychopaths. Lots of different approaches have been tried, including cognitive behaviour therapy I'm sure, and they've all been failures, some even spectacular failures that made the psychopaths worse than they were to begin with.

You may think me naive

I do think you're naive but obviously not for the reasons you claim. Dialogue with primitives is impossible or futile. We could, through extremely intensive effort (and domination), lead them by the hand through millenia of cultural evolution. We might even be able to do it within a couple centuries. But it's not worth it, far better to just eliminate their societies.

Here's something for you to consider. Have you considered that the reason conquerors and colonialists did what they did because they were genuinely revolted at the savages, instead of the other way around?

I am absolutely certain that they were genuinely revolted -- I thought I had made that clear, since this is precisely my point

Your point hinged on the conquerors doing something bad to the conquered people. Exploiting them would be bad, and there could be no excuse for it. Exterminating them is different. It would be immoral but not necessarily unethical or psychologically unsound. So if you meant all along that the conquerors' revulsion leading to their trying to convert or annihilate the savages was a bad thing, then I disagree with you. -- Ark

You systematically assume the very best of savages and the very worst of conquerors. Why is that? (For the record, I assume the worst of both.)

Also, you are assuming that my notions of health, sanity and well-being, et cetera are the same (or substantially derived) from the culture I was raised in or now find myself in. That is not true. My ideals are deeply personal, constructed on the principles of empathy and rationality. They're objective moral ideals, not social or cultural. And because of that basis, it would take an objective moral argument to alter them.

First, "deeply personal" and "objective" usually do not fit together so easily -- certainly not in this case. Second, that a person believes that their views are entirely personal or entirely objective does not in and of itself mean that they are not culture-bound; indeed, it is often those views we consider most personal or most objective that are culture-bound.

What's usual for people and what's the case with me rarely fit together easily. Personal and objective are not mutually exclusive, and my views of morality are both. If you can't understand how that can be so, it's because you really don't understand moral philosophy.

Considering the fact that 1) I have no qualms publically advocating things which most people find repellent, and have done so numerous times, 2) I have an extensive track record of being bound only by logic and facts, sometimes going from one belief to its polar opposite due to the force of superior facts and arguments alone, and 3) that the only moral outrage which binds me is the moral outrage I have deliberately constructed for myself after having consciously rejected all conventional notions of morality in my youth. Well, perhaps you may see why I find your suggestion that I am culture-bound to be asinine and absurd.

You honestly don't seem to know much about the normal human psyche or its variations. So I wouldn't expect you to know anything about an abnormal psyche like my own.

So is it fair to say that, if I may summarize so crudely, you draw a big fat blank about the human psyche and the variations and evolution of that psyche?

no, it is not fair.

Then perhaps you'd like another opportunity to address this issue?

Have you any plans to remedy your ignorance in psychology and moral philosophy? Do you plan to at least learn what the experts in those fields believe?

Let me make an analogy, what would you think of someone who offered an opinion about what kinds of physics experiments should be run or not run, if that person had no expertise in physics, had not even casual knowledge of physics, did not know what physicists believe, and believed in the paranormal to boot?

From a position of total ignorance and deep misconception, you are offering advice about what psychologists, pediatrists, child development experts, ethicists, et cetera should and should not do with respect to primitive cultures. I hold that whether they decide to eliminate primitive cultures, or even to exterminate them all like rats, your offering any kind of opinion on the subject is extremely arrogant and unjustifiable. IOW, you have no right to any position at all. -- Ark