[sunitaishot]

Call this unPC, but I get tired of some parts of the world being backward. Why do we continually grant them aid?

[curiousgeorge01]

I think some cultures are better than others in certain aspects but not necessarily overall. For example I'm from the Asian culture and they're more practical in general than Americans. However they also have this annoying habit of putting family first which annoys the hell out of me. When I say family I mean your father's family. In America you're more free to be an individual.

[Nathanael]

I'm a social constructivist, which basically means I'm a cultural relativist. There are some decidedly negative trends that I think do more harm then good, like FGM and overal ingrained misogyny, but then again we have that issue in our homogeneous western culture as well.

[24601]

So we shouldn't aid a culture's people if we disagree with some of the practices?

[sunitaishot]

	Originally Posted by 24601 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	So we shouldn't aid a culture's people if we disagree with some of the practices?

Well if some cultures don't prosper, why assist them?

[holdyourhead]

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Call this unPC, but I get tired of some parts of the world being backward. Why do we continually grant them aid?

It's not always the people's fault. You better hope YOUR part of the world never ends up being ravaged by war, famine, natural disaster, drought, loss of civil liberties, mass corruption, or anything else which takes away the luxuries you enjoy freely.

[UltraIncredible]

	Originally Posted by Nathanael To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I'm a social constructivist, which basically means I'm a cultural relativist. There are some decidedly negative trends that I think do more harm then good, like FGM and overal ingrained misogyny, but then again we have that issue in our homogeneous western culture as well.

U.S. > Nazi Germany
Scandinavian countries > Soviet Russia
modern South Africa > 1994 Rwanda
Current Japan > Current China
Cuba > Colombia

Not in regards to every single characteristic or value, but in an overall rating.

[24601]

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Well if some cultures don't prosper, why assist them?

Because cultures are composed of humans, and humans have rights and do not deserve to suffer in squalor and starvation.

[Distance]

I have a strong distaste for traditionalist/religiously driven cultures, at least for living within them as a woman. Cultures that emphasize equality are my preference.

As for why developed countries support undeveloped or developing countries, politics and finance are all about back-patting and hand shaking behind closed doors with plenty of reciprocation or outright draining. Don't fool yourself that help given is about altruism.

[sunitaishot]

	Originally Posted by holdyourhead To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	It's not always the people's fault. You better hope YOUR part of the world never ends up being ravaged by war, famine, natural disaster, drought, loss of civil liberties, mass corruption, or anything else which takes away the luxuries you enjoy freely.

how can it not be people's fault? there must be a reason why some cultures are economically, technologically, and scientifically superior to others.

[Moxiie]

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Well if some cultures don't prosper, why assist them?

wouldn't this depend on the culture? Who defines what "prosper" means? I understand what you are getting at, but also want to recognize the underlying assumption and paradigm that created such a worldview.

The foundation of colonialism and/or imperialism assumes that "our culture" is inherently better than another culture and seeks to dominate it. This is done through force or nowadays through economic control.

We don't seem to "assist" those cultures (read: lands with natural resources we can extract) purely out of a sense of benevolence. To assume we do is naive. Economic imperialism serves only itself.

[24601]

	Originally Posted by Distance To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	As for why developed countries support undeveloped or developing countries, politics and finance are all about back-patting and hand shaking behind closed doors with plenty of reciprocation or outright draining. Don't fool yourself that help given is about altruism.

Of course there's some form of reciprocation. Is it better to let a village starve, or to see them fed and have some of their resources exploited?

[Cooper]

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Call this unPC, but I get tired of some parts of the world being backward. Why do we continually grant them aid?

Assume you are better much?

[Nathanael]

	Originally Posted by UltraIncredible To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	U.S. > Nazi Germany Scandinavian countries > Soviet Russia modern South Africa > 1994 Rwanda Current Japan > Current China Cuba > Colombia Not in regards to every single characteristic or value, but in an overall rating.

The first 4 examples aren't cultures (they're nationalist identities, particularly your go-to boogeyman Nazi/Commies)

"Current Japan" and "Current China" are highly westernized and developed, maybe you could be a little more specific about them.

And what it that makes Cuba better than Columbia? Do you have sort of objective qualification?

Your african examples are also imposed cultures dealing with the aftereffects of colonialism - Rwanda specifically had a manufactured conflict set in place and SA still has strained relations between Afrikaners and black Africans.

[Distance]

If people are being honest, Israel is to the U.S. as North Korea is to China.

[peppersasen]

Because the people who were born in those countries didn't ask to be born into those countries and they didn't ask to brought up to be so backward.

Also, I've noticed that positive stereotypes can be harmful a culture. For instance, I've found one culture that's stereotypically humble. In reality the people from that country are anything but. I figured that since they've always been told that they're a humble nation, they never really learned what it means to NOT be humble. As a result, they don't even know when they're being arrogant. Sama with having a reputation for being progressive/human rights-friendly. You'll find some of the most backward practices and beliefs in what are stereotypically seen as progressive societies. And I have positive things to say about what some people percieve to be the most backward cultures. The world is gray.

And just because country X gives aid to country Y, doesn't mean X doesn't depend on Y somehow.

[zibber]

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Call this unPC, but I get tired of some parts of the world being backward. Why do we continually grant them aid?

This kind of ethnocentric modernism was all the rage, a hundred years ago.

Do catch up.

[holdyourhead]

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	how can it not be people's fault? there must be a reason why some cultures are economically, technologically, and scientifically superior to others.

1. There are huge overriding factors not taken into account, from exploitation by the developed world or their own, to natural events. You chose to ignore that part of my original post.

2. As individuals they are not at fault. An individual didn't create the environment they were born into. That also works both ways. Are you the one as an individual that made your part of the world so great? No you aren't. So what have you done to deserve so much luxury? You were born into a luxurious world created by others, you didn't make it. Much as in another part of the world individuals may have been born into a harsher world created by others. Why are you as an individual more deserving of the luxury than some other individual in another part of the world?

[stasis]

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Do you view some cultures as being better?

Yes. Not so much cultures in the entire, but rather the presence or absence of civilizing social technologies such as secularism, freedoms of speech and association, privacy, ethical rather than moral law, liberty-enhancing public works (roads and schools and so on) and so forth. I agree with Rand when she says that the function of civilization is to set man free from men. In this way I find that there exist relatively civilized and relatively savage social institutions and norms on cultural and subcultural levels respectively.

Rendering aid is something else entirely in my opinion.

[UltraIncredible]

	Originally Posted by Nathanael To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	U.S. > Nazi Germany Scandinavian countries > Soviet Russia modern South Africa > 1994 Rwanda Current Japan > Current China Cuba > Colombia Not in regards to every single characteristic or value, but in an overall rating.

	Originally Posted by Nathanael To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The first 4 examples aren't cultures (they're nationalist identities, particularly your go-to boogeyman Nazi/Commies)

Each of those examples has a specific culture if culture is understood to mean values, beliefs and practices. The culture of Germany under the Nazis was different than it is now. And it's not that they're "boogeymen", just that they're a pretty easy blow to cultural relativism, as almost anyone who knows anything about them would rank them lower than (and not equal to) many other cultures.

	Originally Posted by Nathanael To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	"Current Japan" and "Current China" are highly westernized and developed, maybe you could be a little more specific about them.

China is an authoritarian police state whereas Japan tends to value critical thinking and debate quite a bit more (for starters).

	Originally Posted by Nathanael To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	And what it that makes Cuba better than Columbia? Do you have sort of objective qualification?

One has great education and health care and the other is a violent, fractured, militaristic hellhole.

	Originally Posted by Nathanael To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Your african examples are also imposed cultures dealing with the aftereffects of colonialism - Rwanda specifically had a manufactured conflict set in place and SA still has strained relations between Afrikaners and black Africans.

Yeah but not so strained that genocide becomes a realistic and popular course of action.

My main point is that cultural relativism is very difficult to support consistently unless you're a person who isn't committed to any values of your own (which is nobody).

By the way I don't agree with anything the OP said beyond the title of this thread.

[Typhon]

Getting deja vu but I guess every topic gets remade eventually.

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Call this unPC, but I get tired of some parts of the world being backward. Why do we continually grant them aid?

I agree with you, partly. Foreign aid is the biggest crock ever and in its current forms it does far more harm than good, especially for the least developed countries like those in Africa. It's a huge political and financial clusterfuck that feeds into itself though, so I don't foresee large changes in that soon.

Now for the part I disagree with you on. As an anthropologist I think it's important not to be ethnocentric in interacting with others but it's equally important not to be a total relativist. The problem is that societies are not very scientific-method friendly so proving that some cultures are scientifically better than others is practically impossible...even making surveys about quality of life aren't good ways of measuring a society. So for now instead of obsessively writing a small essay about this, I'll leave this with a quote that I think sums up my view-point well:

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. - General Sir Charles James Napier, notable for conquering the Sindh Province in what is now Pakistan.

[Tocsin]

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Call this unPC, but I get tired of some parts of the world being backward. Why do we continually grant them aid?

It's not universal, but there are more than a few nations in the Middle East, Africa, and South and Central America that may be considered "failed states" now, but once had stable, and even democratic governments.

The problem is, they democratically chose to nationalize "the wealth of the nation" to serve the interests of their own people, rather than that of U.S. mega-corporations... or they were strategically enough located to serve as a battleground for proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In some cases we simply blew their leader's brains out and replaced them with military dictatorship puppet regimes. In others, we funded violent revolutions and labeled them as "democratic uprisings" against socialism and tyranny.

The techniques vary, as do the motives, but there are more than a few instances where you'll find the stains of squalor and violence in the third world can be traced back to the bloody hands of the first world.

[Subgenius]

I think the Guyanese are better than Trinis.

[scorpiomover]

	Originally Posted by UltraIncredible To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	U.S. > Nazi Germany

Considering that the entire space programme of the USA, was based on the Nazi V-rocket programme, and their top scientist, Wernher von Braun, went to work in the USA, and that also made satellite and global communication led by the USA, and that Americans were still denying black people the right to even drink from the same water as white people, even 100 years after they were declared free men and women, and the equal of white people, I would not be drawing such comparisons quite so quickly.

	Originally Posted by sunitaishot To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Call this unPC, but I get tired of some parts of the world being backward. Why do we continually grant them aid?

Good question. Why are we giving the Western countries aid?

[UltraIncredible]

Originally Posted by scorpiomover To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Considering that the entire space programme of the USA, was based on the Nazi V-rocket programme, and their top scientist, Wernher von Braun, went to work in the USA, and that also made satellite and global communication led by the USA, and that Americans were still denying black people the right to even drink from the same water as white people, even 100 years after they were declared free men and women, and the equal of white people, I would not be drawing such comparisons quite so quickly.

I didn't say it was dissimilar in every way. Just better. Even slightly better is better. Black in the early to mid-20th century U.S. vs. Jewish in Nazi Germany would be a pretty crappy choice to have to make, but at least in the U.S. there were some kind of democratic institutions in place to effect change rather than outright totalitarianism and an official policy of extermination.