<story><title>The world&apos;s most toxic value system (2001)</title><url>https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/TOXICVAL.HTM</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>georgewsinger</author><text>&amp;gt; Created 19 November 2001, Last Update 30 August 2011&lt;p&gt;Looks like this was created right after 9&amp;#x2F;11. It&amp;#x27;s understandable why he wrote this.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s considered bad form in many circles to criticize another culture&amp;#x27;s values. In addition, the social science literature contains a number of rationalizations for the &amp;quot;honor&amp;quot; mentality. One is that every value system makes sense to the people that hold it. Another is that every value system exists for a reason. Well, of course. The problem is that you can make these assertions about any value system whatsoever. Rape and genocide and embezzlement also exist for a reason, and make sense to people who think a certain way. That doesn&amp;#x27;t tell us whether the values are morally acceptable or even whether they are beneficial to those who adhere to them...So I regard it as trivially obvious that the &amp;quot;honor&amp;quot; mentality exists for a reason and makes perfect sense to the people that adhere to it. I don&amp;#x27;t doubt it for a moment. I merely claim that these values debilitate the societies that hold them.&lt;p&gt;Something this author believes that most people (in our coastal bubbles) don&amp;#x27;t: that some cultures are better than others. It&amp;#x27;s astonishing how controversial this position is even 16 years later; however, I think when this article was written it was even more politically incorrect to say than it is now.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bryananderson</author><text>Something this author gets that most people (of all political stripes) don’t: whether a culture is “better” than another is not even a well-formed question.&lt;p&gt;We must ask “better at what?” We must define some criteria to measure, and speak in those terms, not in ill-defined terms like “just better”.&lt;p&gt;The author speaks mostly in terms of specific consequences of different value systems. This is not the same thing as declaring a culture (usually the speaker’s own) to be “better” in some ill-defined way.</text></comment>
<story><title>The world&apos;s most toxic value system (2001)</title><url>https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/TOXICVAL.HTM</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>georgewsinger</author><text>&amp;gt; Created 19 November 2001, Last Update 30 August 2011&lt;p&gt;Looks like this was created right after 9&amp;#x2F;11. It&amp;#x27;s understandable why he wrote this.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s considered bad form in many circles to criticize another culture&amp;#x27;s values. In addition, the social science literature contains a number of rationalizations for the &amp;quot;honor&amp;quot; mentality. One is that every value system makes sense to the people that hold it. Another is that every value system exists for a reason. Well, of course. The problem is that you can make these assertions about any value system whatsoever. Rape and genocide and embezzlement also exist for a reason, and make sense to people who think a certain way. That doesn&amp;#x27;t tell us whether the values are morally acceptable or even whether they are beneficial to those who adhere to them...So I regard it as trivially obvious that the &amp;quot;honor&amp;quot; mentality exists for a reason and makes perfect sense to the people that adhere to it. I don&amp;#x27;t doubt it for a moment. I merely claim that these values debilitate the societies that hold them.&lt;p&gt;Something this author believes that most people (in our coastal bubbles) don&amp;#x27;t: that some cultures are better than others. It&amp;#x27;s astonishing how controversial this position is even 16 years later; however, I think when this article was written it was even more politically incorrect to say than it is now.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eric-hu</author><text>&amp;gt; Rape and genocide and embezzlement also exist for a reason, and make sense to people who think a certain way.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Something this author believes that most people (in our coastal bubbles) don&amp;#x27;t: that some cultures are better than others.&lt;p&gt;I think you can ask people in coastal bubbles about the rape and genocide cultures of various wars and embezzlement subcultures of various corporations. My money is on them saying those cultures are inferior.</text></comment>