I mean the argument itself.

"WE MUST denounce cultures that oppress women, oppress freedom and also allow for uncouth practices." - this kind of talking just shows how bad is everything. Do you guys know what is the Islam? Can you tell me what is freedom and how can you make everyone "free"? Or you just make conclusion based on single instances?

Women, men, children, minorities suffer everywhere. And by the way, the Koran is more tolerant than Bible by itself, and claims force to be a last resort. This faith (or culture) could be used by somebody to do, ahem, "evil" things, but it's not evil by itself.

Kikosemmek:
We may criticise many things based on many categories, but first and foremost we should acknowledge that only objective viewpoints and objective evidence may lead anywhere. Concluding that something is good, evil, right or wrong is not being objective or fair, for that matter.

Those words would be mine if my English is better. ;)

BallPtPenTheif:

Kikosemmek:
No, we cannot, because right and wrong are not intrinsic values which some things have and some things don't. Moreover, I find it inefficient expect a whole culture of people to hold up one and only one perspective, based on which to criticise, if only subjectively (unfairly), another whole culture of people.

My criteria for critque is much more about which cultures allow for the beliefs of alternate cultures.

Example, lets say one culture says it's okay to beat women. Well, that's a pretty constrictive construct for a woman because the woman is not allowed to fully opt in or out. She isn't even able to express her choice of culture so I would consider a critique of this culture to be valid.

When a culture considers it morally valid to impose their beliefs onto those that wish to opt out, then I consider the culture to be flawed.

Note that you said '_I_ consider the culture to be flawed.' The people who beat the women seem to disagree with you, and could criticise your culture for letting women parade their sexuality and wear revealing clothing with impunity, which they consider extremely shameful. In fact, this criticism could very well come from a woman in the culture we speak of.

Kikosemmek:

Note that you said '_I_ consider the culture to be flawed.' The people who beat the women seem to disagree with you, and could criticise your culture for letting women parade their sexuality and wear revealing clothing with impunity, which they consider extremely shameful. In fact, this criticism could very well come from a woman in the culture we speak of.

And they would be flawed in their observation since they are assuming that random individuals are opting into their silly superstition. To presume that other strangers should be held accountable to your personal standards is insane. The people in your example lack a broader sense of perspective or even humility in the idea that, they might be wrong.

My "culture" doesn't allow for women to parade around... women choose to parade around, my culture has no concern for how they do it or what they wear be it burka or thong.

Once upon a time, the British Empire confronted the practice of "suttee"- a practice where widows were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier, viceory of the region, attempted to put a stop to the practice, and was told that suttee was the cultural custom.

He responded like this: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

We all have the power to our way to see others. Weather the ones we talk about listens and take action is up to them.

Raregolddragon:
We all have the power to our way to see others. Weather the ones we talk about listens and take action is up to them.

Right...

So lets just avoid the discussion all together then, since that's what internet message boards are for.

Archon:
He responded like this: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

At least old rulers didn't justify their force with righteousness.

Archon:
Once upon a time, the British Empire confronted the practice of "suttee"- a practice where widows were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier, viceory of the region, attempted to put a stop to the practice, and was told that suttee was the cultural custom.

He responded like this: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

bingo i think you nailed it home, or rather your quote did.

i dont think that a culture should ever be used as an excuse to do something evil to someone else, likewise religion, or forms of government. i think the actual problem lies as it allways does in the point that when humans are judged as a group thats when trouble starts, both from the point of view of those doing the judging but also from the point of view of those BEING judged.

im from America, we have our share of cultural issues, some of them are kinda importiant to me, (the race issues) some of them are just stupid to my mind (gay marriage) but as a rule we dont go out of our way to actualy cause harm to people as a group. maybe gays cant get married (yet) but they arent jaild and hung by the government and the courts like in other cultures. see my point.

we as a culture are continualy evolving, we have a basic understanding that things arent perfect as they are and will never be and what is 'right/wrong' today will change tommorow. in the cultures where this isnt accepted, where this basic idea is scorned or ignored or just flat out thought to be wrong , that is where the most trouble lies.

no society/culture/religion/government or any other collection of PEOPLE is ever perfect, what is 'perfect' for one generation is almost certianly not going to be looked on that way by their children, its when a culture decides to FORCE their version of perfect on others that i call foul and start to judged them.

some truths are timeless, its not ok to murder someone for example, but other things are very much related to the culture your brought up in (like how women dress in public) the one thing that causes trouble the most is when i see that a woman in the middle east was raped by a taxi driver and SHE got more time in jail than the rapest did because it was a bigger 'crime' for a woman to ride with a man she wasnt related too than for that man to rape her. on a just basic human level reguardless of culture does anyone think its ok to rape a woman because she rode in a car?

some aspects of culture tickle my funny bone, but those that touch my heart on a human level i cant help but judge. the Brits have an Queen, thats kinda funny to me as an American that they still keep her around, but its also kinda cool in a way. overall its just something that makes brits different from Americans neither good nor bad really just .... different. it doesnt effect my heart any. but that arab woman that was in that taxi? i can understand that a culture might treat men and woman differently but i cant ever immagin a point in time or any kind of a situation where i would think it would be OK for any female relation of mine to be raped, let alone over something as harmless as a taxi ride. that touches my heart not as an American but as a simple human being.

so yes i think its ok to judge a culture. but not from the point of view of my culture is better than your but from a point of view of a human being and that some things are just wrong no matter how your raised.

Alright, so I've noticed the advocates of "controlled speech" have some very intricate and wordy explanations for why they feel that way, and I'd just like to say:

Occam's Razor: In a choice between two (or more) answers, the simplest one is usually correct.

Question: Can we criticize other people's culture's fairly?

Answer: No, because every criticism is an opinion.

Question: Should we have the RIGHT to criticize other people's cultures?

Answer: Yes, because everyone has their own culture, and saying that one person can't gripe about someone else's culture (when it doesn't go both ways) is a double standard, and those are lame.

we can criticize only if our culture is perfect which it isn't so don't criticize selfish fuk's.

Yes although why would you want to disturb someone elses ideals saying there wrong? they would probably just ignore you anyways.

BallPtPenTheif:

Kikosemmek:

Note that you said '_I_ consider the culture to be flawed.' The people who beat the women seem to disagree with you, and could criticise your culture for letting women parade their sexuality and wear revealing clothing with impunity, which they consider extremely shameful. In fact, this criticism could very well come from a woman in the culture we speak of.

And they would be flawed in their observation since they are assuming that random individuals are opting into their silly superstition. To presume that other strangers should be held accountable to your personal standards is insane. The people in your example lack a broader sense of perspective or even humility in the idea that, they might be wrong.

My "culture" doesn't allow for women to parade around... women choose to parade around, my culture has no concern for how they do it or what they wear be it burka or thong.

Then let us make it clear that you are not commenting on their habit of beating women, but the fact that their society does not take action against the practice of beating women, leaving their freedoms constricted and their opinions secondary on the matter. So, you're criticizing the society's lack of regard for civil rights. You've made it clear that you prefer living in a society where there is the freedom to a civil right. In this case, it happens to be not being beaten by virtue of being female.

You must catch yourself as you are basing your criticism on your own subjective preference of a free society to that which is not free. I will not incite an argument with you whether or not it is good to live in a free society, because that's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that no one can criticize another fairly based on the dichotomy of right and wrong. You still haven't convinced me. You're saying that because you think lack of access to a civil right is bad, then you could objectively say that a society which limits it is bad. I say that since we've already delved into your own subjective opinion, objectivity has already gone out the window. If by fair you mean consistent, then you are fair, but not if you seek to be objective. That is my point.

BaronAsh:

You also probably anti-war.

I know it's late for a response, but it's not my fault this thing got slammed after I logged off.

Yes, BaronAsh, I am, in general, anti-war. As are most people with human brains, including every single veteran I've ever met. In fact, I think it's safe to assume almost everyone on earth is anti-war, and the only people who are pro-war are people who need drugs and/or therapy.

If you are referring to a specific war, then please specify. But it's probably safe that, yes, I'll be against that one too. I have no problem defending the country from people with guns who intend to use them on us. But killing people because they don't think our flag is as cool as theirs makes very little sense to me.

Of course, I'm not a big sports fan to begin with, so you'll have to excuse me.

Every human being has a right to criticize others, and in much the same vein every human being has a similar right to tell other people to fuck right off.

Archon:
Once upon a time, the British Empire confronted the practice of "suttee"- a practice where widows were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier, viceory of the region, attempted to put a stop to the practice, and was told that suttee was the cultural custom.

He responded like this: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Go Charles Napier!

Kikosemmek:

BallPtPenTheif:

My criteria for critque is much more about which cultures allow for the beliefs of alternate cultures.

Example, lets say one culture says it's okay to beat women. Well, that's a pretty constrictive construct for a woman because the woman is not allowed to fully opt in or out. She isn't even able to express her choice of culture so I would consider a critique of this culture to be valid.

When a culture considers it morally valid to impose their beliefs onto those that wish to opt out, then I consider the culture to be flawed.

Note that you said '_I_ consider the culture to be flawed.' The people who beat the women seem to disagree with you, and could criticise your culture for letting women parade their sexuality and wear revealing clothing with impunity, which they consider extremely shameful.

Yeah, but the people who disagree that their culture is flawed do so on a different basis than BallPtPenTheif is. BallPtPenTheif considers a culture flawed not for any specific practice, but for the inability of individuals to opt in or out of a practice. That's not the basis upon those people are disagreeing.

In other words, individual autonomy is not a "cultural practice" at all. A culture is a group of people with shared beliefs. If a woman does not share the belief with these men that she should be beaten, well, by definition, she's not a member of that culture! Telling her she's part of that culture because of where she is born or her religion or her ethnic background is itself an act of colonial imperialism.

In fact, this criticism could very well come from a woman in the culture we speak of.

Yeah, and that's allowed in our culture--it's a fetish called Dominance and Submission. If you're a woman who thinks men should beat you, well, hey--you can do that here.

What makes our culture superior is that it is the individual's choice to, well, give up any amount of choice the wish to another person, to pick for themselves which 'culture' they want to belong to.

That is what is superior about our beliefs--you get to include or exclude people from your 'culture' as you wish. And that is not a cultural belief; instead, it's the only belief one can hold without practicing a form of colonial imperialism akin to acts like the British establishing a Council of Chiefs in Tanzania in 1933, confusing what a culture is with what its elites *say* it is.

Archon:
Once upon a time, the British Empire confronted the practice of "suttee"- a practice where widows were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier, viceory of the region, attempted to put a stop to the practice, and was told that suttee was the cultural custom.

He responded like this: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

That is *brilliant*

Cheeze_Pavilion:

That is what is superior about our beliefs--you get to include or exclude people from your 'culture' as you wish. And that is not a cultural belief; instead, it's the only belief one can hold without practicing a form of colonial imperialism akin to acts like the British establishing a Council of Chiefs in Tanzania in 1933, confusing what a culture is with what its elites *say* it is.

Superior because you believe civil rights are a good thing. Do not rule out your own consciousness, and re-read my last post because you are not contradicting me.

Archon:
Once upon a time, the British Empire confronted the practice of "suttee"- a practice where widows were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier, viceory of the region, attempted to put a stop to the practice, and was told that suttee was the cultural custom.

He responded like this: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Was that before or after we shelled the fuck out of them?

Kikosemmek:

Cheeze_Pavilion:

That is what is superior about our beliefs--you get to include or exclude people from your 'culture' as you wish. And that is not a cultural belief; instead, it's the only belief one can hold without practicing a form of colonial imperialism akin to acts like the British establishing a Council of Chiefs in Tanzania in 1933, confusing what a culture is with what its elites *say* it is.

Superior because you believe civil rights are a good thing. Do not rule out your own consciousness, and re-read my last post because you are not contradicting me.

Choosing which culture to belong to is not a civil right anymore than mathematics is an empirical truth. If the treatment of people is to be judged by the culture they belong to, then someone has to figure out which culture they, well, belong to in the first place.

How else do you propose to do that other than letting each individual decide for themselves?

EDIT: let me use an example to illustrate what I'm talking about: you see a man beating a woman in the street--how do you know they are of the same culture?

Kikosemmek:

Superior because you believe civil rights are a good thing. Do not rule out your own consciousness, and re-read my last post because you are not contradicting me.

Also, to riff on Archon's point, what about the belief that civil rights are a good thing? Is that not itself a cultural belief? As is your belief that no cultural belief is superior to another?

So how can you think your cultural belief that no cultural belief is superior to another is superior to the cultural belief that civil rights are a good thing?

Expressing the idea "no cultural belief is superior to another" is to commit a self-referential incoherency--your very statement undercuts the truth of itself, unless you can somehow explain that your belief is not a cultural belief.

Cheeze_Pavilion:

EDIT: let me use an example to illustrate what I'm talking about: you see a man beating a woman in the street--how do you know they are of the same culture?

regardless of this, you would rush in and help the woman? Now what if I told you that the woman was a husband beater, she had just attacked him with a knife and he was making sure she didn't do it again? what if his "beating" of her is because she just told him that she is sleeping with his friends/brother, and he has lashed out? You would still attack the poor guy?

And on my own point of view...
Imagine there's a man. He comes up with an idea, an idea so brilliant that it eliminates:
Disability from the next generation
People who do not contribute to society (through choice- people dodging work because living on benefit is easier)
Religious inequality
and makes his country one of the most productive and best countries in the world

Surely this man is a genius? He should be exhalted, cheered in his home country as a hero.

Well yeah, i think its okey to criticize other cultures for things that you yourself think is immorally wrong or just really dumb, but what everyone needs to realise is that every single culture has something weird and wrong, its just that its much harder to see the crap when its your own culture its about :P

wordsmith:

Surely this man is a genius? He should be exhalted, cheered in his home country as a hero.

Spoiler: Click to View

Just to play along with your Godwin's Law for a second. Hitler was a hero in his home country, for a few years at least.

Gxas:
Cultures are like opinions; to each his own.

I think of it more along the lines of everyone has one.

TO be able to critisize is essential for positive growth, and anything that blocks freedom of speech is bad.

But it works both ways, you have to be able to critisize your own culture before you can critisize others, because lets be frank, a utopian society is impossible.
And also people have to right to completely ignore your critisism.

Views are great, but if your having a view forcibly rammed down your throat (see functionalism and religion) then that is bad, especially as a young child, that is unnaccpetable, and we should all look objectively at what we were socialised to believe (and still are being for that matter) and as science teaches us, never take anything for it's face value.

Of course we can criticise cultures other than our own. In fact, doing so is part of the American Dream! See what I did there?

Seriously though. Yea, you can, and should. But there is such a thing as criticising another culture without being an ass about it. There are many, many things about all cultures with which I have any familiarity that I find objectionable to the extreme. US, British, French, German, Scandinavian, Japanese, Chinese, Turkish... I know a little bit about a lot of different cultures, more about some of them, and I haven't seen one with which I was fully pleased. Same goes for all manner of subcultures; metal fans, football hooligans, people who think anything but what Americans call 'soccer' is football, rappers, gangers, gamers, gays... though when I say gays, I'm not talking about the sexual preference, I'm talking about the awful 'fabulous' subculture which has only a tenuous link to homosexuality, and is more about dressing and acting like a feminized parody. If you're like that then fine, but making yourself out like that fills my veins with liquid contempt.

My cultural bias is this: I am a Norwegian, and I despise a large array of Norwegian cultural phenomenon... many of which are prevalent, it seems, in most of the so-called Western World, bringing me to despise all cultures which lean heavily on this not-really-a-norm. In particular, I find large portions of the United States' cultural make-up to be a blight upon the brains of the masses. Similarly I have learned to loathe a great many aspects of Japanese culture, though to be fair most of what I hate about that is simply their take on US pop culture again.

Thing is, you can attempt to guide cultural development and to some degree succeed, but it always comes down to 'the people'. And I find that as an entity, PEOPLE are the source of most things horrible and wrong about the world. I don't hate all people for that reason, nor do I deny that some really awesome things come out of different cultures as well... I have been thoroughly entertained by Japanese films, comics and what-have-you, US-made such, even the odd French ones, German porn (ooh, striking below the belt!), books from all over the world (mostly English and French, though, to be fair), TV seriesesesesss, stuff and things. I criticise them AND I enjoy the good things that come from them.

So to summarize my beliefs on this subject:

- it is our right and duty to object to anything and everything we find objectionable, so long as we can present some kind of argument for it.

- we do not have to 'be better' in order to criticise something that's not good. Just because we don't have a better alternative lined up does not exonerate something bad from being criticised.

- criticism is OK. Nagging is not. Let those you criticise rest their ears every now and then.

Since Godwin's Law has already been invoked, and we are thus already in adage territory, I refer you to Sturgeon's Law, it applies to all human cultures and all within them.

Cheeze_Pavilion:
[quote="Kikosemmek" post="18.75343.868775"]
Also, to riff on Archon's point, what about the belief that civil rights are a good thing? Is that not itself a cultural belief? As is your belief that no cultural belief is superior to another?

Expressing the idea "no cultural belief is superior to another" is to commit a self-referential incoherency--your very statement undercuts the truth of itself, unless you can somehow explain that your belief is not a cultural belief.

What you say is true and we are deadlocked. My point is to show that when dealing in subjective paradigms no one can win an argument. Where one could argue the objective virtues of a free society, another could argue those of a non-free one.

I have my own opinions, meaning that I prefer one thing over another- that I do judge subjectively. For that matter, I believe everything which exists must judge subjectively. However, I do not confuse my own opinions with those of the absolute (that which decides what is right and wrong). What the absolute knows is beyond our consciousness and our conception because it is perfect. I acknowledge that relative values are for each person to give to various things in life depending on their negotiating it. My point, again, is to show that it is important to take a step back and see how right we are not, and that there is no right. No one can be completely neutral, and that, in my belief, is a fact and not an opinion, as completely- anything is a state of perfection, which cannot exist below the singularity which is the sum of all things, paradigms, opinions, bodies.

The reason I'm preaching this stuff is because I believe all conflicts are products of a misunderstanding of interests and paradigms. In order to understand something which contradicts my opinion, I must first admit that my opinion is not right, and that their opinion is not wrong, and that both have the same absolute value: 0. To understand another viewpoint which had previously been inconceivable is to demonstrate wisdom. That, to me is valuable as it helps greatly to solve most of the conflicts in my life.

Kikosemmek:

Then let us make it clear that you are not commenting on their habit of beating women, but the fact that their society does not take action against the practice of beating women, leaving their freedoms constricted and their opinions secondary on the matter. So, you're criticizing the society's lack of regard for civil rights. You've made it clear that you prefer living in a society where there is the freedom to a civil right. In this case, it happens to be not being beaten by virtue of being female.

You must catch yourself as you are basing your criticism on your own subjective preference of a free society to that which is not free. I will not incite an argument with you whether or not it is good to live in a free society, because that's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that no one can criticize another fairly based on the dichotomy of right and wrong. You still haven't convinced me. You're saying that because you think lack of access to a civil right is bad, then you could objectively say that a society which limits it is bad. I say that since we've already delved into your own subjective opinion, objectivity has already gone out the window. If by fair you mean consistent, then you are fair, but not if you seek to be objective. That is my point.

You are assuming that I am defending the notion of Civil Rights for the sake of itself as if I am just regurgitating my westernized social rhetoric that I was raised in.

The main reason why I would criticize another culture is because their beliefs do not allow for the presence of other cultures or people who pose no direct harm to them. It is more an issue of ideological inclusivity more than just civil freedoms. If your culture is only 15% of the population and you believe that the other 85% of the population is evil and should be destroyed then it is you (the general you, not you you) that have drawn the divisive line, not me. In this instance, your culture is just simply incompatible with my existence.

Secondly, though I appreciate rational logical attempts at objectivity, there are limits to the accessibility of such a perspective. I get it, apparently my critique of exclusive cultures defines my perspective itself as an exclusive culture... score 1 for the semantic score board, the point still remains even if there is a semantic hypocrasy to it since my perspective is hardly a real culture.

Though I am an aetheist I am not a Ayn Rand follower so pure objectivity is not always a necessity for my observations anyways especially since all attempts seem idealistic at best.

Fondant:

Gxas:
Cultures are like opinions; to each his own.

And, like opinions, most of them are wrong.

*Dances smugly*

Nothing is above critiscim. Not my culture, not yours, not his, not feminism, not partiotism, not god. NOTHING!

And yes, I will critiscise other cultures. Right Now:

Saudi Arabia: Your treatment of women is disgraceful. Pray mend it, lest I be forced to open a can of high-explosive whup-ass on thy nation once the Americans stop being interested in you.

Russia: You are barbaric, cruel and unnecersarily violent.

China: STOP WORKING SO HARD!!!! (Joke)

Africa: Were to begin....
1. Raping people is unnacceptable.
2. Ethnic cleanising is unacceptable.
3. Female circumsion is unacceptable.
4. Stealing things from others is unacceptable.
5. Land-snatching is unacceptable.
6. Jacob Zuma is unacceptable.
7. Corruption is unacceptable.

In your Saudi Arabia rant, you kinda forgot the rest of the Islamic World. I don't know about you, but ritual killing of women for disgracing their family, punishing a raped woman for being alone with a man, ect ect ect

BallPtPenTheif:

Though I am an aetheist I am not a Ayn Rand follower so pure objectivity is not always a necessity for my observations anyways especially since all attempts seem idealistic at best.

Precisely. The thread asked about doing it fairly, and in my original post I'd declared that it is impossible to expect total objectivity between the interaction of imperfect consciousnesses, and so if by fair we mean neutral and objective I'd rather be modest and admit that nothing comes without at least a marginal amount of spin.

I also stated that if by fair we mean moral consistency, then this is more feasible, though anything that is very consistent will be very hard to follow for most people, as a general rule, which is why often spot inconsistencies, double-standards, and hypocrisy within each other and within ourselves.

Kikosemmek:

Cheeze_Pavilion:

Also, to riff on Archon's point, what about the belief that civil rights are a good thing? Is that not itself a cultural belief? As is your belief that no cultural belief is superior to another?

Expressing the idea "no cultural belief is superior to another" is to commit a self-referential incoherency--your very statement undercuts the truth of itself, unless you can somehow explain that your belief is not a cultural belief.

What you say is true and we are deadlocked. My point is to show that when dealing in subjective paradigms no one can win an argument. Where one could argue the objective virtues of a free society, another could argue those of a non-free one.

Actually, no--a person in a society where one is not free to argue the objective virtues of one's society cannot argue the objective virtues of that society.

That would fall under the incoherency know as self-performative incoherency, I would think. See, coherency offers us a way to compare things without having to base our judgments on either objective or subjective knowledge.

That's another reason we're not deadlocked--in your system, you can't argue for your system without violating the principles of your system: hence, it's incoherent.

The issue of criticism of an entire culture is not only morally gray, but also fairly contested in the court of public opinion. The problem is that criticism of other culture is often the product of senseless xenophobia and jingoism, and the singular voices get lost in the crowd of dissent. How many peace rallies have ended in riots for this same reason? However, on the other end of the discussion, one has to consider that the only way we learn is by doing something wrong. But the question is, how to chastise another culture in an effort to change their cultural attitudes in a way that might benefit their populace as a whole without turning it into a crusade. While many cultures take part in what I, as part of a westernized culture, might deem represhensible, vile, or even plain weird, I have to accept that as a culture they developed differently than my culture did. I have to accept that their moral compass might not exactly line up with mine. Furthermore, I have to understand that their culture sees my culture as a threat just as I would were they to attempt to change my views on my culture. While this is one world, we are all worlds apart. Logic is not the same here as it may be in America, China, Russia, or South Aftrica. Things that would be common sense to me, seem utterly bizarre to you. And while that same xenophobic jingoistic mass may be the reason we cannot peacefully critcize other cultures, they are ultimately the ones who determine what culture is proper. Ultimately, the happiness of the populace in relation to culture is the best measure of morality. If you have a society of happy people, then your culture is good, same as a society of generally disgruntled people would indicate a bad culture. But then, there are so many factors that go into building a functional society. You could have the most repressive society since George Orwell's 1984, but if you kept the general populace on a steady IV drip of dopamine, well they're gonna be ecstatic...or dead. So to get back to the original question, No, we cannot fairly criticize other cultures unless yours, in the entire scope of public opinion, is entirely perfect. Perhaps one day there will be a perfect society, but that'll be the day when the PS3 becomes more than an over priced doorstop.

If it affects me in a negative way, then yes, i'll criticize it to hell and back.