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Honor killing in Pakistan

Nessie said:
My point is that no one person or thing gives us the mandate. History has shown us that certain events and persons in the right place and time cause a tipping point where a society changes. Rather than wait to for that to happen in the likes of Afghanistan, we are right to take action to try and influence and cause that tipping point right now.
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Certainly no mandate will occur where none is initiated; the question then remains as to who, and when. Empowering women is obviously key but who in this culture will make that claim?

So if it won't initiate internally, then what?
 
Resume said:
No, what bothers you are observations that disagree with your predetermined conclusion. You ought to consider them because I've discovered that when doing so, you often learn something.

I highly recommend it.
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Oh bless - you can't leave it alone can you?!

Would it help you if I got upset?

I'm not actually bothered by you in the slightest because you long since ceased making anything like a worthwhile comment. Sorry.

Umad?
 
In that case this has been an argument to nothing about acceptability and we should just concentrate on what to do about it.

I say it is right to interfere in their culture by means of supporting and encouraging campaigns to have honour killings stopped and to make it clear that such behaviour is unacceptable in our countries and they cannot do such and will be punished way more than they are at home.
 
Nessie said:
I say it is right to support and encourage internal campaigns to have honour killings stopped and to make it clear that such behaviour is unacceptable in our countries and they cannot do such and will be punished way more than they are at home.
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I have amended your statement to show the parts I agree with. Why did you make it so difficult?!
 
SatansMaleVoiceChoir said:
I have amended your statement to show the parts I agree with. Why did you make it so difficult?!
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I did not think I had made it so difficult. I had researched the issue and come to the conclusion that honour killing is part of their culture, but in my view it is wrong and we are right to take action by supporting campaigns to have it stopped. I had done that by the end of page 1 of this thread.

Then you came along and started arguing against me.
 
Nessie said:
I understand it is immoral to us and not to them. In any case there are very rigid social structures elsewhere in the world, including in the Middle East, where honour killings are not accepted.
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Yes, but they are different cultures in other respects as well. I would lay odds that these other cultures don't perceive the same gravity of consequence for loss of family honor, just for starters.

We upset our own apple cart to the benefit of the whole of society by abolishing slavery. We recognised ourselves that it was wrong and did something about it. I do not see why we should wait around for those cultures who honour kill to do the same. It is called learning from your mistakes.
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We didn't upset the apple cart as much as you may believe (and this is not to diminish the brave sacrifices and contributions of abolitionists during that era). The Industrial revolution had more to do with abolition than John Brown or Nat Turner. The changing economic landscape is what brought about the end of slavery. See that in England the institution and trade were outlawed before they were here in the US.

And even when slavery was ended in the US, the objective economic reality for blacks was largely unchanged for a century afterwards. Sharecropping, segregation, lynching, and Jim Crow enforced material conditions on blacks that were hardly distinguishable from slavery in rural America.

The recognition that slavery was abhorrent was a luxury for those who didn't depend on it for the maintenance of their positions of cultural privilege. Yes, some people will sacrifice their material advantages for the sake of another, but it's not so easily done, especially if the alternative is a total surrender of ones security and protection.
 
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Nessie said:
I did not think I had made it so difficult. I had researched the issue and come to the conclusion that honour killing is part of their culture, but in my view it is wrong and we are right to take action by supporting campaigns to have it stopped. I had done that by the end of page 1 of this thread.

Then you came along and started arguing against me.
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Actually I think you'll find one of my first posts is agreeing with you. But never mind...
 
joesixpack said:
I think it's important to note here that NO ONE is expressing support for honor killings. The issue here is the idealist moral judgment being cast on the members of a particular culture (or more properly, cultures) for living within the expectations and confines of that culture.

It is easy for me to say that I wouldn't kill my daughter for dishonoring my family, sitting here in a culture where family honor carries little weight, but it would take a level of courage far outside of the bell curve to openly defy one of my own major cultural taboos. There isn't a lot of free will involved here. The "moral" condemnation of people who's morality is vastly different from our own is like condemning a person for not using the same monetary system we do.
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This presupposes that there is no objective moral standard by which such practices can be judged. This is fundamental to the discussion. If one believes that it's possible to have an objective morality, then it's possible to view a system that allows children to be murdered by their parents as being inferior to a system that regards that as wrong.

If one doesn't accept objective morality, then it's difficult to see on what basis one can say that one culture is "better" than another. Even on a utilitarian basis, it's impossible to say that if the Afghans were to embrace Western culture, that it would lead to an improvement in their lives. We have the example in the USA of aboriginal peoples abandoning their traditional way of life for something closer to what is generally accepted. Are they "better" for it, if "better" is assigned some arbitrary value?

No one is advocating that the horrible practice be allowed to continue unchecked. What is being argued is that culture can be changed from within, and trying to change if from without is generally counterproductive.
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I suspect that culture can be changed from without, but only by use of considerable force. I don't have the figures, but I think it highly likely that the number of people killed in the war in Afghanistan greatly exceeds the number killed by their own families.
 
joesixpack said:
Yes, but they are different cultures in other respects as well. I would lay odds that these other cultures don't perceive the same gravity of consequence for loss of family honor, just for starters.



We didn't upset the apple cart as much as you may believe (and this is not to diminish the brave sacrifices and contributions of abolitionists during that era). The Industrial revolution had more to do with abolition than John Brown and Nat Turner. The changing economic landscape is what brought about the end of slavery. See that in England the institution and trade were outlawed before they were here in the US.

And even when slavery was ended in the US, the objective economic reality for blacks was largely unchanged for a century afterwards. Sharecropping, segregation, lynching, and Jim Crow enforced material conditions on blacks that were hardly distinguishable from slavery in rural America.

The recognition that slavery was abhorrent is a luxury for those who don't depend on it for the maintenance of their positions of cultural privilege. Yes, some people will sacrifice their material advantages for the sake of another, but it's not so easily done, especially if the alternative is a total surrender of ones security and protection.
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I understand that, it is not as if slavery was abolished and stopped dead and everyone lived happily ever afterwards. Just like Sati was only legal in some Indian states before the British came along and made it completely illegal and then it continued despite the new law.

Sadly I doubt honour killings will end completely. I am sure this will be similar to the campaign against female circumcision, (Female Genital Mutilation) where studies have shown tradition is by the major reason as to why it happens

http://www.path.org/files/FGM-The-Facts.htm

"FGM prevalence rates are slowly declining in some countries, as indicated by lower prevalence rates among adolescents (compared to older women). In Kenya, a 1991 survey showed that 78 percent of adolescents had undergone FGM, compared to 100 percent of women over 50.56 In the Sudan, another study revealed that the prevalence among 15- to 49-year-old women dropped from 99 percent in 1981 to 89 percent in 1990.57"
 
westprog said:
This presupposes that there is no objective moral standard by which such practices can be judged. This is fundamental to the discussion. If one believes that it's possible to have an objective morality, then it's possible to view a system that allows children to be murdered by their parents as being inferior to a system that regards that as wrong.

If one doesn't accept objective morality, then it's difficult to see on what basis one can say that one culture is "better" than another. Even on a utilitarian basis, it's impossible to say that if the Afghans were to embrace Western culture, that it would lead to an improvement in their lives. We have the example in the USA of aboriginal peoples abandoning their traditional way of life for something closer to what is generally accepted. Are they "better" for it, if "better" is assigned some arbitrary value?
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This is exactly the point I struggle with. As a materialist I most assuredly don't believe that there is an objective morality. But at the same time, I see it in my best interests that there BE some sort of morality, and I'd like it if it were objective.

Trotsky wrote a long essay (Their Morals and Ours[URL]) about this very thing where he discussed the idea that morality has a class character.

"Whoever does not care to return to Moses, Christ or Mohammed; whoever is not satisfied with eclectic hodge-podges must acknowledge that morality is a product of social development; that there is nothing invariable about it; that it serves social interests; that these interests are contradictory; that morality more than any other form of ideology has a class character."

I suspect that culture can be changed from without, but only by use of considerable force. I don't have the figures, but I think it highly likely that the number of people killed in the war in Afghanistan greatly exceeds the number killed by their own families.
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Yes, on the body count, the Afghan women are much safer with their own culture than they are with US intervention. Of course, I don't think anyone here is endorsing the current application of US cultural engineering.
 
Resume said:
No one is saying you're incorrect in much what you type; the wiggle is what to do to bring about change, since a number of us have witnessed change in less time than might be imagined.
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Less than a year of exposure to Western values has changed some of the Middle Eastern people I see daily at the Mall. From almost the full burqa to western clothes, no hijab.... And working.
 
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