"The Arabs are a failed culture who produce nothing"

[MarkCorrigan]

Gays are victims of violence in the USA all the time.

But not it must be said, by the state. They are certainly not executed for being gay.

 

[theprestige]

I think what he and the others REALLY want us to say is "brown people are bad at doing stuff and their cultures are inferior".

Try: Islamic theocracy is a toxic culture that retards the development and liberalization of any country it overruns. The failures of Arabian culture are not the failures of the Arabian people, but the failures arising from their unfortunate ideological capture by Islamic theocracy.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Anyways, this whole new concept of "failed cultures" is just Proud Boy bull ****.

I would disagree, dependant upon what you mean by "failed". I would also disagree that all arab culture is a failure, but I would heartily agree that the cultures of certain countries are regressive, bigoted and vile. Saudi Arabia is a big one for instance.

Their adherence to an extremely regressive version of Islam coupled with their cultural hangups and attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community and apostates, along with a barbaric and violent criminal code would certainly make me think of their culture as a failure in that there isn't enough money in the world to convince me to live there and I have no real desire to visit either.

Of course that isn't saying all Saudi's are bad, let alone all Arabs. Just that the cultural norms and beliefs enforced by the government are bad. Wahhabism is literally an effort to drag Islam back to the 7th century afterall.

 

[Checkmite]

But not it must be said, by the state. They are certainly not executed for being gay.

Right; our politicians go for a community-based approach by heavily emphasizing that they're all molesters coming after your children and that Someone Needs To Do Something About Them.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Right; our politicians go for a community-based approach by heavily emphasizing that they're all molesters coming after your children and that Someone Needs To Do Something About Them.

Oh absolutely, the current far-right element of the US is trying very hard to sink to the level of a theocratic hellscape system like Saudi Arabia, but it isn't there yet.

 

[d4m10n]

It was claimed that Arabs are a failed culture, who produce nothing and can produce nothing but oil.

Right, but why play into the paradigm that a culture can be measured by non-cultural production?

Why not measure culture in terms of unequivocally cultural outputs, e.g. language, art, literature, religion, cuisine?

If the OP is smuggling in unwarranted assumptions, why not nip that in the bud?

 

[Ziggurat]

Right, but why play into the paradigm that a culture can be measured by non-cultural production?

Because culture affects "non-cultural" production. Things like the value placed on education, social trust levels, etc. are strongly cultural, and they strongly effect economic output. These aren't unconnected things. They aren't actually non-cultural.

 

[d4m10n]

Because culture affects "non-cultural" production. Things like the value placed on education, social trust levels, etc. are strongly cultural, and they strongly effect economic output.

I value economic production as much as the next American, but I don't expect every culture to take the same view.

If a hunter-gatherer tribe has plenty of free time for dancing and chanting and recitation of epic poems, well, bully for them.

 

[Ziggurat]

I value economic production as much as the next American, but I don't expect every culture to take the same view.

If a hunter-gatherer tribe has plenty of free time for dancing and chanting and recitation of epic poems, well, bully for them.

I've already addressed this. In the abstract you have a point, but it's not really relevant in this thread, because Arabs do care that their economic productivity falls far behind the west. It's a sore point for them. They haven't given up economic productivity because they decided they didn't really care about it, they just can't manage to pull it off.

 

[Trausti]

I've already addressed this. In the abstract you have a point, but it's not really relevant in this thread, because Arabs do care that their economic productivity falls far behind the west. It's a sore point for them. They haven't given up economic productivity because they decided they didn't really care about it, they just can't manage to pull it off.

Nah. The Arab world had a significant brain drain in the 20th century. Those who could have pulled it off have since left.

 

[HansMustermann]

I've already addressed this. In the abstract you have a point, but it's not really relevant in this thread, because Arabs do care that their economic productivity falls far behind the west. It's a sore point for them. They haven't given up economic productivity because they decided they didn't really care about it, they just can't manage to pull it off.

Yes, and so what? Nauru also probably sorely regrets their falling behind the west once their phosphate resources ran out, but that doesn't mean there's anything cultural about that. They just dedicated most of their population to what was the most profitable thing to do with those man-hours, and when it collapsed it collapsed.

 

[Ziggurat]

Nah. The Arab world had a significant brain drain in the 20th century. Those who could have pulled it off have since left.

Brain drain is a significant problem in a lot of underdeveloped economies. It's very hard to stop in cultures where property rights aren't respected. Even if you have the skills to make a successful business, why bother if corrupt governments or gangs can just take it from you? Arab countries are hardly alone in this, the same thing is happening with Russia and other places too.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yes, and so what? Nauru also probably sorely regrets their falling behind the west once their phosphate resources ran out, but that doesn't mean there's anything cultural about that.

There is something cultural about how you handle transitions. Nauru may not have had options. But Egypt has options. Saudi Arabia has options. Their failure to capitalize on those options is due in no small part to social pathologies.

 

[HansMustermann]

There is something cultural about how you handle transitions. Nauru may not have had options. But Egypt has options. Saudi Arabia has options. Their failure to capitalize on those options is due in no small part to social pathologies.

No, they're just due to the wealth being owned or at least controlled by a few bellends who didn't earn it in any way, and don't even know what to do with it than show off. It's the same effect as documented in the USA, where guys who just won a million or ten at the lottery, end up bankrupt a couple months later. Because they showed no economic skill to get that, so they just blow it on hookers and blow, or buying all their friends Lamborghini cars instead of investing it or starting a business or whatever. It bears no bearing on how the rest of those respective cultures work.

 

[d4m10n]

In the abstract you have a point, but it's not really relevant in this thread, because Arabs do care that their economic productivity falls far behind the west. It's a sore point for them.

Can anyone name a couple of prominent Arabs who have put forth this view? I'm genuinely curious to know if your assessment is based on reading or hearing things that Arabic-speaking people have actually written or said.

 

[Trausti]

No, they're just due to the wealth being owned or at least controlled by a few bellends who didn't earn it in any way, and don't even know what to do with it than show off. It's the same effect as documented in the USA, where guys who just won a million or ten at the lottery, end up bankrupt a couple months later. Because they showed no economic skill to get that, so they just blow it on hookers and blow, or buying all their friends Lamborghini cars instead of investing it or starting a business or whatever

I.e., human capital. And the good Arab human capital emigrated years ago.

 

[HansMustermann]

I.e., human capital. And the good Arab human capital emigrated years ago.

I'm saying that 99.9% of the human capital in Saudi Arabia had NO say in this either way. It was just that the royal family suddenly "won the lottery" by being on top of vast oil deposits, and by now it's generations upon generations of princes who just randomly were born into the family that owns those, and thought they deserve everything because they're royalty. And proceeded to act pretty much like a 14yp spoiled brat who finds 1000$: just use it on self-indulgence and status symbols to show everyone else. None of the rest of the culture in the area had much say in that.

 

[Steve]

*Looks at shelves of CDs and stuff*

Trio Joubran...Dhafer Youssef...Anouar Brahem...possibly Dudu Tassa...Tinariwen...Tamikrest...the bods who played on Plant and Page's Unledded...

But they were playing "western" music. Not their own creations.

 

[Thermal]

I kinda feel like we should have just, you know...taken the middle east when we realized what was under it. Maybe given some beads and trinkets for it and maybe a treaty. We built a superpower on such tactics.

 

[Steve]

Arabs have invented zero.

So pretty much 50% of digital technology is dependent on an Arabic invention. This is a good example of cultural imperialism, countries like the USA have stolen zero from arabic culture exploit it in their digital IT technologies but give nothing in return. Arabic societies should get a percentage of zero every time it is used.

Whoever invented "one" should get the other 50% of the credit.

 

[Thermal]

Whoever invented "one" should get the other 50% of the credit.

Pretty sure zero would have eventually been invented just to make other stuff work? I mean, we are not trying to give credit to who invented the inclined plane. There were these hills and all. You just devise things as they come up.

Does a single soul anywhere think we'd still be living in the pre industrial age if Muhammad al-whoever didn't write down the idea first? They didn't invent it, per se. They discovered a form of notation first.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Pretty sure zero would have eventually been invented just to make other stuff work? I mean, we are not trying to give credit to who invented the inclined plane. There were these hills and all. You just devise things as they come up.

Does a single soul anywhere think we'd still be living in the pre industrial age if Muhammad al-whoever didn't write down the idea first? They didn't invent it, per se. They discovered a form of notation first.

Not exactly. They defined it as a mathematical term. While yes, there was still such a thing as no eggs or what-have-you it was a little more than just drawing a circle and saying "this is 0" to my understanding.

 

[Thermal]

Not exactly. They defined it as a mathematical term. While yes, there was still such a thing as no eggs or what-have-you it was a little more than just drawing a circle and saying "this is 0" to my understanding.

What I'm saying is that the first to discover something handy doesn't mean they would have been the only ones ever to find it and we would still be in the bronze age if they hadn't. Alexander Graham Bell patenting the telephone slightly before the other guy and whatnot.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

What I'm saying is that the first to discover something handy doesn't mean they would have been the only ones ever to find it and we would still be in the bronze age if they hadn't. Alexander Graham Bell patenting the telephone slightly before the other guy and whatnot.

Oh no, you're quite right there. However given the state of mathematics and science at the time it was almost certainly going to be a Muslim that did it.

 

[Thermal]

Oh no, you're quite right there. However given the state of mathematics and science at the time it was almost certainly going to be a Muslim that did it.

And for their dedication to advancing science and other frontiers at the time, I wholeheartedly salute them and their work.

 

[HansMustermann]

Not exactly. They defined it as a mathematical term. While yes, there was still such a thing as no eggs or what-have-you it was a little more than just drawing a circle and saying "this is 0" to my understanding.

And again, the arabs had exactly ZERO % to do with inviting it or defining it as a mathematical term. They just happened to be the last stop between one of the places that actually invented it (India) and Europe. Crediting the Arabs with it is as stupid as crediting France with inventing powered flight, just because they were the first in Europe to be convinced by the brothers Wright

 

[junkshop]

Six pages of this crap. This isn't the forum I joined. I'm think I'm done.

 

[Roboramma]

And again, the arabs had exactly ZERO % to do with inviting it or defining it as a mathematical term. They just happened to be the last stop between one of the places that actually invented it (India) and Europe. Crediting the Arabs with it is as stupid as crediting France with inventing powered flight, just because they were the first in Europe to be convinced by the brothers Wright

It's sort of weird how many times you've had to point this out in this thread. Like Ziggurat, I don't think it actually matters to the discussion because the thread isn't about Arab culture 1000 years ago, it's about Arab culture today. And it's not like Arab contributions to mathematics weren't hugely important. Even the translating, passing on, and systematizing of prior knowledge was hugely important.

But still, you'd think people would read the thread.

 

[Checkmite]

It's sort of weird how many times you've had to point this out in this thread. Like Ziggurat, I don't think it actually matters to the discussion because the thread isn't about Arab culture 1000 years ago, it's about Arab culture today.

Not only are we running with the flawed premise that a culture must meet some kind of goal defined by us in order to "succeed", but that they must have done so recently or on a continuous basis or it doesn't count?

 

[Ziggurat]

Can anyone name a couple of prominent Arabs who have put forth this view? I'm genuinely curious to know if your assessment is based on reading or hearing things that Arabic-speaking people have actually written or said.

Osama bin Laden. Not in the same words as me, but he took such great offense that Saudi Arabia had to host infidel soldiers to protect it from Iraq that he set off on a jihad against us. And why did Saudi Arabia need our protection? Why were they not capable of defending themselves? Economics and culture. They don’t have an economy or a culture capable of producing an effective military. Which is also why they suffered repeated defeats at the hands of the Israelis. These things stick in the craw of a lot of Arabs. They want military might. But you can’t get that without a productive economy, not in the modern world. You can’t get that without a culture that values ability over family connections, national identity over tribal affiliation.

 

[Ziggurat]

Not only are we running with the flawed premise that a culture must meet some kind of goal defined by us in order to "succeed", but that they must have done so recently or on a continuous basis or it doesn't count?

We are talking about the present, so of course the present is what counts. And again, it’s not just my standards that I’m imposing on them. It’s their own standards too. They have failed to live up to their own aspirations.

 

[Venom]

How far back are we supposed to go to find Arabs? Did they ever have a singular or unified culture at any point? The "produced nothing" sounds like typical Western chauvinist talking points dismissing any other culture or people for not taking up as much space in history textbooks as Europeans.

To me it's mostly survivor's bias. We happened to end up ahead of the rest of humanity now, so we must have "successful cultures" and theirs "failed cultures". Would the West be in the condition it is today without the Enlightenment? Would the Enlightenment have happened without the Renaissance? Renaissance without ancient Rome? Go back as far as you like...some cultural trends seem to catch on and linger for decades or centuries and it's not necessarily anything to do with superiority or inferiority. Humans are just stubborn and follow trends.

It's also true Arab or at least Arab-founded states have been ****** over by invasions, especially Mongol/Turkic and we can't say what they could have been if the eastern Islamic world had undergone their own Renaissance or age of Enlightenment as it seems they were poised to. But I think Islam was a huge net negative.

 

[Roboramma]

Not only are we running with the flawed premise that a culture must meet some kind of goal defined by us in order to "succeed",

I don't know about "must". They can just themselves based on their own viewpoint. That's cool. I can also judge them based on mine. I think their people are worse off than they would be if they adopted a different set of values and social norms.

I think that's actually true of every culture, and in small and minor ways I try to shift those things in the cultures that I'm a part of.

but that they must have done so recently or on a continuous basis or it doesn't count?

Yes, their current culture is different from the ancestral cultures that led to it, and it exists in a different environment. Its success, however you define that*, is certainly going to be based on how it actually functions in the present world, not how its antecedents functioned in previous environments.

*Yes, there are certainly different views on what amounts to success, and I think there's a lot of room for debate and ambiguity around the edges. But there are also some things that everyone values and everyone will put some weight into the way a culture influences those things, even if we disagree about exactly how much. Health is an example of one such thing. Some people might think that health is less important than going to heaven, but they'll still put some value on health.
More broadly, I certainly don't think there's some simple metric by which we can measure all extent cultures and put them on a scale. I agree anyone who thinks that is just ignorant. But that doesn't mean that there are no possible ways to look at things on the margin and see social norms and practices that are only hurting people.

 

[Roboramma]

I think there are in the thread two responses to the idea of Arabs as a failed culture.

The first is that there is no metric with which to measure cultures. As such they can't be said to be failed. On that point I agree that there's no unambiguous metric from which we can construct a perfect measure of culture, but there are nevertheless some ways that we can judge cultures as succeeding for failing. I've mentioned what I see as relatively objective views on this, from outside. The Rawlsian veil of ignorance, for instance, is a meaningful tool for thinking about it. Ziggurat has mentioned a different tack, which simply to look at each culture's success based on their own evaluations. I've also mentioned some ideas that overlap with this.

The second response is that culture doesn't actually impact the things that we're looking at to evaluate it. Zig has mentioned economic success and military competence as things that the Arabs themselves value, but on which they are failing. Hans has argued in the thread that they fail at these not for cultural reasons but for other reasons unrelated to culture. The resource curse, the actions of specific dictators, geography and historical contingency. Personally I think there's plenty of room for debate here, but it's difficult to argue either that Hans' perspective is wrong (those factors are important) or that there's no impact of culture on these things. Maybe others will disagree with that view though.

Anyway, I'm not going to add any arguments about those things in this post, I just thought it might be useful and clarifying to mention these two separate issues and the ways they've been addressed so far.

 

[Roboramma]

That's a reasonable viewpoint, and is probably the predominant one among contributors to this thread, so it's nice to have it spelled out. But it's a bit idealistic. In actual cultures, the goal of the culture is a component of the culture itself.

Sure, I think that it's reasonable to point out that the goals of different cultures are different, and that because of that it's very difficult to justify judging one culture based on the goals of another.

However, note the "s" there. The goals of each culture are plural. And they are made up of all the various values of the members of that culture. People value many different things. I don't think Amish people only value maintaining a particular way of life. They also value health and security and joy and love and happiness and slack and freedom and conformity and community and vengeance and empathy and many other things. They weight these things differently than you and I do, and you and I probably weight tradition less strongly than they do.

When I was writing my first response to you and I talked about well-being I considered mentioning that even individuals care about more than their own well being, though they care about that, and I judge a culture on more than just the well being of its members but on other values that I see as important.

Maybe they weight those values differently than I do. That's a valid objection.

That's a reason that there will be some ambiguity to the question posed. But let's say you try your judgement based on one set of weights and then you try it based on a different set of weights, and then a different one, and they all end up giving, not identical results, but results within a particular relatively small range. That would be meaningful, I think.

And again, I'd like to stress that I do think the veil of ignorance is a reasonable perspective to take here. You can have some people who don't value the actual experiences of women at all in their worldview, but from behind the veil of ignorance they'll be forced to take a different perspective, because they could end up being one of those women. They might still weight them less because they've still got a value system that cares about other things more, but if you're faced with the possibility of living a particular sort of life and you're honest about that you'll put some value on improving the state of that life.

But what about individual well-being? Most of the subjects of the Son of Heaven, the Elders, the Imams, or the Village Chieftain will all tell you their cultures are best for everyone's individual well-being, through (more or less respectively) an orderly society, adherence to specific traditions, rewards in the afterlife, or the spoils of victorious raiding.

Sure, but they'd be wrong about those things.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/mar...roduces-unemployment-insurance-idUSL6N0KG1VX/

And if you think that's a contradiction, remember: unemployment numbers only include those who are actively seeking employment. It does not include people who AREN'T. (Not just in Saudi Arabia, btw. That's how it works even in the USA or Germany.) That's where that difference comes from.

Also cf the same article: most of those who do work are employed by the state.

Also, Cf Bllomberg, over half of the citizens registered for the Citizen's Account Program (i.e., being paid by the government that just exist) in December 2017: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/...t-to-begin-cash-transfers-for-poorer-citizens

And yes, not sure if that includes non-citizen expats. Probably not.

That Reuters article is 11 years old. The country has changed enormously since then: the entry of women into the workplace, and Saudiisation, have led to the increases in employment shown in my more recent Statista link.
The Citizens Account Programme is a form of UBI, and is available to low and middle income citizens, as a way of supporting them through Saudi's austerity measures. This programme also stands as a counterpoint to the claims here that the oil revenues are largely being squandered by princes on vanity projects. In actual fact, the amount of investment in infastructure, economic diversification, and cultural facilities and events is enormous, and having a clear, tangible benefit to everyone living here.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Just to clear up another misconception I'm seeing a lot on this thread: None of the Arab countries are theocracies. Not one. They are a mix of autocratic and constitutional monarchies, and democracies of varying degrees of actual democracy. Plus Yemen, which is just a mess.
The pernicious influence of the Wahabbis over Saudi Arabia has been drastically curtailed by MBS, and the country continues to move in that direction. As a prime example, this year Riyadh opened its first alcohol shop since 1953. There are sports and music events, open to both men and women (who are allowed to mix), cinemas, women are ditching the niqab, the hijab, and even the abaya itself. I've just started a new job at a university in Riyadh, after a 10-year absence from that city, and the change is astonishing, and very positive.

 

[Shadowdweller]

Let's see: Our numeral system, algebra, the astrolabe, the sugar mill, coffee as a drink (cultivation of the beans themselves being thought to have originated in Ethiopia), a whole bunch of medical advances through Avicenna, stopped the Mongols from invading Africa, introduced lemons and a number of spices to Europeans, foods like hummus, falafel, tabouleh...

 

[Cosmic Yak]

I would disagree, dependant upon what you mean by "failed". I would also disagree that all arab culture is a failure, but I would heartily agree that the cultures of certain countries are regressive, bigoted and vile. Saudi Arabia is a big one for instance.

They are regressive, bigoted and vile in your view. That doesn't mean the culture has "failed" (and I'm still waiting on a decent definition of 'failed' here), it just means it's different. In the eyes of the more extreme or conservative elements of Muslim societies, homosexuality is wrong, and what we see as oppression or bigotry, they see as necessary to preserve their society. We may- and do- disagree, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that their culture has 'failed'.
I should also point out that there is a wide spread of beliefs and practices among the various Arab countries, with regard to attitudes to LGBT issues. It's not one solid block of regressive bigotry. The version of Islam they follow in Oman, for example (Ibadi) is much more tolerant than, say, Wahabbism. Among the Saudis, I have personally met gay Saudis, one of whom (an Uber driver) told me quite openly, on no more than 5 minutes' acquaintance, that he had a boyfriend. Another taxi driver hit on me quite heavily throughout my journey, leading to a quite uncomfortable 20 minutes for me! I had an 18-year-old male student of mine in Jeddah write " I love [my name]", in a big heart on the classroom whiteboard, with his phone number. The entire class could, of course, see this, and had no problem with it at all. I have even been told that there is a "gay Starbucks" in Riyadh! My point being that not everyone in these countries is a bigot or a homophobe.
You should also understand that there are two sides to Arab culture: public and private. Great emphasis is placed on public adherence to social and Islamic mores. In private, however, everything- everything- goes on. This is well-known and tacitly accepted. As long as the appearance of piety is observed, you are pretty much free to get away with anything you like. Just keep it private. What you see on the news is only half the story.

Their adherence to an extremely regressive version of Islam coupled with their cultural hangups and attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community and apostates, along with a barbaric and violent criminal code would certainly make me think of their culture as a failure in that there isn't enough money in the world to convince me to live there and I have no real desire to visit either.

I would recommend you actually do visit one or more of the Gulf countries. I think it would dispel some of the misconceptions you have. I am not in any way condoning the outlawing and repression of LGBT rights, nor upholding the adherence to Sharia law that leads to the executions and other penalties. What I am saying, as I spelled out above, is that these aspects of their overall cultures are not as all-pervasive as you seem to imagine.

Of course that isn't saying all Saudi's are bad, let alone all Arabs. Just that the cultural norms and beliefs enforced by the government are bad. Wahhabism is literally an effort to drag Islam back to the 7th century afterall.

As I said upthread, MBS has pretty much destroyed the stranglehold the Wahabbis had on the Saudi government. Don't forget, the Sauds themselves are not Wahabbis. The original deal, back in the C18th, was that, once a Saudi state was formed, the Sauds would get the political power, and the Wahabbis would get the religious power. What MBS has done is to scale back the influence the Wahabbis had over legislation and policy, and confine them to strictly religious affairs. The result has been to create a far more forward-looking country, that is proud of its development so far, and is keen to continue. The Saudis are well aware of how they look to the outside world, and want that to change- not by merely cosmetic means, but as a shift in their culture and values. We are witnessing a fundamental change in Saudi society, almost unprecedented, and it is moving in what we in the west would call the right direction.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

But not it must be said, by the state. They are certainly not executed for being gay.

They execute homosexuals across large parts of Africa as well. I've not heard anyone saying that Africa has a 'failed culture'.