I'm saying that having tens of thousands of people show up on horseback ready to invade Vienna isn't exactly a calling card for Mongol politeness. Sure the Mongols did good things! Tell you what? Let's take apart the good and bad things and compare and contrast them with other cultures, shall we? And maybe, after doing that for a while, we can come up with a list of attributes that make cultures better or worse. Which is exactly we started this conversation. LOL
"Of course they weren't perfect, but neither are we." Okey dokey. Do you understand that such statements completely alleviate the speaker of any obligation to continue analysis? Ted Bundy had a lot of faults, but who among us is perfect? Jack The Ripper may have done some bad things, but aren't we all flawed in some way? Cannibals ate your parents, but hey, don't we all get a little hungry now and then? I could go on, but I honestly don't mean to have fun at your expense.
Yes, there are good and bad things anywhere. Our duty as intelligent people is to take apart what works and what doesn't and keep building on what works. Not to just cast an unfocused eye on the world and say something like "looks all about the same to me. We all are in our journeys on our own paths." -- these sentiments, while sounding great, are not helpful to either us or other people.
I'm not talking about enlightenment, I'm talking about The Enlightenment -- the awakening in the west that things like freedom, rights, rationalism, and an open society were prerequisites to change and growth, and that societies that changed and grew were happier places to be. The world keeps changing -- it is not something that is up for debate. Societies/Cultures that embrace certain values are able to change along with it. Those that do not are not. It's been that way since recorded history.
>the awakening in the west that things like freedom, rights, rationalism, and an open society were prerequisites to change and growth, and that societies that changed and grew were happier places to be.
Is that what you tell the people of Iraq? How about Iran? How about Nicaragua? Vietnam?
You're comparing living inside an empire to being conquered by one and have the gall to suggest that you are morally superior?
Instead of making my day, you've got me crying. For someone who speaks highly of the Enlightenment, you sure have a long way to go in understanding the principles.
I'm still not following you. Aside from the fact that you have no idea where I live, What do you mean that I'm comparing living inside an empire? So when America was formed, and the country basically consisted of a bunch of farmers, what was your excuse then? They were the same ideas then. Or how about ancient Greece? Never was the huge world empire that, say Britain was in the 1800s.
And I never said I was morally superior to anybody. Come now, think about this. I said that certain attributes work better than certain other ones. Cultures who have more or less of these attributes or more or less effective at very important things. It has nothing to do with me or any country or culture that I am a part of. In fact, that's the whole point! That those attributes exist outside of the cultures themselves. Isn't it great that we can analyze, compare, contrast, and discuss those attributes and what they do to help or hinder the happiness of the people who are in those cultures? Don't we have a duty to honestly and politely engage in conversations with people of other cultures so that they can help us as much as we help them? Moral superiority has nothing to do with it. A culture full of bad attributes is not such a hot place to live. There are, I'm sure, many more attributes that the ones we have today, and as long as we keep our heads on our shoulders we can continue to find them. In fact, it doesn't take much imagination to see that western culture is probably just as barbaric and brutish to some alien civilization as some cultures are to us. And that's exactly why we can't get lost in some kind of moral relativism: we've got a lot more work to do.
I'm saying that having tens of thousands of people show up on horseback ready to invade Vienna isn't exactly a calling card for Mongol politeness. Sure the Mongols did good things! Tell you what? Let's take apart the good and bad things and compare and contrast them with other cultures, shall we? And maybe, after doing that for a while, we can come up with a list of attributes that make cultures better or worse. Which is exactly we started this conversation. LOL
"Of course they weren't perfect, but neither are we." Okey dokey. Do you understand that such statements completely alleviate the speaker of any obligation to continue analysis? Ted Bundy had a lot of faults, but who among us is perfect? Jack The Ripper may have done some bad things, but aren't we all flawed in some way? Cannibals ate your parents, but hey, don't we all get a little hungry now and then? I could go on, but I honestly don't mean to have fun at your expense.
Yes, there are good and bad things anywhere. Our duty as intelligent people is to take apart what works and what doesn't and keep building on what works. Not to just cast an unfocused eye on the world and say something like "looks all about the same to me. We all are in our journeys on our own paths." -- these sentiments, while sounding great, are not helpful to either us or other people.
I'm not talking about enlightenment, I'm talking about The Enlightenment -- the awakening in the west that things like freedom, rights, rationalism, and an open society were prerequisites to change and growth, and that societies that changed and grew were happier places to be. The world keeps changing -- it is not something that is up for debate. Societies/Cultures that embrace certain values are able to change along with it. Those that do not are not. It's been that way since recorded history.