Non-Western Culture - Crap or What?

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Branching off from the contentious 'Pornography' thread, here's more contentious contentiousness.

Western culture debit column - slight problem with materialism, inequality, xenophobic fringe, futile search for meaning of life, crap 'new' buildings

Rest-of-world debit column - wars, pogroms, stupid nationalism over areas too small to swing proverbial cat, persecution and murder of sexual minorities, policy dictated by events of 800 years previous, slavery, female genital mutilation, religions that preach passivity (Buddhism) or servitude (Islam - yes I know they rescued technology and saved the Europeans' sorry asses back in the Dark Ages), attendent religious fervour and persecution and murder of unbelievers, blatant disregard for environment, herding minority tribespeople into slave labour camps, women used as breeding machines, children used as cheap labour, diseases, debate replaced by terrorism, leaders given God-like status with attendent repression, buildings that collapse in earthquakes that kill everybody, persecution and murder of generally everybody.

(Sorry Momus, Japan doesn't count, it's probably Official Only Good Place, I wouldn't know.) Start flaming...

― dave q, Monday, 3 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

We cut wide swathes, rape and pillahe. We fail to understand teh cultures we destroy. Cecil Rhodes is the prime example. We do not know what a culture would be w/o Western influence. and the none euro defense is ignored ( ie the iroqouis nations and the US constituiton)

― anthony, Monday, 3 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Wouldn't it just be better to say everyone's fucked?

Something like "Cortez the Killer" is supposed to right the balance, and yet ends up playing around with those damned 'noble savage' myths, *again*. I suggest everyone read King Leopold's Ghost, really...

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 3 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

that and Stolen Contients by Ronald Wright .

― anthony, Monday, 3 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Um, Dave, I think that most (perhaps all) of the faults you attribute to non-Western cultures can also be attributed to Western cultures.

People suck. Doesn't matter if they're white, black, yellow, whatever, all folks are equal in being assholes.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Monday, 3 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Western culture debit column - slight problem with materialism, inequality, xenophobic fringe, futile search for meaning of life, crap 'new' buildings
I also think that the problem with 'culture' in the West is overemphasised if you compare it to say lack of food in the rest of the world. I just read a book by Emmanuel Levinas and he referred to the impoverishment of the third world on the first page - suddenly it seemed obvious that this is the 'pressing issue' for our society, just because of his thoughtful placement of it in a book otherwise dedicated to Judaism. But on the other hand, after wrting all that stuff on the pornography thread, it occurred to me today: women are physically weaker than men. Why is such a coherent and abundant body of anti-female culture necessary? Women would probably be quite easy to control anyway. And I also thought: the reason these images don't exist in, for instance, Islamic cultures, may be that they're unnecessary. Subjugation of women is enforced by law and violence, so psychological tactics are relatively unimportant. This makes the 'crimes' of Western culture seem more disturbing. What I mean is, violence is a crude and dangerous method of control. It endangers the controller, whereas psychological strategies involve less physical risk. Western culture has made a movement away from violence simply through the selfishness of individuals in power, but society remains hierarchised and efficient because of a complicated and quite effective range of psychological techniques for social control. ... ie, Western culture is equivalent to violence in ethical terms. What thinkest thou?
― maryann, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

― maryann, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

!!!!!!

― maryann, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Methinks thou makest an excellent pointe.

In fact, I think the greater effectiveness of psychological rather than physical controls is supported by looking at the artifacts left over from the early matriarchal societies (like the Venus of Willendorf, etc): feminine sexuality and reproduction were the basis for their attendent cosmologies. Femininity took on a powerful imaginative value and was intimately associated in peoples' minds w/ death and rebirth. The awe and fear these things inspire would've been more than enough to keep the physically stronger half of the population in their place. Of course, the obsession w/ patriarchy brought all this to an end, which gave birth to new mythologies and new controls (Christ/Virgin myth being supreme). (And I know we can't verify for certain these societies were matriarchal, but it's also a testament to our faith in the power of controlling mythologies to assume a society's representative artworks are predominantly feminine = the society is dominated by women).

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"patriarchy" = "patrilineal succession"

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

hate to be an art history pendant but its Godess of Wilendorf.

― anthony, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Culture = acculumated arsenal of control techniques. The techniques in the West seem less tied into religion and archaic nationalism though and more into greed, which while unpleasant, leaves fractionally more leeway to those who can negotiate the minefield of said techniques. I'm very suspicious of romanticizing people being tortured and killed for their beliefs because they 'mean it maaaan'.

The conspiracy theory of society is a refuge of the oppressed - but then, that would seem to prove your point also, wopuldn't it?

― dave q, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Anthony, I love the idea of you as an art history pendant.

Godde ss of Willendorf

This page is pretty dismissive of my above rampant speculation. I didn't mean to imply any sort of evolution, was just thinking about how power dynamics could work. Take what I said in this spirit.

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ack! The spirit of Hanle y has possessed my link!

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Also, in regard to dave's point about western control techniques being more about greed than religion: it's true w. culture emphasizes individuation, so could it be that the subjugation of women is an attempt to regain a sense of the self-control that's lost when one is consumed by sexual desire in an already isolating and fragmented society?

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

either that or because bitches always talk shit.

― ethan, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ethan, was that an unfunny attempt at immaturity, or an immature attempt at being unfunny?

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Subjugation-by-culture does require a certain amount of complicity, though, or is everybody helpless?

― dave q, Tuesday, 4 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

six years pass...

Japanese people don't eat toast for breakfast. Fucking heathen savages.

― King Boy Pato, Monday, 14 April 2008 12:04 (seventeen years ago)

Methinks thou makest an excellent pointe.

how did 'OTM' ever get a look in?

― darraghmac, Monday, 14 April 2008 12:16 (seventeen years ago)

Dumbing down!

― King Boy Pato, Monday, 14 April 2008 12:25 (seventeen years ago)

MTMaEP

― The Reverend, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 07:33 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.searchlyrics.org/yellow_magic_orchestra/pure_jam.html

― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 07:35 (seventeen years ago)

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