Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by lzooz | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

lzooz

You are free to live somewhere else then. I don't like the rules of Saudi Arabia so I don't live there.

View on HN

You have such choice. Some 17 million Saudi women don't.

Not everything is the West's problem.

It’s not about east vs west. It’s about basic human rights.

Conception of which is purely western category of thought.

You would suddenly have a very clear and unyielding perspective on human rights if someone tried to take yours away.

Even if that was true (it isn't) it doesn't establish them as a real thing or as something that's not a western category of thought.

> Even if that was true (it isn't)

So if your nation suddenly declared that men were (for example) required to cover their faces at all times and stay indoors unless escorted by a woman, you'd respect that cultural point of view and not protest?

If you're going to say that that's not a matter of violating your "human rights," but just the rights that you think people should have, please explain how those are different things.

To argue for something politically I am not mentally tied to that concept (obvious problem is how human rights were introduced in the first place if there was no conception of human rights), for example looking at the morality (which is not synonymous with notion of rights), the practicality or utility of a given problem or just plain personal preference.

I believe that in the end any "right" is just a privilege, there's nothing that makes them 'happen' by themselves. Surely enough, you can strip every "human right" away even if they're declared to be inalienable and before modern times, there were plenty of regimes that violated them. If they exists as something independent of western conceptions of thought, how come they were not a thing until now? The history is much longer than the 200 or so years that they have existed in our minds.

Do you perhaps have some method by which you discover new human rights?

You didn't answer my question.

> Do you perhaps have some method by which you discover new human rights?

How does anyone "discover" moral principles? Every society has had some idea of how humans should be treated.

If the question you wanted me to answer was about the scarfs, though I do think I answered indirectly (by denying that any objection to it has to be on the grounds of human rights), I would of course object. And would use whatever privileges I had to change the law. If we could do protests, I would participate etc.

But I will not think that those in power are wrong because of 'human rights violation' or will take action because of that abstract notion (in all honestly I doubt anyone does, to quote Schmitt "Whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat"). I would likely think of it as something evil, that is not fit for my dignity and because it'd be forced without clear reason, I'd see it as an attack, on me, on my family and on my culture as a whole.

> How does anyone "discover" moral principles?

Surely someone must discover or at least be able to create new ones, as with the passage of time the number of (human rights grow)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_generations_of_human_rig...].

I'm not quite sure how you'd actually discover new principles, rather, one would apply old principles to new situations.

Thus Christianity sees porn as evil, partly due to theology and partly because of Jesus statements on adultery (committing adultery in ones heart etc) - the morality didn't change per se (no new principles were introduced), but was further developed.

You have about 150 years of history to catch up on. Sure, human rights was founded in western culture, but has been adopted across the world since.

In a sense it's true, the western way of thinking is being exported and is dominating 'foreign' patterns of thought, subjugating cultures to one dominant, economizing mode of being.

Sometimes I have to travel through those countries. E.g. my employer demands that I take the cheapest flight to attend a conference.

> my employer demands that I take the cheapest flight to attend a conference.

WTF!

Several of my employees bowl from the pavilion end. Is utterly unthinkable to insist on them transiting through a territory so hostile to their very existence in order to save a few quid on expenses.

Your post is mind boggling to me. Is this how you expect to be treated as an employee?

Well, it's more of a question about what you're willing to make a fuss about.

What does that mean?

bowl from the pavilion end is euphemistic slang (chiefly British) for a gay man. It comes from cricket - the “pavilion end” is one end of the cricket ground.

Would you like me to draw a map for you?

Are you, though? Until very recently, women couldn't even leave Saudi Arabia without their (male) guardian's approval.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com