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Comment by claudiawerner | Hacker News Reader

>It's their country. You don't get to feel "bullied" for them not wanting foreigners there.

Why shouldn't I? You don't get to dictate how I "get" to feel. The very idea of racism and xenophobia is fundamentally offensive to me. As with the Amazon native population, I would not approve if they didn't let me in by virtue of some immutable attribute of mine such as my appearance.

So long as you make an effort to learn someone's culture, I don't think there's any justifictaion to exclude someone on the basis of the brute facts of their body or upbringing. Actions ought to matter far more.

I'm not aware of any moral theory that has been justified in academia or elsewhere which prescribes that such discrimination is permissible. This also is evidenced by the fact that many Japanese people claim to abhor racism while simultaneously practicing it against sections of their own population and other populations.

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>Why shouldn't I? You don't get to dictate how I "get" to feel.

No, but logic and society and experiences gets to dictate (even if in a slightly fuzzy what) what makes sense to feel.

Otherwise, feelings are like a*holes. Everybody has one.

>So long as you make an effort to learn someone's culture, I don't think there's any justifictaion to exclude someone on the basis of the brute facts of their body or upbringing. Actions ought to matter far more.

They don't want people merely having "made an effort to learn their culture" to immigrate in their country in any great numbers. They prefer people having grown into their culture - that is, their own people.

It's through this organic process (as opposed to some bro watching anime and watching documentaries about sushi and samurai swords who feels they've "made an effort to learn the culture") that they preserve their culture, their social cohesion, their customs, their safety, and other such aspects.

>as opposed to some bro watching anime and watching documentaries about sushi and samurai swords who feels they've "made an effort to learn the culture"

You've used this strawman previously in this thread; perhaps it would be better if you elucidated what elements of culture you're actually referring to.

>They don't want people merely having "made an effort to learn their culture" to immigrate in their country in any great numbers.

Who is "they"? I feel like you're ascribing very specific opinions to people who I suspect would be perfectly happy with law-abiding immigrants who don't hold parties at 3 a.m.

>They prefer people having grown into their culture - that is, their own people.

Is this even true? And to what degree? For example, there are cases of non-ethnically Japanese people who were born and raised in Japan, but still face challenges with discrimination, whereas immigrants of Japanese ancestry from America only seem to face issues with language. There's even a politician who immigrated to Japan and was elected by Japanese people: https://www.japan-zone.com/modern/tsurunen_marutei.shtml - in what way was someone who grew up in Japan preferred?

You may argue that these are minor examples and exceptions, but even one example is enough to show that these feelings are not based on logic or probability, but on mere gut feeling when one encounters someone different.

Cultural assimilation can happen to varying degrees and varying time frames with mixed results; the degree to which it is successful is also dependent on how accomodating or welcoming that particular culture is.

Maybe you should ask the Native American tribes who died of smallpox what “scientific” basis there is for being afraid of foreigners?

I know you are going to say that’s not the case in the modern world, but you need to at least understand there are very concrete reasons why xenophobia evolved, and why it’s a natural reaction. Some might not be relevant in the modern world, but I’d argue there’s a lot of complexity that we might not understand.

For example, there are some extremely intolerant immigrants to Europe right now, 100% of whom in London polled as wanting homosexuality criminalised.

Should everyone be 100% accepting of this because they are foreigners? Is xenophobia justified in this case in your opinion?

Xenophobia is a fear or distrust of foreigners. You can accept, and work to integrate, foreigners into your society while rejecting bad ideas. That’s the basis of modern multicultural democracies.

Xenophobia is a content-less word, made to be sounding like a medical condition, to justify bossing people around based on what they want or do not want in their country.

It is, of course, a white invention, as we feel morally superior enough to do all the bossing around. Let's call it the "white man's burden" to show those people how it should be done.

Can you think of any examples in history where people exerting “what they want or do not want in their country” had a negative result?

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