Hacker News Reader

Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a person who usually weighs into these sort of debates, but I want to address something with you.

Your entire post is based on the premise that each culture's practices are all valid within the culture that they are practised within. This is demonstrably false. The fact that Russians support each other via a traditional heterosexual family unit does not in any way mean that someone who is gay should be discriminated against.

The whole premise of your argument is that gays cannot retire with children, so they will be a burden upon the state. That's absurd. What about those who are childless? Or remain single all their lives? Or lose a spouse early and never have children? Seems to me that such systems do not "work and work out well for everyone".

View on HN

Your premise that Western culture's social norms are absolute and universal is far more dangerous than OP's idea of having each culture define its own practices. The West has a genocidal history of bringing "civilization" to other cultures that resulted in their decimation. I fear that colonial imperialism justified by "white man's burden" is being replaced with "human rights imperialism" where the Western dogma of human rights justifies invasion or manipulation of countries out of favor with the West. Case in point http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6f3rHZV5JQ discussion of US State Dept. Ambassador to Ukraine on how to install US chosen puppets in Ukraine.

Your premise that Western culture's social norms are absolute and universal is far more dangerous than OP's idea of having each culture define its own practices.

Yeah, I'm not.

I think the fundamental problem is that "human rights" don't really have a solid epistemology behind them, i.e. there is no real theory that allows one to objectively argue whether or not something is a human right. This means, effectively, that they become avenues to convert the world to one way of life.

The problem though is that solutions to social problems aren't free and what sorts of solutions the US can afford (and at what long-term cost!) are very different than what could be afforded in a place like Indonesia.

When I came to Indonesia it took me a long time to understand how things work here, and how much my preconceptions of what was socially good or bad got in the way. For example, police corruption is a functional part of society and it is politically constrained by prosecution. The police may be corrupt routinely in predictable ways that people accept, value, and work into the social order, but if they step out of line and accept bribes that go against the public interest, it's jail time.

Similarly contraception is not widely available to the unmarried. This is a part of the support for a retire-with-the-kids culture. If the unmarried are having sex, they are probably trying for a parental-veto-overriding pregnancy.

Instead of universal human rights, I think most rights are transversal, and apply to a subset of all cultures based on understandable and objective criteria. Abortion as a right is relative to careerism and an economy that cannot handle the realities of family (i.e. Western Capitalism). Same-sex marriage is dependent on independent retirement. So forth.

As for an epistemological basis I would go back to Cicero's statement that there are functional requirements for people to live together in cities. Those functional requirements o course can be met many different ways, but certain patterns have implications, which pose additional social imperatives.

So by the function for civil living together and the functioning of society are how rights are to be known and tested and that's the epistemological basis I would give. I would also add that the CAP Theorem as applied to human communications implies a social imperative to individual and local autonomy.

> Your entire post is based on the premise that each culture's practices are all valid within the culture that they are practised within.

Not really. I will explain below.

> This is demonstrably false.

While I would not necessarily agree with the validity view you said, I don't think it is demonstrably false. Please demonstrate that it is false in a way unbiased by your own cultural assumptions of autonomy.

> The fact that Russians support each other via a traditional heterosexual family unit does not in any way mean that someone who is gay should be discriminated against.

Define discriminated against. Is a retire-with-the-kids culture where parents get to say no to spousal choices (but won't if he's made her pregnant) inherently discriminatory?

> The whole premise of your argument is that gays cannot retire with children, so they will be a burden upon the state.

No. My point was that same-sex couples can't have equality if only opposite-sex couples get a veto override (via "accidental" pregnancy) against parental objections. If equality is the goal, one cannot tolerate a retire with the kids culture because parents have so much power over childrens' choice of marriage partners, and this is inherently greater with regard to same-sex couples.

I don't think you read what I wrote very carefully.

As for the cultural validity piece, as I said, I would come back to it. I don't think it can be demonstrated to be false, because cultures function in different ways to the point where apples to apples comparisons are essentially impossible, and so any comparison comes from assumptions, passed on by culture, which determine the conclusion. But at the same time there are certain problems that can't be easily addressed by a position of pure cultural relativity. In my view, these come in two forms: inter-group disputes and breakdown of institutions.

The first includes things like intercontinental slave trade, Germany gassing Polish Jews, Japan's brutal treatment of various occupied areas in WWII, colonial treatment of Africa and Asia, treatment of Native Americans by the US government, etc. You can't solve an intergroup dispute by assuming that both sides are valid actors, so what one is left with is a political resolution.

The second issue is the question of the breakdown of institutions. If a practice is perfectly valid in a culture, then institutions should be perfect, but they aren't anywhere. I think that critique of cultural institutions from a context sympathetic to the culture is a worthwhile endeavor.

Please demonstrate that it is false in a way unbiased by your own cultural assumptions of autonomy.

Just to make sure you understood me, I'm saying that not all cultural practices can be viewed as intrinsically good within that culture by an outside viewer. I can assure you that the practice of female genital "circumcision" is abhorent regardless of whether you are in the culture or not.

Given that cultures change their morality and practices, it often means that there are cultural practices that are accepted that are abhorent within a culture that are changed at a later time.

Define discriminated against. Is a retire-with-the-kids culture where parents get to say no to spousal choices (but won't if he's made her pregnant) inherently discriminatory?

Well, yes. It means that the person has discriminated against the other. Ergo, that's inherently discriminatory. That's not from a value-judgement, that's definitional.

My point was that same-sex couples can't have equality if only opposite-sex couples get a veto override (via "accidental" pregnancy) against parental objections.

Well, that's royally screwed up in its own right then. But you're right, I don't think I did understand what you were saying. I stand corrected on this point.

I'd just like to end this to say that not all cultural practices are equal. There are some that are fundamentally wrong, and some that are just different, but equally valid. That's really the only point I was making. Discrimination against gays by the state is one of those issues.

> I can assure you that the practice of female genital "circumcision" is abhorent regardless of whether you are in the culture or not.

Your assurances are different from demonstration. I asked for demonstration. If it is so clear that this is objectively true, how would you demonstrate it to someone who fully adopts the culture in question? Until you can do that, I don't think you have demonstrated anything other than "we feel horrified" which is a basic view that "these things are self-evident." The problem though is that what is self-evident depends on culture.

> Well, yes. It means that the person has discriminated against the other. Ergo, that's inherently discriminatory. That's not from a value-judgement, that's definitional.

So now we understand that if discrimination against same-sex couples is a human rights violation and retire-with-the-kids cultures are inherently discriminatory in this respect, then a cultural expectation to retire with family is a violation of human rights, right? This is just Aristotelian logic here. Hence my proposition, that one must choose between an equivalent to social security payments being a human right and access to same-sex marriage not being.

> I'd just like to end this to say that not all cultural practices are equal.

I actually never said they were. I think all cultures are open to critique but I think that critique is most productive (and more likely to be on the mark) when one treats the culture as a whole as a generally good, functional system.

OK. It causes massive damage to a woman's reproductive organs. Not sure how else it should be demonstrated. They'll probably disagree, but now it is they who are wrong, not me.

Not all forms do. The words describe a wide variety of practices. Some are significantly less intrusive than male circumcision, some are far more intrusive.

What you are missing in your demonstration is an understanding of how the practice fits into society, and so why women would be willing to have it done. In at least Sudan it is in part a status symbol and therefore is important for upper class women to do to preserve marriage options. This is particularly true in cases where re-doing the intibation after divorce is important.

I think if one starts at this point, it is easier to say "ok, so this is why you do it. But here are the health implications, so something to think about."

But additionally if you go that route, I think you'd have to be totally up in arms over this: http://www.gynsecondopinion.com/hysterectomy.htm (statistics in how many women get hysterectomies in the US that are medically unnecessary by international standards).

So lets refine this to forced female circumcision. You just changed the playing field there, I see what you did! Are you saying that it's OK in any culture to have it forced upon you against your consent?

> So lets refine this to forced female circumcision.

Is "if you don't get this done, then you will have to marry below your class" forced? If so then no changing of the playing field. If not, then let me pose a different question:

There's an indigenous tribe in Papua New Guinea called the Sambia. The Sambia have as part of their coming of age ceremony for males a required element where they must become men by, well, consuming manliness (and giving tribal elders oral sex). Is this a violation of human rights even if one cannot show harm? I mean we might look at it and say it is not freely consented sexual conduct with a minor....

No. More like "I'm going to catch you, hold you down whilst you struggle, and circumcise you". Please give me an answer to this one. I'm genuinely curious as to what this will be.

Incidentally, that example you give is sexual abuse. It should be stopped.

> No. More like "I'm going to catch you, hold you down whilst you struggle, and circumcise you". Please give me an answer to this one.

It's hard to have any social autonomy without some degree of bodily autonomy. If the line is between catch/hold down and merely exiling those who refuse, I would be fine with such a line. Without social autonomy nothing can get done, so there is a social imperative to individual autonomy subject to social obligations.

Now once one has not avoided a ritual context though, I don't know that I would draw the line at exiting a ritual. Otherwise you have problems with some aboriginal groups which, say, have someone pretending to be a legendary monster hold down young men and extract a tooth as part of a coming of age ceremony. Condemning something like that is in essence to take away aboriginal culture rights on the basis of white man's fiat which strikes me as very dangerous.

So what you are essentially saying is that there are indeed some things that can be said to be unacceptable, even though they are practiced and accepted by a particular culture.

But then the question is, who is responsible to change them and, if the culture at issue is unable to change the problems what can be done to enable them to move things in the direction they collectively desire.

If something is acceptable it still doesn't necessarily mean that the question of who gets to decide what to do about it goes away. I still think that those questions have to rest with people from the culture.

I certainly don't think that a social expectation to retire with the kids falls in that category even if it forecloses an ideal of equality for same-sex couples.

That's an interesting question, and not one that I asked.

just to clue you in on a little known secret, gays don't normally have children. in the traditional heterosexual family unit kind of way that is....

When science works out a way of making this happen, your head is going to explode.

It'll probably be the same time science makes it possible for you to request your unborn baby be ensured to be "not gay".

So there's plusses and minuses to science...

Which will mean that you can request your unborn baby will definitely be gay. His head is still going to explode.

But that would still mean that one would be able to relegate being gay to the status of a birth defect in that case, right?

One of the problems I see here is that debate seems to go between the "Gays are bad people" crowd and the rebuttal of "but they can't help it" with one side calling the other homophobic.

And yet in Western culture, it seems almost certain that men are becoming increasingly less free to express anything that might possibly be interpreted as gay.

I feel like it is the opposite in western culture, express any views which go against the flavour du jour and you are branded a bigot, a homophobe, a xenophobe, .

It's funny. I think we've misordered our ideals. Tolerance, diversity, and freedom have been set up as goals in themselves, but then this means that perceived intolerance (and indeed it is anything perceived as intolerant) towards the wrong groups must not be tolerated, and hence diversity cannot accommodate real cultural or viewpoint diversity. It also means that freedom is more and more regulated, as if there was no real tradeoff between perfect justice and perfect freedom (but anyone who believes that should read Plato's Republic!).

I think, actually, these must be set up in the service of something else. If we have these in the service of self-improvement and learning, then we tolerate and appreciate diversity because we know that we can only learn where there is disagreement, and we respect freedom because without a right to make mistakes there can be no growth.

I keep trying with my partner and we have yet to have kids.

Which branch of science are you in?

I just checked for numbers about this, and I found this interesting study... [1] The full study is here [2]

TL;DR: Around 15-20% of same-sex couples are rising children

[1] http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/press-releases/a...

[2] http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Gat...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com