I came across an extract of his book, Lala Lajpat Rai (1865 - 1928), an indian political leader writes on the Hindu-Muslim problem:
“If we really honestly want a United India, we, i.e the different religious communities in this country, shall have to make a clear distinction between essentials and non-essentials in religion. Full religious freedom does not mean or imply full and unfettered liberty in the matter of observance and practices which affect the just rights of other communities or otherwise injure their feelings.The assertion of such a right, either individual or communal, and the belief that the British Government will enforce the practice of such a right, has done a great deal of mischief in India. Take, for example, the case of the Nort-west Province. In a village where the population is 99 percent Muhammadan and only 1 percent Hindu, the assertion by a Hindu of his right to carry his idol in procession along the streets of the village where many mosques are situated, would be an extremely foolish act. The assertion of the right of sacrificing a cow by a Muslim in a place like Ajudhia, Mathura, Bindraban or Hardwar would be of the same nature. Unhappily the British rule has encouraged both Hindus and Muhammadans to assert such rights and to fight if they are denied.”
While the writer here emphasizes on what you call, ‘protecting religious minorities’ in a country ( which is a rule enshrined in many international conventions by now), there is a clear conflict with the ‘rationality’ of this practice, as highlighted above. So what do we do? Which stance do we take?
Moreover, he makes a distinction in the first line into what is “essential” and “non essential” in a religion. Is such a distinction feasible? Wouldn’t there be bitter conflicts over such a distinction even if a panel of judges were set up to decide on the issue?
That’s the strength of virtue ethics vs. absolutist ethics. In any ethical system, there will be inconsistancies and weakness, it is about making an informed call. That’s where the essential vs. non-essential come into play. If I need to get my idol from point A to point B in an area inhabited by those that revile idolatry, then I’d better cover it up. This is basic modesty. Do I have the right to carry that idol, uncovered? Well, legally, yes. . . but without modesty and an understanding of the purpose of law, the legality of the issue can and will break down into mob/tyranny of the majority format.
Laws and rights are useful to an extent, but they need to be counter-balanced by individual virtue for them to actually function.
True…But what bothers me is that in the process of modesty and humility in covering that idol up, you are slowly paving the way to suppressing the voices and thus, identity of minority groups. That’s exactly what is happening to various collectivities in the world, including indigenous/First World people who are slowly retiring into oblivion because they have to ‘cover up’ because the majority un-indigenous people are taking over. Is this right? Should we ‘acculuturate’ them and force them to be assimilated into the dominant group or should be protect them, their culture, their identity?
That’s exatically why I created the thread “Anyone have a synthesis?”. Because we have two seemingly contradictory ideas, between the tyranny of the majority and cultural homogenization with the idea that without these factors some will inevitably outpace and eventually replace others.
Individual modesty is an important beginning. But this is clearly a more complex issue.
That’s exatically why I created the thread “Anyone have a synthesis?”. Because we have two seemingly contradictory ideas, between the tyranny of the majority and cultural homogenization with the idea that without these factors some will inevitably outpace and eventually replace others.
Individual modesty is an important beginning. But this is clearly a more complex issue.
When the right of a group to have it’s way with a culture supercedes the right of an individual to live his life how he chooses apart from physically harming his neighbor, it is inevitable that the question “which group?” must be answered.
“Tolerance”, meaning that every individual in society must not offend every other group in society would lead to a society where being offended, aggreived, and very pushy about it becomes power over your neighbor. This type of “tolerance”, where “rudeness” to a favored group (remember, not every group can possibly have its way, this is impossible) is criminal is actually the polar opposite of a truly tolerant society. Ayn Rand may have been over the top, but one of my favorite concepts from her is that when the “rights” of the group supercede the actual rights of the individual, the only possible manifestation of this is that the “rights” of some individuals are placed over the rights of others.
Tolerance in the sense that free societies originally meant it means, above all, a tolerance for offense. All the way up to the point of something being physically harmful. It means developing a thick skin and learning to live with your rude blasphemous neighbors, under the moral contract that they will live with you and you both will allow each other to and defend each others’ right to live as he or she pleases.
(Actually, if you go back to the word to tolerate, this implies that you are putting up with something unpleasant, not that everything is all deference and respect for anybody)
Ahhh, but you see, it is through deference that society functions. Respect for another individual involves putting up with unpleasantness by subsuming the self. Everybody can’t get their way and a society that believes that some ought get their way, or simply that the path of the individual is the best will inevitably get into trouble. As soon as a precident exists that I can get my way, I will want it again and again, that is human nature. Far better to bend individual desires to fit the needs of society than the other way 'round.
I don’t think so. It is through cooperation that society functions. It is through learning how to tolerate your neighbor that society can cohere.
It is through ‘deference’ that privelidged classes arise.
The only thing necessary for a truly liberal society is the mutual agreement to tolerate each other. You don’t have to like each other. You don’t have to be nice to each other. You just need to all agree to tolerate each other (to not use force to force your values on them). The most liberal societies in history have always been reviled for being the most irreverant and vulgar societies.
When you must defer, submit, or otherwise be forced to respect a group, that group quickly becomes “society” and those who offend it suddenly have no right to be “tolerated”.
Just my two cents. I think the orwellian games being played with “tolerance” are just awful.
MRM, you stated that the right of the group supersedes the right of the individual. That’s a legitimate statement if you recognize the value of preserving the identity of groups and it works in so far as that is concerned. But it’s not all so simple:
Think about this: what if you have a particlar minority culture that practices certain rites, central to its identity, that clearly violate individual human rights. For example what about male circumcision, widow burning, infanticide, that’s so important in certain minority and indigenous cultures. Should we fight to preserve the identity of these groups claiming that they contribute to our world’s cultural diversity, or should we acculturate and assimilate them into the dominant society and label their practices ‘backward’?
Clearly there is a conflict between safeguarding group rights (protecting collectivities) and individual rights ( ending ‘backward’ practices). So can we legitimately claim one supersedes the other?
Nope. My position was the polar opposite. If I stated as much, it must have been in satire or sarcasm. Ah. I think it was my opening statement. I was pointing out the contradiction inherent in group rights over individual rights and how the modern definition of “tolerance” actually leads to an intolerant society dominated by hostile tribes, or an elite class of “unprovokables”.
I believe that if a society can be free, the rights of it’s individual members must be upheld over the so called rights of any subgroups within it. That is, your right to practice your religion stops when you start burning my property and killing my family. My right to ridicule your religion stops when I’m destroying your church and killing your congregation. Up until this point, we live with each other, trade with each other, argue with each other, elbow each other, and mock each other. We do not impose our will on each other through force. It is only in this way that tolerance and freedom can have coherence.
But if and when people do begin to coerce, kill, and destroy, they need to be punished - individually.
The widow burning and infanticide cannot be allowed in a society that respects an individual’s right to life (that is, unless the widow consents to it, shudder). This supercedes a cultural practice.
Groups have no rights. There is no more reality to a group than the consentual association of certain individuals in a free society. Individuals have the right to decide which groups they want to be members of, and which group they want to ridicule. The moment a group starts to have special legal status over the individuals within or without it, it becomes a seperate society. A tribe. An organization that subverts the society which harbors it and unfairly “speaks for” its members, as well as violates their rights as individuals.
Just an example to drive home my point that groups do not have rights, the individuals within them do.
The church of Jim Bob is not a person. The church does not have the right to lock it’s members in a church run prison against their will. It cannot vote for it’s members or speak for them in court. It has no legal rights over them in a free society. If a JimBobbian were to speak out against the church, it would not be a violation of any rights of the church. There are none. If he refused being ritually sacrificed by Bob on Friday, the church cannot claim him as property.
If all the members suddenly decided to leave the church one day, the “death of the authentic JimBobbian culture” would merely be an exercize in the constituent’s right to freely associate, or not. The church cannot hold them hostage or penalize them for apostasy.
It does not have the right to be “respected” equally, or for that matter at all. In fact, individuals don’t have the right to respect. Respect, other than observance of individual rights, is something that cannot be coerced in a free society.
Yes, individual have rights but so do groups: for example, the right to existence ( not 'right to life, which is an INDIVIDUAL right) is given to a parrticular genos ( greek for ‘race’) by virtue of the Genocide Convention. The right to be protected from genocide can only be asserted if a group having a particular genos is identified. Hence a group can assert the right to be protected from eventual extermination.
Nope. The right of a group to exist is essentially a violation of it’s members right to leave. See the above post. Suppose all the people in a country decide to adopt a different culture one day. That is an exercize of their freedom to decide their own lifestyles. The “traditional culture’s right to exist” has become a denial of the individual’s right to leave it and practice a culture of their choosing.
Genocide is a violation of individual rights in massive numbers, not a violation of a group. This is why “cultural genocide” is a farcical misuse of the term to villify the attractiveness of another culture, while actual genocide is a crime against humanity.
If someone wants to assert the right of protection against genocide, shouldn’t any person have the right to assert protection against state sanctioned murder? Why is one more important than the other? If a group of racially heterogenous people were being brutally slaughtered by a racially homogenous genos (actually this happens quite a bit!), then doesn’t this qualify as just as hideous a crime?
The intention of the murderer in both cases differs: in the case of a normal murder of an individual, the intention is directed towards other causes than his race ( more often than not) while a crime to wipe out a whole race ( as in the case of the Holocaust) is of a different nature completely. The latter calls for international attention, whereby the crime has a greater impression on the minds of people. Thats why there are two different definitions.
As for your point about suppressing cultures that practice rites that violate individual human rights, that’s in fact an argument furthered by those who claim taht collective rights don’t exist, and focus should only be on individual rights. So, if this is the case, then wipe out whatever the majority, dominant group considers to be a violation of human rights. That would necessarily imply exterminating or assimilating other cultures and religions. Now, I don’t think that’s truly possible…
Since the individual rights you mention are all fallout from the European Enlightenment, should we allow Enlightened Culture to dominate every other one? Those values are far from Universal. A individual only exists insofar as the matrix that they exist in. If you place a man on an island, away from the contact of other humans, they go mad. Why? Because isolation is not a natural state for humanity. To isolate a man is to rob them of their humanity. How can the rights of the individual be of greatest importance when the individual is merely an echo of their culture?
I suspect that one would have to differentiate between culturally upheld universal individual rights, and individual rights within a group. Since groups are a collective of individual entities, it becomes a transactional exchange, first between individuals, then groupings of ever increasing size. In the transactional side of things it becomes a question of the compromises agreed to. I think the real issue is the justification of coerced compromise. And who would like to be the judge of that?
Tent,
Ahhhh, but what is the atomic unit of humanity? If you break down what makes us human to its most fundamental, how far down can you go and still have a human being? I would argue that you need at least two, since an isolated human is merely a primate of no significant value. Just as an atom requires protons and electrons, so too does humanity require individuals, but to place undue emphasis on those mere individuals is missing the point. Groups aren’t a collective of individual entities, the individual is a reflection of the group.
And the group is a reflection of the individuals. Perhaps we are looking at two sides of the same coin? I still maintain that it is the transactions, the acquiessence of individuals to the group in exchange for ‘group membership’ that determines “rights”. The issue still remains whether the transactions are freely entered into, or coerced.
Tent,
Out of curiosity what are your feelings on memes? While I think we are looking at two sides of the same coin, I think that we are also both claiming that our side of the coin is the real coin. The elephant isn’t a snake, it’s a wall!!
You say that the group is a reflection of the individuals, but how often is that true? Most groups I see have one major nexus personality and a bunch of hangers-on whose will is more-or-less subsumed by the primary figure. At the same time, that primary figure is pretty much a caricature of the group ideal. It is a trend observable in any gather of humans, from profession to social cliques to nations.
I think that our disagreement stems from my belief that the group came first and the individual identities were formed around it. My immune system affects the totality of my group being, in so far that illness impedes any activities that I might persue and that certain signaling molecules released might alter my mental state, but how much impact does my health have on my psyche? The individual is the same way where, from time to time, it can apply a pressure on the group and shift it in one direction or the other, but these are merely side-effects. That is, unless the individual gains enough momentum to destroy the group. But even then, the power to disrupt and to destroy hardly counts as power in a meaningful sense.
Much of what you say is true in many settings, but individual or group, the mechanics are the same, and that was my emphasis. It is the transactions and the compromises that are important. There are so many possible variations in group dynamics, in almost infinite contexts, that to generalize is to invite failed analysis. It is a case where the broth is a little too complex to name the soup. We can generalize, but should do so with an eye to being surprised. The continual squabbles we witness in theory and on-the-ground practice in most cultures are suggestive of the evolving nature of social organization.
Memes are a strong part of group formation, both in requirements for inclusion in the group as well as the content of group ideology and activity. Even here, there is much controversy as to how much memes play in group dynamics. It is a fascinating area of study, but I have found little evidence that allows any meaningful generalization.