It's a practice in some Muslim countries as well as some countries in Africa in which they cut some parts of the women's genitals which results in low sexual desires and other problems. It's a barbaric and painful act and it should be abolished but it isn't.
Either he's referring to gender reassignment surgery, or more likely an actual form of "circucision" performed on females in certain countries. Gotta say it doesn't sound great.
Edit: What that guy said ^
@asteroid and @mykulweevur Holy shit. I’m an Indonesian Muslim, so I have the capacity to tell you that they’re still doing that here, and I know for sure that it’s not a Muslim thingy. It’s more like a heavily-pagan-influenced culture that some old people still force their descendants to practice. I agree with Mr. Cleese, that shit is barbaric as fuck!
Specifically, the remove the clitoris. In some practices they also sew the labia closed so no only is sex not especially good, it’s downright painful. Oh and they wait until the girl is 13, so she’s fully aware of the horror.
@tanuki86 yeah it's not a Muslim thing per se because I haven't seen it referenced in any Muslim books or laws I have read, but it is as I said seen in some African and Muslim countries
From Wikipedia: Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), is practised in 30 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa,[1] in parts of the Middle East[2][3] and Asia,[4][5] and within some immigrant communities in Europe, North America and Australia.[1][6] The WHO defines the practice as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."[7]
The practice is most prevalent in parts of Africa but can be found elsewhere. There is nothing specifically or intrinsically Muslim about it. Also- in America and Europe vaginoplasty to reduce the size or modify the mons pubis or labia minora and majora are practiced- which while elective and not quite as horrific is still a form of genital mutilation which is part of western cultures attitude about women and feminine beauty. So there’s plenty of examples of female genital litigation of various sorts to go around as far as who participates in such practices.
While I get where he’s coming from- it’s an important distinction that it isn’t a culture one prefers in the example, but an ASPECT of a culture. One might like the way a culture values family, but not like that cultures treatment of women- or one might like how organized a culture is but not how restrictive- or like a cultures views on morality but dislike the way they hang toilet paper- whatever. The point is, when generally do not “dislike a culture” as cultures comprise many aspects and often share many things in common that we DO like. Every culture has its questionable elements- especially relative to another cultural viewpoint- we can condemn an aspect or an act and hold those responsible accountable accordingly without condemning a whole culture for it.
That sounds wishy-washy. Why can you not dislike it as whole because of some part of it? If an otherwise luxurious car doesn't have wheels, it's a bad car overall, is it not?
I can kind of understand where guest_ has gone, but by the same token I simply disagree. If the culture itself demands that the practitioners tolerate and/or encourage a condemnable action, then one may denounce the culture for its responsibility in continuing said action. This, by no means, is to say that the culture in question has zero worth or is completely without its own moral code. However, by condoning the action and allowing it to persist despite its danger to the health of the human subjected to the action, the culture becomes responsible for the maiming of the very people who practice the culture. It no longer becomes an issue about the individual or the idea that perhaps the people are confused. It is a social norm, and thus is a part of the culture of the general population in that area. When that population can be said to be a part of that culture which holds a condemnable action, can we not hold the culture responsible for the crime of harm/mutilation of a human...
...body? It is simply precarious of one to continue to persist in trying to seek redemption for a body when the body itself is actively encouraging and enforcing the participation of one or more incredibly dangerous or scarring activities that prove to provide significant harm.
@garlog- faulty logic. The presence or absence of wheels doesn’t change quality of design or other features of the car. You just need to add some wheels and that’s it. A better example might be a restaurant. There is an hour wait for a table but the food and service everything else is amazing. Is it a terrible restaurant because we don’t want to wait an hour for food? Would you say “never go here. It’s amazing but this one detail...” or is it more likely you shouldn’t go there in a hurry but the rest of the time it’s fine?
@guest- your reply condemns every person on earth as unsalvageable. American culture is a perfect example of cultural traditions towards oppression or violence, the glorification of violence, and objectification of certain people’s. So then- are America and the American people unsalvageable because of that? We’re the people of Russia unsalvageable because of Soviet cultural relics? Elements of that culture shifted, Germany did its best to purge itself of the nationalistic and xenophobic elements that were prevalent in the culture of the early 20th century and so can we say that Sherman culture itself is bad because at some point it contained these elements?
It’s a rather simplistic analysis to reduce a culture to “good” or “bad” in its entirety based on the practices of a period and on only those elements we cherry pick. We can also cherry pick only the good elements as well. There’s no culture on earth which holds no negative aspects. That doesn’t mean we shrug and say “it’s ok... that’s their culture...” We can effect cultural changes to the elements of a culture that are negative without destroying a culture as a whole. We don’t have to condone these things and we can certainly say “there is good here, but I do not want to be associated with this thing so long as they continue this element of their culture...”
If we distill it down to a microcosm at the individual example- take an artist like Dr. Sues- who allegedly didn’t care for children, who cheated on his wife and if it didn’t cause her suicide, it hurt her enough that it got top billing in her suicide note. So- is Dr. Sues “bad” or “good?” Is Gandhi bad or good because of his humanitarian work but classism and belief that blacks were less than and shouldn’t have the rights of Indians? Are those who hold to Gandhi’s philosophies or hold him as a role model also bad because of that?
Or are you saying that the “preference” in cutoff isn’t a preference of right and wrong but a preference to what type of wrong we find more palatable? To say that it isn’t racism that makes a hate group “bad” but that it’s the fact that we would prefer a group that hated someone else? Because everyone is dirty, every culture has its dirt, everything has its dirt. Are we to universally condemn every person and every organization because we are all flawed? And what teeth, what weight does that condemnation have if at the end of the day we just shrug and say “yeah, I mean- I condemn this but myself am still culpable in wrong doing...” then do we condemn ourselves for a culture of complicitness?
What you’re saying is that prejudice has justification @guest. That we can look at a group with a shared culture and label them all “savages” or “animals” and dismiss the collective achievements and goods of a group because of their wrongs. What you’re saying is that when a house needs new paint or new plumbing we should tear that house down and build it up from the foundations. So I cannot agree with you either- because when a patient has cancer we treat the cancer, when cancer is in the lungs and hasn’t spread we don’t remove the heart or throw them on a table to die because their “body is bad.” We educate doctors so they don’t just look at a patient and say “yup. Bad body. Start over...”
I was imagining that the car was designed without wheels, not simply missing them.
Would it be wrong for someone to dislike a restaurant because it was slow?
It wouldn’t be wrong to dislike a restaurant because the service is slow- but it wouldn’t be fair to label it as a bad restaurant. As for the car example- the design argument essentially assumes that aspect can’t realistically be corrected. So applied to culture that would in essence be saying that change wasn’t possible or feasible- but cultures do change and adapt. If enough people tell the car maker- “I really like this, this, and this thing about your car- but the fact it has no wheels just isn’t acceptable to me....” the next model year you might see a change.
But people do work a little different than cars do. In a bubble, people tend to stick to what they know. Without being exposed to new and different thought, without old ideas being challenged, change tends to be very slow or not at all. A person isn’t a car, they aren’t something we buy and trade as a practical appliance or a “toy” because it interests us, and discard as it suits us. What’s more- our own culture suffers because all cultures have beauty and grime including ours, all ideas need challenged and infused with new thought and perspective, even ours. So while we may not want to incorporate the negatives of other cultures- we also don’t want to lose all the positives they offer.
American culture itself is a merging of elements of language and culture from all sorts of sources both historically “good” and “bad.” We try and take the best of what there is offered and separate it from the worst in our opinion. We disliked elements of British culture of governance so we chopped those parts out, but kept many conventions and laws. We also didn’t simply write the British off either. We continued to be diplomatic and eventually close allies, all the while while they borrowed culture from us and we did the same from them right into 2019. Culture isn’t “take it or leave it...” it’s a push and pull because as much as there are local cultures and subcultures there is also a global culture created by all of us too.
Alright I'll make a rare exception and respond to one of your tl;drs.
What's the effective difference between disliking something and labeling it as bad?
As for everything else, I think you're wrong that my argument assumes that they can't be corrected. A particular model of car that is bad is still bad even if the model that comes after it is good.
@garlog- yes. As I say- a car is a bad example because there is no next model of society- it’s a continual evolution. The closest that relates in “car” terms is where a model line like “Camaro” is carried over decades- and judging all Camaros from 1966-2019 based on the “iron duke” Camaro. As to disliking and the comparison- again- it’s a difference of the whole or the part. I will give you three real world examples.
1. I hired a guy once who sucked badly. They wanted to fire him. I said don’t do it. Watching the kid work I realized he was terrible with data but great with people. He was moved to sales and became a very good asset in that role. He wasn’t a bad employee even if I didn’t like the way he did the job- a little change was all that was needed for him to be a great asset.
2. I hired another guy who literally couldn’t use a computer and was sloppy with details but great at everything else. They also wanted to fire him. I taught him how to use the system and rode him to watch the details and he became great at that job- eventually replaced me when I left.
3. If a place makes great chicken sandwiches and terrible burgers- you don’t go there for burgers but you do go there for chicken sandwiches. One place has the fries you like and the other has the better milkshakes- etc etc. Those are aspects of a menu but not representative of the whole. If you like beef more than chicken you’ll go to the burger place more yeah- but when it comes to chicken you’ll prefer the other. This is the basic idea- that a preferences for an aspect of a thing doesn’t equate to a summary judgment on the whole. Cultures aren’t burgers or cats of course. They’re people and far more complex and worthy of being given a fair shake.
A preference is a preference. It doesn't have to be particularly logical, you can dislike a restaurant because it smells weird to you. And the complexity of it doesn't make a difference.
That doesn't change because you can make up stories about finding the good in people.
Oh my god, it's not that complicated. Nobody is saying their culture is completely evil. They just have some traditions that must be stopped. And we can't stop them through bombing them. It can be stopped through education and cultural communication. That's why I always say feminists in the US and UK concentrate on bs instead of doing something about this and similar issues. The government doesn't mutilate girls, the families do because of their ignorance and false traditions. There is no need for fighting each other in the comments. Anyone who wants to help can go and find an NGO online which specializes in this matter and help them financially or otherwise. It's that simple
@garlog-understanding the aspects of a thing we like and do not like, and why; is not just a key to understanding and evaluating ourselves, but in finding common ground with others. As @asteroid says so well- the issues within cultures often don’t stem directly from a single source of authority, but from a combination of factors. As I said earlier in this thread, if we are to make good in this world we need to find what values and positives we agree with others on and connect through those, work through those to make positive changes on the things we disagree on.
A “culture” is such an all encompassing thing that isn’t its own entity- it both guides the thoughts and actions of people as well as is created by the thoughts and actions of people. What we think, say, do- is a circle with each creating the other and being created by the other. When we say we prefer one culture to another we are in essence saying that we prefer one group of people to another. It’s not so different than saying we prefer one race to another as such a large grouping as even a single culture is made up of so many people and so many interpretations of that culture and ways of executing that culture.
That is the key importance of distinguishing a discreet aspect from a generality. It’s a given that we tend to be most comfortable with that which is most familiar to us. Issues of prejudice begin within an individual and have as much or more to do with how that person views the world and the terms they think of things in. If we think in such generalities without questioning our own thought processes, without self awareness- the natural byproduct becomes discrimination. We will naturally discriminate towards that we prefer unconsciously in all things. Prejudice can’t be wished away or even legislated away- it starts and ends in the minds of individuals.
Stop trying to act like you can't define a culture to the point of understanding it enough to make a judgement based off of part of it.
That appears to be the crux of your argument and it's obviously bullshit.
You “can” do anything you like. There are consequences of course, and some things are generally more evolved than others- but again, it is our choice if we prefer to remain in the swamp or want to crawl out onto land. Time moves wether we do or not, but the individual drop doesn’t need to understand the tides of the ocean of it doesn’t care where it ends up.
I guess I have to. Your scathing wit has bested me. As I said- it’s a personal choice wether we want to stay in the swamp or walk on land and you’ve obviously made yours. We don’t have to like other people’s choices but I have to respect your right to choose for yourself who you want to be. Although I would ask that you might show a touch more respect in your debate over ideas, it would have been rather easy to throw profanity or insults back at you- but at least in this case I’ve chosen to show you common respect despite your lack of it. See? I may not like certain negative aspects of your person or conduct, but I haven’t let it devalue you as an entity because of these aspects.
Edit: What that guy said ^
I’d join you tho and also crusade against male genital mutilation
Would it be wrong for someone to dislike a restaurant because it was slow?
What's the effective difference between disliking something and labeling it as bad?
As for everything else, I think you're wrong that my argument assumes that they can't be corrected. A particular model of car that is bad is still bad even if the model that comes after it is good.
Ride to Hell is a bad game.
2. I hired another guy who literally couldn’t use a computer and was sloppy with details but great at everything else. They also wanted to fire him. I taught him how to use the system and rode him to watch the details and he became great at that job- eventually replaced me when I left.
That doesn't change because you can make up stories about finding the good in people.
That appears to be the crux of your argument and it's obviously bullshit.