The point I’m making is that what’s barbaric to you and I is not barbaric in another society and vice-versa. The American culture of kicking your children out of home the day they turn 18 is more barbaric to some than the death penalty, as is a child choosing not to contribute to their family.
Many citizens of Singapore are very happy as citizens of Singapore, many of them look at the west as barbaric: the crime ridden cities of the U.S, the poverty, the abject failure of western governments to protect their citizens despite very high tax rates… if killing a few criminals is the price to pay to live in a comparable utopia, so be it? What’s barbaric about a caning? The U.S. sentences people to death!
I am from the west (despite your assertion, I live in a Muslim country) and believe in very western ideals, I believe in freedom for the individual, it’s deeply ingrained in me, however, my non-academic experience has shown me that this is not a universal truth. Many cultures do not care for the individual, they care for the family, a group of people bound by blood to be one part of the whole. Many cultures believe that sacrificing oneself for the family is noble and right and that to be an individual is to be barbaric.
Once you accept that individual freedom is a western ideal, and not fundamental to the human condition, it becomes much easier to understand that other cultures are fundamentally different.
Many citizens of Singapore are very happy as citizens of Singapore, many of them look at the west as barbaric: the crime ridden cities of the U.S, the poverty, the abject failure of western governments to protect their citizens despite very high tax rates… if killing a few criminals is the price to pay to live in a comparable utopia, so be it? What’s barbaric about a caning? The U.S. sentences people to death!
I am from the west (despite your assertion, I live in a Muslim country) and believe in very western ideals, I believe in freedom for the individual, it’s deeply ingrained in me, however, my non-academic experience has shown me that this is not a universal truth. Many cultures do not care for the individual, they care for the family, a group of people bound by blood to be one part of the whole. Many cultures believe that sacrificing oneself for the family is noble and right and that to be an individual is to be barbaric.
Once you accept that individual freedom is a western ideal, and not fundamental to the human condition, it becomes much easier to understand that other cultures are fundamentally different.