He makes a very clear distinction between the two - one honor system is based on (external) shame, the other is based on (internal) guilt.
>"His examples are cherry-picked and similar examples exist in the countries he holds up as exemplars. Saudi Arabia viewed cleaning as women's work, sure, just like nearly every country in Europe 100 years ago."
With the difference that things he describes still happen at large in the middle east and Africa, while Europe has moved past them long time ago.
>"He blazes by picking one bad thing that happened in a given culture, offering no further analysis other than to gawk at how much better our culture is, then moves on to an entirely different society where he happens to know one bad thing about them and repeats the process."
He offers multiple examples of why contemporary western/Japanese culture is superior in many sections, most notably "Degradation of Women".
You provided no evidence to counter the fact that the western/Japanese culture offers rights, protections and (equal) opportunities that are far superior to the ones that come with the cultures criticized in the article. You have also labeled and dismissed the author's findings as mere prejudices, despite there being mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Well kinda depends what you define as "long time ago". Speaking for West Germany:
- 1954: Married woman are now allowed to work in public offices.
- 1958: Married woman are now allowed to work as teachers.
- 1958: The husband has no longer the right to single-handedly terminate the employment of his wife. Women still need the permission of their husband to start gainful employment.
- 1962 woman are allowed to have their own bank account.
- 1977: Woman are no longer forced to have a "house wife" marrige. They no longer need a permission by their husbands to start gainful employment.
===
source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenbewegung_in_Deutschland#...
You can see this partly in quotes from Lincoln, in constitutional law of the states (some explicitly reserved the right to leave the union) and the fact that equality before the law was not achieved until hundred years later (assuming the view point that it was achieved at all).
This view results in two things:
1. The confederate flag is not a racist symbol per se (it is used as one though as is the Swastika)
2. The war was just another war about power and money, such as pretty much every other war. Just ask yourself what was the last humanitarian war you witnessed?
Sources:
- Google for "Abraham Lincoln Racist". It is a very much divided topic.
- 2nd paragraph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_...
- There was a fantastic seminar on this topic (with downloadable Audio files) by Walter Block (a Libertarian) but I cant seem to find it.
I'm not sure I get your point about the flag either. Of course, it's not racist per se, it's abstract. But it's almost exclusively flown as a symbol of pride in the confederate institutions that it represents. Those institutions were explicitly racist. As you say, it has direct parallels with the swastika.
> what was the last humanitarian war you witnessed?
And finally, this really doesn't take into account the period. It was not at all unusual, in the mid 19C, for countries to use military action for social aims. Now, I happen to think that an awful lot of it was on behalf of evangelism of "superior" values rather than humanitarianism. This was rife in British establishment thinking at the time and was prevalent in the northern states too.
In other words, I think it's justified to believe that these actions were driven by feelings of moral superiority rather than human equality. But to suggest that they can all be understood as power plays simply doesn't fit the facts.
What is fiction however is that any other issue besides slavery led the South to succeed. Here are the "Declaration of Causes of Succession" made by four of the states.
http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~ras2777/amgov/secession.html
These documents were intended as equivalents to the Declaration of Independence made by the U.S. in which Thomas Jefferson outlined a list of grievances the colonists had with the king. The grievances you'll find in these documents almost exclusively revolve around slavery. The one from Texas contains this little gem.
"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable."
Yes, the war was about white people and their problems with each other but that does not mean the Confederacy was not a horrifyingly evil society. They desired to raise a nation founded on the principal of racist slavery. And people rightly object to being subjected to the symbols of that nation.
Northerners (to also massively oversimplify) didn't really care one way or the other about the moral question of slavery, at least not until fairly late in the war. They were worried about the Union dissolving into a dozen perpetually feuding nation states (like they saw in 19th century Europe) and taking American prosperity and power with it.
Both sides were probably correct. Had the war not occurred, abolition via the political process was eventually inevitable. Demographics weren't on the Confederate side. And had the Confederacy succeeded there's almost certainly no Pax Americana in the 20th century.
The American Civil War was fundamentally about slavery. It was also fundamentally about states rights vs federal power. Specifically, it was about the inherent instability of a specific, geographically coherent region having a slave economy inside a larger nation where slavery was generally illegal and where they would no longer unilaterally held any political veto points. But more fundamentally, why should it be surprising that the people who disagreed strongly enough to shoot at one another didn't cleanly line up about the exact single issue they were fighting about? History's not under any obligation to be simple and coherent.
And since this thread is already Godwined, If you went back and polled the average German circa 1940 on whether their flag was racist, I suspect the vast majority would emphatically insist it was about national pride and cultural unity and whatnot. Most arguments about why the Confederate flag is fine also accidentally serve as compelling arguments as to why Swatstikas are fine, and I've yet to hear a compelling distinction between the two cases.
In this context, claiming the flag as bit of historical inertia seems like a status quo defense.
At the very least, there is a moral equivalence implied that is bonkers.
Edit: I'm open to the idea that I'm over reading this particular position. As a point of style, doing a drive-by on a highly controversial subject in a persuasive essay is poor form.
Gender equality is still a big problem in Europe, actually: https://www.oecd.org/inequality.htm#gender
Men and women are equal under the law (in most or all European states) when it comes to labour.
Gender inequality in Europe is largely caused by individual choices. This is best demonstrated by the fact that in poorer countries of eastern Europe, women are much more represented in STEM as it's a good way out of poverty, while richer countries (such as Scandinavian) where women have more choice, the interest gap for STEM is much more skewed in favor of men.
It should also be noted that in countries where a company cannot fire you for going part time at work, it is women who overwhelmingly take advantage of this.
Also, equating the inequality of women in the middle east with Europe in any way is ridiculous.
"Men and women are equal under the law" in Europe, but the reality is far from text in law, unlike what was previously said.
Otherwise, you have to explain why womens' "individual choices" would differ from those of men. I note that assuming that they do not is the simplext theory that needs the least complex explanation.
considering the part of their lifes exactly 18 years after birth.
His examples are cherry-picked and similar examples exist in the countries he holds up as exemplars. Saudi Arabia viewed cleaning as women's work, sure, just like nearly every country in Europe 100 years ago. Again, sexism is inexplicably considered to be part of this horoscope-level cultural complex of traits, as is apparently poor people excessively taking possessions from deceased relatives.
He blazes by picking one bad thing that happened in a given culture, offering no further analysis other than to gawk at how much better our culture is, then moves on to an entirely different society where he happens to know one bad thing about them and repeats the process.
The article appears to me to be little more than a post-hoc justification of the author's prejudices, with a few glib references and citations which give a glib appearance of being well-researched and substantive.