Is ethnocentrism compatible with human rights?

[S.A.M.]

My problem is that, for the most part, people tend to [predominantly I suppose, due to its adoption by groups like the UN, etc..] think that once something is described as being a 'right' that they are thereby entitled to something. I'm not sure if this is delusion or stupidity, but I'm sure it's wrong...

That is correct. All rights are a luxury, including the right to have rights.

But we are not debating the innate existential nature of human rights, we are debating the concept that ethnocentrism is somehow compatible with human rights, both ethnocentrism and human rights being social constructs.

Ethnocentrism occurs when one culture or nation places itself at the top of an imagined hierarchy of cultures and nations and subsequently assigns other cultures and nations equivalent or lower value on that scale. The idea that Nation 'A' is intrinsically 'better' than any other is inculcated in the population until it becomes naturalized', that is, a commonly held belief that Nation 'A' has always been the best. It has never been any other way, and that all other nations can be judged according to the model Nation 'A' represents. Nation 'A' is the center and all other ethnicities must strive to emulate it in order to move up in the imaginary hierarchy.

 

[GeoffP]

So if whites declare the US a white state and whites from all over start pouring in = Jews declare Palestine a Jewish state and Jews from all over start pouring in.

Why do you feel this is so? Is the scenario as defined actually parallel? What confounding factors can you think of that render the two scenarios actually out of parallel?

My statement is generic, not arbitrary.

The two things are not necessarily independent.

I believe arbitrariness is insisting that Jews are different from whites because that is your personal opinion.

Mine? Or "one's"?

Are Jews different from whites?

How do you mean?

Would you say that declaring the US as a white state or black state or native American state is different from Jews declaring Palestine a Jewish state?

Declaring Palestine a Jewish state?

What according to you are the conditions under which any "race" can determine they have a right to establish a state based on race?

Firstly, I don't think you've defined what you mean by 'race'. As to what, say, would cause a particular group would require such a separate nation, I think I've outlined one above.

Would you support a black state in the US based on generations of oppression and slavery?

Hmm. It's theoretically possible. Is there such a desire? The issue is far more complicated than you could possibly treat here, but if there were ongoing oppression against them that was unlikely to ever be resolved, and they wanted to indeed set up such a state, it would seem fair. Natives have their own nations; but there's also the issue of geography and historical presence. Beyond that I wouldn't say. Do you see the way in which you're asking the questions?

 

[glaucon]

That is correct. All rights are a luxury, including the right to have rights.

That last sentence is a contradiction...

But we are not debating the innate existential nature of human rights, we are debating the concept that ethnocentrism is somehow compatible with human rights, both ethnocentrism and human rights being social constructs.

Fair enough.
However, to determine whether or not two entities are compatible or not, one must establish the existential validity of the two entities in question.
Given your admission that both are social constructs, it then becomes obvious that they are both mutually compatible.

 

[GeoffP]

However, to determine whether or not two entities are compatible or not, one must establish the existential validity of the two entities in question.

Quite. And I think that also sums up my point, gracefully divorced from Sam's group-association.

 

[glaucon]

Quite. And I think that also sums up my point, gracefully divorced from Sam's group-association.

Indeed.

Sorry SAM, but your OP is fatally flawed, as it's currently phrased.

 

[Michael]

Race is a social construct, so logically, anyone can be considered as belonging to any race.

Except many people define race by skin phenotype. For the majority of the time, it's not possible for a white person to belong to the black race.

I really think the whole race meme has had it's time in the sun, it's time to put it to rest with other meaningless social construct :shrug:

 

[Michael]

I would think thousands of years of maltreatment would be a good start. Do you not feel similarly? Since we're back on the issue of Jewish people, you've alluded several times to your sentiment that they're responsible ultimately for their own oppression. You've suggested that this is due to some apparent separation of their communities from those of the nation in which they live.

One bit of Jewish history I'd like to learn more about is that of the German-Jews. Where did these people come from? Are they originally from "Israel"? There's a lot of blue eyed blond haired Germanic looking Jewish people living in Israel and it seems a lot of them have no, or little, Arab ethnicity.

The Jews who were crushed by Vespasian's son Titus were Arabs right? I mean, presumably their descendants are Palestinians?

Suppose we fast forward to middle age Europe. The Jews that Shakespeare denigrates - they're German or Arab? I would think Arab. So, presumably they're also related to Palestinians?

Two German groups we could compare that have a small penchant for isolationism: Germans Jews and The Amish Mennonites. I've never heard of anyone having problems with the Amish? So, why German Jews? Is it because they're not Christian?


Lastly, there IS a almost always problems with segregating oneself from the wider population. Anyone who can't see that must be blind. It always leads to problems. Always. For all of history. There's nothing "special" about modern humans that makes us an exception to this rule other than the high level of prosperity. If that should drop, expect problems.

I conciser this ethno-segregation a problem and the only solution is education.

 

[GeoffP]

One bit of Jewish history I'd like to learn more about is that of the German-Jews. Where did these people come from? Are they originally from "Israel"? There's a lot of blue eyed blond haired Germanic looking Jewish people living in Israel and it seems a lot of them have no, or little, Arab ethnicity.

The Jews who were crushed by Vespasian's son Titus were Arabs right? I mean, presumably their descendants are Palestinians?

Suppose we fast forward to middle age Europe. The Jews that Shakespeare denigrates - they're German or Arab? I would think Arab. So, presumably they're also related to Palestinians?

Two German groups we could compare that have a small penchant for isolationism: Germans Jews and The Amish Mennonites. I've never heard of anyone having problems with the Amish? So, why German Jews? Is it because they're not Christian?

Sad to say, this is probably it.

Lastly, there IS a almost always problems with segregating oneself from the wider population. Anyone who can't see that must be blind. It always leads to problems. Always. For all of history. There's nothing "special" about modern humans that makes us an exception to this rule other than the high level of prosperity. If that should drop, expect problems.

I conciser this ethno-segregation a problem and the only solution is education.

Quite. I should clarify that my feeling is that education could help - could even solve the problem - but that in the present system it's unlikely to do so. But as I said, circumstance is everything. As for the why: if Jews do indeed segregate themselves from us, I can see why they might well do so. As the more powerful group, the onus of education lies on ourselves.

 

[Michael]

I;m not sure why the onus lays on us? I mean, Jewish people migrated to live here, they should work to integrate. Just as I would do if I migrated to some place. It unreasonable for me to migrate to India, teach my kids to stay away from Indian infidels, set up my own little isolationist community and get pissy when the Indians come along and drag me off to sacrifice to their Gods I mean, I'd say I brought that shit down on myself for not trying to fit in! The onus is on me to work hard to integrate. Of course if I'm totally unwelcomed from the start - why migrate to begin with?

When in Rome....


That aside, where the hell did German Jews come from? Any genetic studies done?

 

[Tiassa]

A Straightforward Answer, I Think ... er ... Hope.

Insofar as the underlying question is concerned—Is ethnocentrism compatible with human rights?—the answer is clearly and simply no. The thing is that while one might describe some theoretic realm in which the sentiment is entirely contained within the self, we would delude ourselves to apply it in any practical context. If there is one thing that human beings are, it is human. The normal psyche requires regular expression of its general form. The ethnocentric aberration is symbiotic. Not only does it inspire opposition, but also draws energy from the fact of opposition. The underlying neurotic conflict more often than not justifies itself with ever more compex dysfunction with a blowback effect of self-indictment, thus reinforcing the habit of neurotic conflict. In short, the wholly contained ethnocentrism is a human impossibility. The human psyche must express itself; the bigotries would find a manner of expression, namely projection, rationalization, and even reaction formation, all lending toward some degree of sublimation. A real, living human being will always find a way to offend people according to its inclinations.

 

[GeoffP]

Then it is the inclinations of the human being that must be changed.

 

[The Marquis]

Insofar as the underlying question is concerned—Is ethnocentrism compatible with human rights?—the answer is clearly and simply no. The thing is that while one might describe some theoretic realm in which the sentiment is entirely contained within the self, we would delude ourselves to apply it in any practical context. If there is one thing that human beings are, it is human. The normal psyche requires regular expression of its general form. The ethnocentric aberration is symbiotic. Not only does it inspire opposition, but also draws energy from the fact of opposition. The underlying neurotic conflict more often than not justifies itself with ever more compex dysfunction with a blowback effect of self-indictment, thus reinforcing the habit of neurotic conflict. In short, the wholly contained ethnocentrism is a human impossibility. The human psyche must express itself; the bigotries would find a manner of expression, namely projection, rationalization, and even reaction formation, all lending toward some degree of sublimation. A real, living human being will always find a way to offend people according to its inclinations.

In short, Tiassa, you're saying people like to bitch.

You haven't really explained why you think ethnocentrism is incompatible with human rights, though.

Let's be frank - I believe rights are a construct anyway. I've said as much on more than one occasion recently. Given that that is the case, then that construct can be precisely whatever we determine it should be. We do currently have a "universal" declaration of what human rights should be. We also have a situation in which it is paid lip service by some countries and completely ignored by others, depending on their own definitions.

The example that I gave in a previous post (Card), while at this point still remaining science fiction, is not impossible.
Now try to imagine. Given virtually unlimited space, what would your reason be for not allowing it? Because it doesn't gel with your current practical considerations? Because it doesn't gel with the ideals you've chosen to embrace due to circumstance?

The question posed is a hypothetical one. That much is clear, given practical considerations - "what is done, is done" being one of those considerations.
Hypothetically speaking, then, the answer is just as clear that if those practical considerations were not there, then the answer would be yes.

Secondly, people do indeed like to bitch. If these ethnocentric states were to exist in a vaccuum, then they would simply find something new to bitch about. While I quite agree with the premise of what you've written, I would disagree that that opposition must necessarily be ethnicity.

 

[Cellar_Door]

There's more genetic diversity within Africa then outside of Africa...

Source?

One went so far as to bulk when I said we all originate in E. Africa ... suggesting that this may be the case for me, but Korean's like her, they evolved separately - - in Korea. :bugeye: Her meaning was she was of a "pure race". I wonder if war with the North and insecurity brings these tribalism-memes out in people?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

One bit of Jewish history I'd like to learn more about is that of the German-Jews. Where did these people come from? Are they originally from "Israel"?

The Diaspora began in earnest in the middle of the first millennium BCE, when the Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah and began forcibly relocating many of its people. So a large Jewish community suddenly appeared in Babylon, and as Babylon fell to recurring waves of attack by foreign armies, eventually there were Jews living all over Mesopotamia, including historical Israel, which was much larger than the modern nation. They even managed to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Romans took their turn at occupying Israel, and when the Jews revolted in the first century CE, they did a thorough job of destroying it as a nation and knocked down the Temple yet again. At this point Jews migrated to all points of the compass with the hope of reestablishing a Jewish kingdom. Although they failed at that (God has never stopped punishing his Chosen People for breaking the Covenant), within a few centuries there were Jews in southeastern Europe and northeastern Africa, in addition to every corner of Mesopotamia. Ironically, pretty much everywhere except Jerusalem, where they were forbidden to live after the Romans completely leveled it.

The Pax Romana facilitated travel, so Jews soon migrated widely throughout Roman Europe. After the fall of Rome, influenced by the currents of post-Imperial European politics, the Jews found themselves coalescing into two communities:

• The Ashkenazim in northern and Eastern Europe, and
• The Sephardim in Iberia, North Africa and the Middle East.

The Ashkenazi Jews became the most prominent, by living in the region where the future of Western Civilization was being written. The price for this was a thousand years of antisemitism in Christian Europe; while the Sephardim got to live under Muslim rule in Spain, Portugal, the other Arab-ruled nations, and eventually the Ottoman Empire. They were second-class citizens there, to be sure, but it was a true form of citizenship with rights and legal protection, where they were not regarded as demons and pogroms were not staged as popular entertainment.

So if you ask where the German Jews came from, the answer is: all over. Sure, the ethnic group originated in Canaan, but it has a long history of complex migrations since those days. The migrations continued. There was a time when Jews were more welcome in Russian lands, so they moved east. Then times changed and they moved back to Central Europe. They took their dialect of 13th-century German with them, laced with Hebrew words, and it ultimately became a separate language, Yiddish, which is the Yiddish word for "Jewish," from German jüdisch.

There's a lot of blue eyed blond haired Germanic looking Jewish people living in Israel and it seems a lot of them have no, or little, Arab ethnicity.

The Jews don't really have very much Arab ancestry. The Arabs didn't become a powerful, important people until the middle of the first millennium CE, and by then the Jewish Diaspora had been in progress for a thousand years with no Arab influence.

The Jews who were crushed by Vespasian's son Titus were Arabs right?

The Jews and Arabs are both Semitic tribes, but neither is descended from the other. The Jews, Phoenicians and several other tribes were the descendants of the Canaanites. The Arab tribes arose in a different region.

I mean, presumably their descendants are Palestinians?

The Palestinians are the descendants of the Philistines, another Canaanite tribe. The Palestinians are the Jews' closest living relatives, along with the Lebanese. It's been suggested that the Palestinians are the Canaanites who chose not to adopt Judaism, so the two peoples separated over that issue. Of course the Palestinians and Lebanese intermarried with the Arabs after the spread of Islam, so today they have a lot of Arab DNA, and they consider themselves as Arabic as the Syrians and Iraqis.

Suppose we fast forward to middle age Europe. The Jews that Shakespeare denigrates - they're German or Arab? I would think Arab. So, presumably they're also related to Palestinians?

There is not, and never was, any significant community of "Arab Jews." I don't know where you picked up that idea but it's not historically accurate. Of course there has been intermarriage between the two peoples, but those of mixed ancestry are not statistically important. The Jews of Europe are simply referred to as "Ashkenazim" or "European Jews." They spent a lot of time in Germany so most of them spoke Yiddish, but they also lived in Russia, the Ukraine, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Bohemia, France, Holland, Belgium, England, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and most of the other places too.

I've never heard of anyone having problems with the Amish?

Is that so? Then what's your explanation for why they felt the need to flee Germany? They were heavily persecuted!

I'm not sure why the onus lays on us? I mean, Jewish people migrated to live here, they should work to integrate.

Actually they do. Historically, whenever the Jews have been accepted without hostility, they have blended into the local population and disappeared as a separate community. This happened in China in the Middle Ages when one group decided to migrate eastward. They had so many values in common with the Chinese--sanitation, education, law abiding, paying taxes, good business skills--that they were welcomed with open arms. Within a couple of centuries all that was left of them were some buildings that don't look very Chinese and a bunch of Chinese people with Roman noses.

The same was happening in Europe in the early 20th century. Jews were intermarrying and assimilating at a prodigious rate. Hitler grabbed anybody with one Jewish grandparent, and took a lot of people who considered themselves Christian Germans.

The same is happening now in the United States, arguably the only place where the Jews have been treated better than the Ottoman Empire. My grandfather was a Jew who married an Episcopalian; my wife's mother is a Jew who married a Unitarian. America has tens of millions of people like us who have Jewish ancestors but don't consider themselves members of the Jewish community. In fact the Orthodox leaders in America complain that the biggest threat to the survival of America's Jewish community is assimilation. Makes you wonder if they'd appreciate a little more prejudice.

That aside, where the hell did German Jews come from?

See above. They didn't make a straight line from Israel to Germany and they didn't come all in one group by the same route.

Any genetic studies done?

Lots. The Ashkenazim have bits of DNA from various European people. The Sephardim have traces of their own history.

 

[Doreen]

Fair enough.
However, to determine whether or not two entities are compatible or not, one must establish the existential validity of the two entities in question.
Given your admission that both are social constructs, it then becomes obvious that they are both mutually compatible.

I am not sure this is correct. I mean that literally, I am not sure. But it sounds off.

It seems to me social constructs can be, in fact are, regularly in conflict. Clashes between cultures and values seem, well, the rule.

If one culture says that honesty is the highest priority in dialogue and another says that harmonious interactions were all parties save face is the highest priority - these each being human constructed prioritizations - incompatibilities WILL arise.

But I might not quite be getting your point.

 

[Doreen]

Originally Posted by glaucon
However, to determine whether or not two entities are compatible or not, one must establish the existential validity of the two entities in question.

I am also skeptical of this one. If one person says God says fetuses have a right to life, period, and another person says God says women have the right to abort, it really does not matter if both people are hallucinating. The rights in question may be founded on nothing. Nevertheless we can evaluate their compatibility.

Pretty much any specific case seems to back me up....

someone thinks that blacks should ride in the back of the bus and stand if whites need seats WHILE asserting that the races are equal. I do not think we need to determine the extential validity of these two beliefs before we go on and argue that they are not compatible.

 

[glaucon]

It seems to me social constructs can be, in fact are, regularly in conflict. Clashes between cultures and values seem, well, the rule.

If one culture says that honesty is the highest priority in dialogue and another says that harmonious interactions were all parties save face is the highest priority - these each being human constructed prioritizations - incompatibilities WILL arise.

But I might not quite be getting your point.

Yes, I think that's what's happening. I didn't make myself clear enough.

All I meant was, as entities that are, by definition, 'of the same ilk', they are then, not necessarily incompatible.

While you're correct of course, to point out that a social construct may come into direct conflict with another, this conflict is due to the way in which we either construct it, prioritize it, or make use of it. In other words, it is entirely up to the adherents of a given construct, to make them compatible...

 

[Doreen]

Yes, I think that's what's happening. I didn't make myself clear enough.

All I meant was, as entities that are, by definition, 'of the same ilk', they are then, not necessarily incompatible.

While you're correct of course, to point out that a social construct may come into direct conflict with another, this conflict is due to the way in which we either construct it, prioritize it, or make use of it. In other words, it is entirely up to the adherents of a given construct, to make them compatible...

It seems to me what you are saying is

no one can be a hypocrite.

I am not denying people's ability to twist semantics to suit their own purposes, but it seems to me we can analyze different portions of people's beliefs and point out inconsistencies and contradictions.

In fact, though rare, sometimes people are grateful. You find this in therapy perhaps more often than in politics, but sometimes people can be shown, for example, that in their self-relations, they violate their own ethics and/or what they would accept as ok in other people's self-relations. Here the issue is the treating oneself negatively as an exception.

I think, for example, it is fair game to point out to anti-abortionists that they should be - but often, even usually are not - anti-war, since wars directly cause abortions - often killing the mother in the process. Of course they may jump around to a war is an exception, but....

1) they tend never to have considered the issue'
2) they have to be very careful, since now they are allowing a pragmatic reason - it would be hard to wage a winning war AND make sure we did not kill fetuses - for allowing abortions. they tend to be steadfast AGAINST pragmatic reasoning for abortions - iow they are deontologists.

They may extricate themselves from this, and so far I have not noticed any miraculous changes of faith on the issue, however it makes sense to me to point out inconsistencies.

 

[glaucon]

It seems to me what you are saying is

no one can be a hypocrite.

Not even close.

Incommensurabilty within a class must be either mistaken, or constructed.

 

[Doreen]

Not even close.

Incommensurabilty within a class must be either mistaken, or constructed.

OK. I just noticed you said they are not necessarily incompatible, above. My misread. Still, I can't see why one could not make a case that, in the case of the OP, ethnocentrism is incompatible with human rights. Taking human rights as some specific set of values about how people will be treated.

In the specific case it was Geoff who was being challenged. I don't know much about the guy, but my impression is he would be against treating certain races less well than others. If at the same time he is accepting ethnocentrism AND one can show how this necessarily leads to less good treatment of certain races, to me it does not matter what the ontological status of the rights and values are, as long as they all belong to Geoff.

IOW it seemed like you had a general, blanket resistence to seeing if two values can be compatible.

I am not taking a stand on the original context. I am too lazy to go and read the other thread and try to see if SAM is fairly presenting Geoff's expression of his values. That is an important issue, but a separate one.

I just got the impression you were saying that one needed to branch off into fairly distanced discussions of ontological status even though both parties have values and allow these to guide actions and their judgments of others. IOW they each grant these kinds of things reality anyway, though they differ on particular values and also perhaps on certain relevent deductive arguments.

P:S. I added a chunk to my previous post, not sure if you saw this. It might make clearer how I am misunderstanding you. Or make my case better, depending.