What Good Are Morales, Values, Discipline, etc in Modern Society?

[St Leo]

Odin, I think you should elaborate on ethnocentrism. Labels provide a convenient shorthand, but not everyone in this discussion speaks the same shorthand.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

I am wondering when we will all realize there is no real answer for the moral and ethic question.

[Odin]

Originally posted by St Leo
Odin, I think you should elaborate on ethnocentrism. Labels provide a convenient shorthand, but not everyone in this discussion speaks the same shorthand.

Ethnocentrism is when people think that thier culture (including religion and moral beliefs) are superior to other cultures.

[Imran Siddiqui]

re: New Mexico, I think space was supposed to go there, but his mom (who is there now), couldn't afford to bring him down just yete and space is waiting in limbo until he can leave .

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Azazel
Modern society isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good, and everyone who says it isn't is welcome to leave for the wilderness, and do everyone a favour and never come back.

See ya, suckers.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Yeah.


Try somewhere civilized and replete with discipline, morals and values, like Sierra Leone, southern Sudan, Cali or North Korea.

He'd melt.

[Bill3000]

The only way that we would truely solve the entire ethics/moral question is when we inevitably strip ourselves of our humanity in order to continuing express ourselves (e.g., to gain more knowledge, "evolve" {Though it wouldn't be evolution since we would do it involentarily}, et cetera)

But by that time what we see as human nature, in particular the narrow-mindedness of humanitiy would be gone. (Note that this doesdn't mean that the better sights of human nature, such as emotion, sentience, or compassion and such won't be gone; only the logical fallicies of humanity). So, understanding human nature would be by then a look into the past and thus pointless.

So, if one would accept moral relativity, you don't have to look forward to the moment when we strip ourselves of our humanity in order to realize the faults of it. By temporarily attempting to go without bias, you can see how morals are all relative.

Then again, you could also say that currently moral relativity is infalsifiable; but so is religion, the apparent basis for morality by most people who truely believe in moral absolutism.

(Speaking of which, anyone read the sci-fi book, Diaspora? That entire book pretty much summed up to me what it would be like in SMAC after the Ascent to Transcendence. )

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Bill3000
(Speaking of which, anyone read the sci-fi book, Diaspora? That entire book pretty much summed up to me what it would be like in SMAC after the Ascent to Transcendence. )

Squeeeeeeee! Best. Book. Evvvvvvvverrrrr.

You nod after every page -- that's exactly what life will be like in ten thousand years. Greg Egan is a marvelous visionary.

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by Bill3000
(Speaking of which, anyone read the sci-fi book, Diaspora? That entire book pretty much summed up to me what it would be like in SMAC after the Ascent to Transcendence. )

Squeeeeeeee! Best. Book. Evvvvvvvverrrrr.

You nod after every page -- that's exactly what life will be like in ten thousand years. Greg Egan is a marvelous visionary.

EXACTLY! I love that book because I believe something akin to that will happen, and it just makes me exciting for the future. It is possible for there to be morals and goodness when what we consider to be humanity is gone, and I just find it awesome to try to understand a post-human society.

The physics was awesoe too. I understood it (...well, considering the fact that most of the physics was made up...) and I was just pleased at the entire book. I didn't want the book to end.

[Alexander's Horse]

Hi Bill, watcha up to these days?

[JohnT]

We are not any better then we were 600 years ago in the middle ages, but on the same hand we arn't any worse.

I think that's a demonstrable falsehood in so many ways it's not even funny (I came close to calling you full of ****, but thought that was too inflammatory ). Not only have we piled on ethos (anti-child labor) upon ethos (anti-slavery) upon ethos (pro-environment) upon ethos (cleanliness), but the day-to-day ebb and flow of life is much more mannered, pleasant, and non-threatening in a way a man of the 14th century, in any location on the planet, could but hope dream of.

However, contrary to your argument, many of his rules of life are still our rules of life. Honor, charity, respect for the deceased, marriage and family-hood, and even respect for authority (even if we're more liberal in allowing the individual his choice of authority). So I can't at all see how your "equation" actually works.

The only way that we would truely solve the entire ethics/moral question is when we inevitably strip ourselves of our humanity in order to continuing express ourselves (e.g., to gain more knowledge, "evolve" {Though it wouldn't be evolution since we would do it involentarily}, et cetera)

The Godel Incompleteness Theorem of Ethics, huh? It's too big for us to solve.

... so why are you trying?

[Bill3000]

I think that's a demonstrable falsehood in so many ways it's not even funny (I came close to calling you full of ****, but thought that was too inflammatory ). Not only have we piled on ethos (anti-child labor) upon ethos (anti-slavery) upon ethos (pro-environment) upon ethos (cleanliness), but the day-to-day ebb and flow of life is much more mannered, pleasant, and non-threatening in a way a man of the 14th century, in any location on the planet, could but hope dream of.

On the other hand, some examples of ethos/morals that had been taken away (e.g., they are not considered moral today)

- paedophilia
- incest
- homosexuality (though this is fading, but still exists)
- drug usage
- superiority of race, eugenics
- polygamy

I'm not saying that they are moral; just that things that would have been acceptable in the past, isn't today.

The Godel Incompleteness Theorem of Ethics, huh? It's too big for us to solve.
... so why are you trying?

Good point. Because we have been following a pattern that each former truth that we used to have turned out to not be absolute, to not be in the center of the universe. Thus, it only makes sense to extrapolate this. Plus, it helps my own sanity.

[Spiffor]

Except for a very short period in ancient Greece, I'm not aware of any time where pedophilia was considered moral. It was tolerated until very recently, sure, but I don't know of ethos that actually encourage to such behaviour.

[Boris Godunov]

"What Good Are Morales, Values, Discipline, etc in Modern Society?"

Judging by the opening post, they could be very useful for lording ones' self over one's fellow human beings that one deems to be less moral.

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Except for a very short period in ancient Greece, I'm not aware of any time where pedophilia was considered moral. It was tolerated until very recently, sure, but I don't know of ethos that actually encourage to such behaviour.

One that's alive today, actually.

http://www.gettingit.com/article/56

An essay by anthropologist Gilbert Herdt, editor of Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia and the author of Sambia Sexual Culture, shows how radically different cultural perceptions of a proper masculine upbringing can be.

Bizarre homosexual rites are practiced extensively by numerous Melanesian tribesmen in New Guinea and adjacent islands. Young boys must "accumulate" semen for several years, either by regularly receiving anal penetration, or by swallowing the ejaculations of older males they fellate. This ancient custom springs from a religious belief system that regards sperm as the essential conduit of masculine energy; puny boys, they believe, are only transformed into virile warriors if they ingest large quantities of sperm.

"If you boys don't drink semen, you won't grow big," a Sambian elder tells prepubescent initiates. "You should not be afraid of eating penises ... it is just like the milk of your mother's breast. You can ingest it all of the time and grow quickly. A boy must be ... inseminated... If [he] doesn't eat semen, he remains small and weak."

Ten to twenty percent of all tribes in Melanesia -- an Oceania region stretching 3,000 miles from Irian Jaya to Fiji -- have mandatory "boy-inseminating" practices, claims Herdt. Boys here are separated from their mothers when they are 7-14 years old, and installed in "bachelor's houses."

The Marind-anim of Southwest New Guinea -- who were ruthless headhunters -- give the boys to maternal uncles who "top" them in anal intercourse for six years. The nearby Jacquai tribe refers to the adult penetrator as "mo-e" (anus-father) and the receiving child as "mo-mog" (anus-son). Big Namba chiefs of the New Hebrides Islands have numerous boy lovers; the Keraki of the Papuan lowlands sodomize lads at a bull-roarer ceremony; and the Great Plateau Kaluli "engage" youths to older men selected by their fathers.

Although many boys tremble initially ("I felt afraid... the penises were enormous," recalls Kalutuo, a Sambian from the Eastern Highlands) they all adjust quickly, because they believe semen is an elixir for manhood.

Many tribes -- like the Etoro of the Papuan Plateau -- claim that semen does not even exist in boys until it is orally or anally "planted."

This myth seems valid to tribesmen because boys start ejaculating when they achieve adolescence -- they are allowed to penetrate younger boys then, to maintain the tradition.

The "butching" of Melanesian boys with homoerotic activity is not unique in the annals of history. Spartan soldiers were carnal tent-comrades when they conquered Greece in the Peloponnesian War. They believed genital bonding between buddies enhanced battlefield loyalty and valor. The warlike Romans -- Mediterranean masters for 500 years -- were also a pederastic people. Catullus' poems reveal that men seeking boys' bottoms were not regarded as sissies; the habit was at least as "studly" as pursuing women.

The aggressive, arrogant, sperm-sucking warriors of Melanesia would probably agree with Spartans and Romans that the current "gays in the military" phobia is laughably obtuse; physical love between GIs, they would suggest, is beneficent for morale. Gay male lust is often castigated as "feminizing" in Western society, but Melanesians in Herdt's studies refute this: the sole purpose of homosexuality in their culture is to create "a fierce warrior masculinity that is the inverse of femininity."

The New Guinea data contradicts the religious fundamentalists who regard same-sex desire as a decadent post-civilized vice. Melanesians subsist on yams and superstitions -- they are among the Earth's most primitive peoples.

"Semen warrior tribes" are rapidly disappearing, due to oppression imposed on them by Christian European colonialists in the last 150 years. The "heroic homosexual" customs will probably vanish soon, buried under the inhibitions and scientific knowledge promulgated by missionaries and bureaucrats.

Herdt's observations will remain, though, as documentary evidence of an institutionalized queer culture that is often incestuous, always non-consensual, and impelled by erroneous nutritional assumptions. One wonders, though, whether the Melanesian model is actually any weirder than the vast, civilized, imaginary construct that modern humanity flutters inside, like a bird imprisoned in an invisible cage.

Also - the ability to do something without being considered immoral, is still a moral. Consider homosexuality; most people today don't ENCOURAGE people to be homosexual, but just to be tolerant of them.