Ootrek posted:Absolutely. I'd much rather argue the semantics of "culture" while totally avoiding context instead of discussing practical solutions to issues like constant gang rape. I'm still waiting for a first worlder's solution to "constant gang rape" aside from "educate the women". Fog Tripper posted:In fairness that is exactly what slavery was doing before the furious backpedaling. Backpedaling? Perhaps you'd like to point out where I did that? Is reading really that hard for you guys? You're unable to comprehend the difference between talking about a parts of India being issues versus painting a culture that includes hundreds of millions of people as "objectively wrong". If you are going to talk about cultures in black and white, I don't really understand how the argument works that the US is "objectively good" whereas India's culture is "objectively bad", it is stupid. If you're going to talk about the worst of the worst in a country of over a billion people and then declare the culture "objectively wrong" after three pages of "well, I read GBS and those threads are pretty bad" SpannerX posted:This is all well and good, if they could turn into a Utopia, but what if they don't? If, say 5 years down the road, they haven't gotten their poo poo together (and out of the Ganges), what do we do? I say send the heater in. Glass parking lot the whole country. gently caress it. lol down with slavery fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 17:16
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This is all well and good, if they could turn into a Utopia, but what if they don't? If, say 5 years down the road, they haven't gotten their poo poo together (and out of the Ganges), what do we do? I say send the heater in. Glass parking lot the whole country. gently caress it.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:20
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down with slavery posted:I'm still waiting for a first worlder's solution to "constant gang rape" aside from "educate the women". Throw out some solutions yourself then, instead of arguing for ages about the meaning of words. It would actually be relevant to the discussion then.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:21
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Ootrek posted:Throw out some solutions yourself then, instead of arguing for ages about the meaning of words. It would actually be relevant to the discussion then. Sorry, I'm not really in the business of playing "what should India do?". If we want to fight things like domestic slavery, and increase the quality of life for the poor, we can do it from here in the US. We have tons of economic leverage and we willingly turn a blind eye to issues like the caste system or income inequality (or things like women's rights in saudi arabia) when business interests collide with morality. What is the solution for India? Go back in time and don't be colonized by Western powers. Maybe wave a magic wand and have those who control the global socio economic system magically start caring about things other than dollars. down with slavery fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 17:24
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Seriously dude, there actually has been some attempts at good faith discussion on that but you're in such a hurry to poo poo on the thread with your snark you aren't really looking to seriously engage. The gang rape problem goes hand and hand with the lack of rule of law and the drastic gender population disparity. If there was actually a supported police force, and an effective judiciary it could begin to be addressed from the rule of law side. As for the gender disparities, the dowry issue has to be addressed as well as, yes, education of women (as much as you sneer at the idea) to increase their value to families so they're not viewed solely as a cost rather than an assett, which is sadly the case in many Indian villages where the practice of dowry is even more pernicious. There can be discussion on this if we're not in such a hurry to vomit on the thread and then feel self-satisfied about it. I'm only repeating things already said, but in your rush to display an aggrieved umbrage it's not a surprise that you're not reading things too closely.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:29
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I guess it's too bad then that the US can't adopt a position of cultural superiority upon which to act by working with Indian leaders on issues like codified inequality.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:30
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I don't sneer at the idea of educating women, it's just the one liner that "concerned" people throw out as a panacea to social ills/overpopulation and a host of other issues. The real answer for first worlders if they want to change the third world is to put pressure on our government to use its leverage to do something. If we want the legislators and judiciary in India to respect our cultural norms, we should use our economic leverage to do so. In fact, I'd argue that we should/could be doing this with a lot of other places than India. But I think it's foolhardy and absurd to place the blame for India's situation at the feet of India. They simply do not control the global socioeconomic system they are forced to participate in to continue existing as a country. Could those changes come internally? Maybe? I don't really know, I'm not an expert on India but I'm not going to make the argument that we should "pave the country" if things don't get better. I'm not trying to vomit on the thread, but certain sentiments should be dismissed, specifically the two I took issue with "India's culture is objectively bad" "Well, nobody has defended India yet, so it's self-evident that it is objectively bad" Fallom posted:I guess it's too bad then that the US can't adopt a position of cultural superiority upon which to act by working with Indian leaders on issues like codified inequality. I mean, they could... but they won't. Because the people at the top of our socioeconomic system not only think economic inequality isn't bad, but is a good thing. We have a long history of allowing minorities be trampled while profiting off of their misery. Maybe the issue isn't in India, but outside of it. Miltank posted:Nobody is talking about culture in black and white anyway- Those actually were the posts I first responded to before the "gently caress India" squad jumped on my rear end. Now I've spent an entire page explaining the difference. down with slavery fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 17:36
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Nobody is talking about culture in black and white anyway- think of it as different shades of brown. American culture is dogshit, but indian culture is a poo poo river filled with floating corpses.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:38
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down with slavery posted:But I think it's foolhardy and absurd to place the blame for India's situation at the feet of India. They simply do not control the global socioeconomic system they are forced to participate in to continue existing as a country. In your opinion is it possible for Indians who do want to reduce sexism or corruption in their nation to do anything or is the only solution to those issues outside pressure?
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Mar 12, 2014 17:59
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It was worse before the British got there. I'm just glad that the roads and railroads got built and cities were established. Who knows what India would be like without Calcutta and Bombay? India would have benefitted like Hong Kong if the British had stayed until the 90's. Frosted Flake fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 18:04
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Frosted Flake posted:It was worse before the British got there. I'm just glad that the roads and railroads got build and cities were established. Who knows what India would be like without Calcutta and Bombay? Haha oh my.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:18
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quote:I don't sneer at the idea of educating women, it's just the one liner that "concerned" people throw out as a panacea to social ills/overpopulation and a host of other issues. The real answer for first worlders if they want to change the third world is to put pressure on our government to use its leverage to do something. If we want the legislators and judiciary in India to respect our cultural norms, we should use our economic leverage to do so. In fact, I'd argue that we should/could be doing this with a lot of other places than India. quote:But I think it's foolhardy and absurd to place the blame for India's situation at the feet of India. They simply do not control the global socioeconomic system they are forced to participate in to continue existing as a country. quote:I'm not trying to vomit on the thread Typo fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 18:30
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Honest question: would India be worse off today under British rule? E: Same question phrased differently: In what ways is India better now because of self rule? Miltank fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 18:36
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Man, people were giving me grief when I suggested that "DO NOTHING" is the best thing we could ever do for India, but holy poo poo, you guys are demonstrating my point perfectly. Between the flat out racism, cultural superiority, and outright nostalgia for British coloniasm, and more, why on earth do you think any idea y'all can up with wouldn't be tainted with with your own biases and condesension. You know why doing nothing is the best thing for India? Because the kind of person who even posts a thread titled "What should be done about India?", and anyoen who seriously debates ideas in it are completely and utterly doomed to failure in even the theoritical stage, let alone any sort of on-the-ground implementation.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:40
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Thundercracker posted:Man, people were giving me grief when I suggested that "DO NOTHING" is the best thing we could ever do for India, but holy poo poo, you guys are demonstrating my point perfectly. quote:You know why doing nothing is the best thing for India? Because the kind of person who even posts a thread titled "What should be done about India?", and anyoen who seriously debates ideas in it are completely and utterly doomed to failure in even the theoritical stage, let alone any sort of on-the-ground implementation. D&D posters needs to get over the stage of their lives where discussing the problems of any non-white countries makes you a racist.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:43
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Earlier in the thread there was a bunch of talk about how difficult it was to enforce justice in the rural communities in India, and then the thread began talking about the severe misogyny problems in rural India. The conversation was held in such a manner that it seemed, to me, to imply that the problems with rape et al were mostly outside the urban areas in India. I was under the impression that India's urban areas were just as severely suffering from rapes, corruption, and pollution as the rural areas were. Am I mistaken?
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Mar 12, 2014 18:44
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Typo posted:Do.....what exactly? Refuse to do business with countries and corporations who take advantage of unjust labor laws. Force US corporations who operate there to hold themselves to the same safety, environmental and labor regulations if they want to bring the profits back home. Don't allow the West to take advantage of things like the caste system and economic inequality in India and instead use our leverage to change those things quote:This is, of course, coming from someone who self-admittedly knows nothing about India. ... really? quote:But you did anyway You're a pretty lovely poster tbqh, maybe you should try reading my posts from the start before you get all up in arms. The only people who are making GBS threads on this thread are those like you who refuse to apply any nuance to the statement "India is a shithole". Go back to GBS. Typo posted:D&D posters needs to get over the stage of their lives where discussing the problems of any non-white countries makes you a racist. I never used the word racist but it's nice to see you already playing this card. I have no problem with discussing the issues India faces in the 21st century, but to label the country as "objectively bad" seems a bit extreme to me. Discussing problems doesn't make you an idiot, calling Indian culture "objectively bad" and saying we should pave the country do.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:49
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Brannock posted:I was under the impression that India's urban areas were just as severely suffering from rapes, corruption, and pollution as the rural areas were. Am I mistaken? It's really bad in certain villages, but it's also an issue in the cities, yes. I got depressed reading the newspapers and stopped after awhile, but I'd see stories of students getting pulled into Autorickshaws walking home in the evening, another story of an American national in Delhi being kidnapped by the crew of a goods carriage truck.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:53
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down with slavery posted:Refuse to do business with countries and corporations who take advantage of unjust labor laws. Force US corporations who operate there to hold themselves to the same safety, environmental and labor regulations if they want to bring the profits back home. Don't allow the West to take advantage of things like the caste system and economic inequality in India and instead use our leverage to change those things Countries US corporations operate in have their own laws which nominally do implement "safety, environmental, labor regulations". Except of course, due to corruption and lack of transparency, those laws are rarely or ineffectively enforced. Especially in rural areas (see gangrapes). Even if you pressure them into enacting new legislation to the effect of implementing labor regulations, you run into the same problem of enforcement. So really, how do you intend the US to start enforcing them? quote:You're a pretty lovely poster tbqh, maybe you should try reading my posts from the start before you get all up in arms. The only people who are making GBS threads on this thread are those like you who refuse to apply any nuance to the statement "India is a shithole". Go back to GBS. Seriously, try to find a post where I did that. Typo fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 18:55
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down with slavery posted:I never used the word racist but it's nice to see you already playing this card. I have no problem with discussing the issues India faces in the 21st century, but to label the country as "objectively bad" seems a bit extreme to me. Discussing problems doesn't make you an idiot, calling Indian culture "objectively bad" and saying we should pave the country do.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:56
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Eurasia is old, sick, and dying.
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Mar 12, 2014 18:57
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Typo posted:So really, how do you intend the US to start enforcing them? I've had this conversation many times in many threads but it would be quite easy for the US to place demands on developing countries that it does business with, and indeed we do. Only it's to ensure that our corporations can maximize their profits, not to ensure that we're living in an equitable society.
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Mar 12, 2014 19:05
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down with slavery posted:If we want the legislators and judiciary in India to respect our cultural norms, we should use our economic leverage to do so. In fact, I'd argue that we should/could be doing this with a lot of other places than India. But I think it's foolhardy and absurd to place the blame for India's situation at the feet of India. They simply do not control the global socioeconomic system they are forced to participate in to continue existing as a country. You know, I'd argue that "we want them to respect our cultural norms, so let's use our government to force them to do so" is not a position made in particularly good faith. Any attempt at cultural change coming from the outside is going to be viewed as - well, external and foreign. Just a fodder for nationalists. I think that most people in the thread were looking at the issues from the perspective of "what are the solutions proven elsewhere that the local people in India who are interested in solving the issue can/do use to solve their many problems", not "what's the US gonna do about this to force the people to be more like it." e: basically, the original issue, as I looked at it, was, "where do we even start with this clusterfuck?" Because that's sort of an interesting problem, once viewed in an abstract way. Obviously, what happened in India was a self-reinforcing feedback loop: poverty/misogyny/corruption. Where one does break the loop? meristem fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 19:06
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Do you really expect progress to come about quickly in a culture that still thinks putting corpses directly into the water supply is a great idea?
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Mar 12, 2014 19:14
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down with slavery posted:I've had this conversation many times in many threads but it would be quite easy for the US to place demands on developing countries that it does business with, and indeed we do. Only it's to ensure that our corporations can maximize their profits, not to ensure that we're living in an equitable society. The problem is that in practice this is going to mean making the national government pass new pieces of legislature or w/e. But really, in places like India or China even the central government in those countries themselves are often unable enforcing EXISTING labor/environmental regulations because of ineffective institutions or local authority resisting directives from the center. Or because of corruption, or occasionally because even the people themselves don't really want them. The US itself also have few, if any, means of enforcing labor standards externally themselves. Even if it starts cracking down domestic corporations accused of indecent labor standards, evading them is as trivial as creating subsidiaries outside US jurisdiction, or simply hand things over to native Indian firms along the supply chain. This idea is definitely well intended, just not very practical.
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Mar 12, 2014 19:14
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Thundercracker posted:Man, people were giving me grief when I suggested that "DO NOTHING" is the best thing we could ever do for India, but holy poo poo, you guys are demonstrating my point perfectly. "Cultural superiority" is the dumbest argument in this thread and I'm very disappointed to see both sides have bought into the idea that "Indian culture" is somehow 1) a thing or 2) indivisible. The prevailing attitudes towards women in India are but one facet of India's culture, but they are also complete dogshit and arguing the moral equivalency of India's attitude towards women vs. that of the US (or any other Western power) is not only laughable but also morally wrong. Now, someone criticizing jati or the prevailing attitude towards the Ganges is not also criticizing holi, dandiya and vivaah sanskar. Because there are racists out there it is difficult to thread the needle of criticizing cultural practices without appearing to simply be motivated by hatred, but at the same time just because you are on the opposite side of an argument from racists doesn't make your point valid. Similarly, blaming India's current social problems entirely on colonialism/imperialism is infantilizing and denies agency to the Indian people, and also serves as a convenient deflection. "Well, these problems are all rooted in the past, so nothing we can do about them now!" Burning widows, gang-rape, making GBS threads in the street and in the Ganges, dumping corpses-- these things are actually problems, not just cultural differences that we need to be more understanding about, and the fact that we come from a more privileged country and a different cultural background does not invalidate our criticisms, nor does it absolves us from the responsibility to confront real evils. Now, "what's to be done" is a complex question, especially since we're all goons here, but there's really two answers. The "ideal solution" angle is anti-corruption laws with teeth, enforced by international observers, as well as massive spending on public works and a public health campaign, and finally education of women and more education in general to prevent the next generation from being inculcated with misogynistic views. The "more likely but still unlikely" solution is pressure on the US government to cut aid funding unless corruption is reduced, spending World Bank money directly on needed public works rather than giving it to corrupt organizations who've proven they can't be trusted with it, and international NGO supervision of law enforcement, judiciary and elections until those institutions can be reformed. EDIT: In case I wasn't clear I believe that corruption within law enforcement and the judiciary of India has progressed to such an extent that reforming those institutions from within is now impossible and any reform will require heavy-handed external intervention. Not happy about it, but I do believe it. DAD LOST MY IPOD fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 19:22
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The problem with this kind of discussion is really the context. There's a long, storied tradition of western powers justifying everything from sanctions to military occupation by pointing out awful parts of foreign cultures. As a forum full of westerners, especially Americans, that's a huge amount of poo poo to overcome in order to justify even taking up this question. Making big, sweeping posts like the OP without even trying to do that gross because it ignores that this kind of discussion has taken place across the last century. People have constantly take up questions of human rights in other countries, and often the results have been horrifying. There's also a common element of distraction to stories about gang rapes that are trying to paper over horrific stuff that we have much more direct control over.
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Mar 13, 2014 00:13
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I doubt Owlbot's ideal government would be in any way transparent, seeing as he seems to think Stalinism is a workable form of governance that could deal with the many and varied problems facing India.
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Mar 13, 2014 00:23
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:I doubt Owlbot's ideal government would be in any way transparent, seeing as he seems to think Stalinism is a workable form of governance that could deal with the many and varied problems facing India. I think a similar intensive program of centralization, de-agrarianization and industrial capital formation is exactly what India needs, as well as very strong state to undermine and remove any traditional/religious power structures which negatively impact gender equality. There the similarities to any other leader end.
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Mar 13, 2014 00:31
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Ultimately, in the case of India centralization of the extent you want will necessitate a likely heavy degree of centralization, and mass industrialization may not even be really possible to that extent unless India wants to take another stab at ISI. In addition, to be frank it is also probably going to require a cultural revolution with the threat of force. It is a bit ironic that China is held up as a great counter-example when there isn't an honest acknowledgement that some very brutal things happened for modern-day China to get its current point. Yeah, you can say "well lets have a cultural revolution, in-creditable centralization of 1.2 billion people and mass industrialization without nastiness" but unfortunately I don't think the world works like that.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:23
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OwlBot 2000 posted:I think a similar intensive program of centralization, de-agrarianization and industrial capital formation is exactly what India needs, as well as very strong state to undermine and remove any traditional/religious power structures which negatively impact gender equality. There the similarities to any other leader end. The problem with from a social perspective is that by necessity the driver of this program is going to be a secularized, westernized elite which is disconnected from the general population. What this means is that once the first generation of charismatic leaders are dead and gone, there really isn't much appeal to the societal model they are proposing anymore. Even when nominal improvements to things like women's rights are made, such ideas rarely seep through society, even among the people they are purported to benefit. The old rituals of national liberation, holidays and ideas, starts to fade with every new generation. The failure of governments to deliver on what they promised starts to discredit their core ideology. Leaving two alternatives to young people: either religious conservatism or globalized consumerism and pop culture. The states founded by secular nationalists for the most part still stands today, having never realized the westernized vision their leaders set out for it. With a religious revival amongst the younger generation that comes as a complete surprise to the first generation of secular (hindutva in India, Islamists in the Middle East). The potential for religious revival might exist because the ruling elite never really engaged in a dialogue with its people over the issue of secularization. It seems to me (and correct me if I'm wrong obviously) that the ruling secular elite prefer to simply dismiss the opposing narrative. Note that this has being true in both democracies (India) or Dictatorships (Egypt). Inserting a Stalinist dictatorship does.....something, but it might too optimistic for it to get away without the sort of famines of the Stalinist era. I'd loath to turn this into another communistchat thread, but note that famines are pretty useful in getting rid of political opponents (Kulaks, landlords etc) in the countryside. And any dictatorship seeking to radically transform society is going to have a lot of those opponents. Not only that, but given its the 21st century, I'm really not sure if a Stalinesque dictatorship is viable. If you have time, this lecture is a pretty interesting discussion on the reversal of secularization after the 1970s in India, Algeria, and Israel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6rgWqwX0N0 Typo fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Mar 13, 2014 |
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Mar 13, 2014 01:24
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Typo posted:Inserting a Stalinist dictatorship does.....something, but it might too optimistic for it to get away without the sort of famines of the Stalinist era. I'd loath to turn this into another communistchat thread, but note that famines are pretty useful in getting rid of political opponents (Kulaks, landlords etc) in the countryside. And any dictatorship seeking to radically transform society is going to have a lot of those opponents. Not sure whether that is a further argument against the viability of it (ignoring morality), or an argument for, though.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:38
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A Buttery Pastry posted:It's not like you need to point to Stalin for famines, or even famines being used as a political tool. India experienced both under the British.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:40
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Another thing about Stalinism, is that the USSR was able to industrialize with minimal exterior trade because the USSR had vast natural resources of its own that could be exploited (many times at high human cost). India is going to have to be reliant on imports for whatever it does more than China already is. That said, a state capitalist approach to crash industrialization would run up a similar issues.
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Mar 13, 2014 02:02
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The British tried to centralize and secularize India with famines and you all whine about it. Look who was right. 
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Mar 13, 2014 02:52
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I really wasn't trying to be snarky or anything when I asked what India and Pakistan gained by separating from Britain. I am assuming that Britain was looting their resources or something right?
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Mar 13, 2014 03:04
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Frosted Flake posted:The British tried to centralize and secularize India with famines and you all whine about it. They stamped on bullshit like Sati but they also upheld the caste system, played off one religion against another and encouraged sectarian hatred to maintain control (after 1857 scared them out of their wits), destroyed enterprises like the bengal cotton industry because it competed with their interests elsewhere, and sucked India dry economically. But I'll give you the famines.
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Mar 13, 2014 03:13
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Miltank posted:I really wasn't trying to be snarky or anything when I asked what India and Pakistan gained by separating from Britain. I am assuming that Britain was looting their resources or something right? In general, colonies were set up so they could most efficiently offload resources to the mother country, and as far as I know India wasn't really an exception. So it wasn't really looting so much as exploitation; the difference might seem trivial but it's a failure to modernize (because there was no gain for Great Britain) instead of a concentrated effort to steal from the country. e: There were of course things like the rail network but again those were mostly set in so that the goods the British wanted could be more efficiently delivered rather than a benefit to the local people.
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Mar 13, 2014 03:18
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can I point out that the use of rape as tribe-based weregild very much predates Western or even Islamic colonization of the subcontinent?Miltank posted:I really wasn't trying to be snarky or anything when I asked what India and Pakistan gained by separating from Britain. I am assuming that Britain was looting their resources or something right? if there is a main cause, it is that Britain was about four decades too slow in integrating assimilated English-speaking natives into the civil service, and inculcating a multi-racial elite unified by the imperial identity. A Hindu-Muslim elite bargaining for self-government came well before the later acrimony, so there could very easily have been a multiethnic elite using an Anglicized or otherwise partially westernized identity to hold the country together, if the British had granted more concessions to the earlier nationalists even today, despite the eventual Hindu supermajority character of India, English is still tightly embraced by the non-Hindus as a barrier against further domination the Empire was disintegrating anyway, even before World War One, due to dissatisfaction amongst Canada, Australia/New Zealand, etc. But India adopted a more anti-imperial identity than these states (or, for that matter, Malaya) because the British created a generation of educated, aspirational Anglophone elites and then did not treat them fairly. The notion that anti-imperialist identity stems from resource exploitation makes no sense, given that Malaya was accounting for far more of the revenue, and Malaysia's independence process was much less fraught ronya fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Mar 13, 2014 |
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Mar 13, 2014 03:20
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 Note Federated Malay States plus Straits Settlements. Malayan rubber was a thing. Also the tin. Britain already had coal, but military power also desperately needed rubber and steel. With no rubber, you have no tires and engine gaskets, and with no automobiles, you have no army worth a drat. There is a reason Japan dashed all the way to Malaya before bombing Pearl Harbor. Synthesized rubber would only be mass produced during the war itself, by the Americans, and even so it merely substitutes a dependence on natural rubber for a dependence on gasoline, which Britain also did not have. If you're wondering about the size of the Australia/New Zealand bars, both had amongst the highest GDP/capita in the world at the turn of the century. ronya fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Mar 13, 2014 |
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Mar 13, 2014 03:38
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