26 Comments

@ Daniel Yokomizo

> Because most parents "expose" their kids to a very narrow subset of existing cultures.

This is one of the benefits of living in a massively multicultural society like canada. Most parents here *do* expose their kids to a set of existing cultures that is large and gets larger with time. I think by the time I was 8 I had already traded bullets with yugoslav refugees, had made close friends with some cree kids who were close to their relatives on rez, had family dinners with ukranians/dutch/germans who barely spoke english, was in french immersion class taught by a just-off-the-boat-from-spain french teacher, and went to school with at least one person japan/korea/china/vietnam/laos. I am not a special case, either. Outside of rural areas(and some urban enclaves in vancouver/toronto) where multiculturalism is more a theory than a practice, you can ask many(I'd guess even most!) canadians about this and they'll give you the same kind of answer. You can fix this problem in your country by allowing more immigration from a more varied source of countries, by bringing the world close in physical proximity to you. Though that is not without its costs since each group has to learn to live with eachother and make decisions like the question of how much access children have to eachother.

> Also exposure by media does really count?

Yes, though there's a difference in just watching something/sight seeing and actively participating in that culture. Media allows and did allow for participation in the means of production both local and abroad even as of 2008.

There is obviously a trade off of how deep your integration and access to various culture can be when there's so many cultures represented and around. Every hour standing in a circle and praying with anishinabek elders is usually an hour you can't headbang with the emo punks. But a lifetime of experience gradually adds up over time and some patterns of culture get imprinted on you, as a child, no matter where they come from.

In general, children grow up, they leave the homes and sooner or later have access to things like the children's help line. (At least they did until fairly recently, now it's not clear that these sorts of things are present for victims of abuse in canada (for example the children's help line is tapped by the government, who seems to have been involved in helping to cover up pedophile rings in the UK)). But at least in principle, geography helps solve these issues. Look to Marshall Mcluhan : bring everyone closer together in the global village, and the problems of individual cults being exclusive break down as you can't *help* but be influenced, and influencing your surroundings since they are so nearby.

The bigger question is what happens when the global village

itself gets coopted/corrupted, and how to create space for children to develop in such a dystopia when this happens to the point where they can fix things. I think the answer to that is putting them in communication with eachother in such a way that the oldfags can't interrupt/spy on, which every generation so far has figured ways to do and doesn't seem like this is a trend that will stop any time soon.

Expand full comment

See my added to the post.

Expand full comment

@an1) there are probably many things wrong with our own particular culture 2) because of human nature and power structures it would probably become an excuse for repression, conquest, genocide and other nice things.

Has it occurred to you that your opposition to repression, conquest and genocide might just be cultural norms?

And that you actually share much with those whom you would disparage, whose ethical system, like yours, are informed by their understanding of life's meaning, which ultimately, like yours, are based on unproveable assertions.

Expand full comment

An 11-year-old girl is clearly a vicious, disgusting crime. Clearly, that designation has more to do with your feelings about the crime than any property of the crime itself.

Expand full comment

@anonymous

Ok, there may be a difference between a Raymond Radiguet and an 11-year-old girl. I am not sure there is harm in The Devil in the Flesh situation. I think many men might confess to envying Radiguet, altho' now of course in the USA we would jail the woman for a lengthy term. An 11-year-old girl is clearly a vicious, disgusting crime.

@ an

It does remain common in some African and Muslim societies today, does it not?

I do not believe we have evidence that poly among consenting adults is harmful. Robin's question is after all focused on children. I agree with you overall, of course it's wrong.

Expand full comment

anonymous - I was careful with my wording: "having sex too young _can cause_ great psychological harm". If it doesn't always, still the trauma of those who do suffer is too great to risk it.

Thanks for the pointer to that study, though; I hadn't seen that before. I can't accept its findings whole-heartedly; Dallam's criticism of its sample bias seems particularly apposite. My perception of harm caused comes largely from court news: if you exclude those who stand to gain from taking their abusers to court (i.e. by financial compensation) then I think what's left counts as data rather than anecdote, and accounts for the most traumatised people left out of Rind et al's study.

Expand full comment

Wendy Collings:

Society's judgement against paedophiles is actually the kids' own judgement; it doesn't need to be argued further.

Not necessarily, though - at least one 1998 meta-analysis found that 'childhood sexual abuse' does not cause significant harm: "3 out of every 100 individuals in a CSA population had clinically significant problems (compared to 2 out of every 100 in a general population)". At least according to that study, the deciding factor was whether or not the child considered the act consensual - in other words, sexual actions with children causes trauma if it's a rape, but it's also perfectly possible to have consensual, non-traumatic encounters. The paper was loudly and generally condemned, but the journal that published the paper resubjected it into a new round of peer review after the article got into the public eye, and found no methodological errors.

Objective analysis of the topic is likely to be impossible, considering that any researcher publishing results supporting the hypothesis of paedophilia being harmless is certain to get publicly condemned, regardless of how valid his results are. (And I do not feel comfortable pointing out this study other than with an anonymous comment.)

Expand full comment

To have a societyI don't need society! Abolish it! Or, more seriously, may the FLDS elect to secede from our society and form their own?

Expand full comment

Seconding Kaj and Gork, calling the FLDS just "Mormons" is misleading.

Expand full comment

"Should we let polygamists argue for their way of life directly to our kids? Should we let pedophiles argue their case directly to our kids?"

No need to. Kids have a habit of growing into adults and speaking out for themselves; from this we already know that having sex too young can cause great psychological harm. Society's judgement against paedophiles is actually the kids' own judgement; it doesn't need to be argued further.

If polygamy caused the same sort of harm, it would be right to safeguard kids from it. I haven't heard that it does. But my point is that reality is a better guide than principles when making such judgements on behalf of others.

Expand full comment

You need to get your facts straight. The people that the state of Texas is dealing with are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose adherents are sometimes referred to as "Mormons".

Expand full comment

an:Other things are for example polygamy with underage girls and isolation from the world at large.

That's not mainstream Mormon behavior, though. Don't confuse this splinter group with Mormons in general.

Expand full comment

frelkins'I want to be sympathetic to your argument, but at the same time I immediately stop myself and think, wait - "polygamy with underage girls and isolation from the world at large" are exactly the majority human situation from time immemorial until the rise of Christianity, European colonization, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus I am struggling to clearly articulate the harm. Please help me.'

Yes, human history is full of harmfulness. I understand your point is that it's exactly because of cultural absolutism (in Christianity and colonization) that we have progressed to have things like human rights. That's true, though these things were also used for "repression, conquest, genocide and other nice things". Though a bunch of detached philosophers can easily find flaws in a culture and point to improvements that would improve life for everybody, when and how to apply absolutism is a risky and complicated thing and I don't have an answer.

It's obviously a fallacy to say that because "polygamy with underage girls and isolation from the world at large" has prevailed before, it's a good thing, so I take it that's not what you're saying.

Expand full comment

@an

I want to be sympathetic to your argument, but at the same time I immediately stop myself and think, wait - "polygamy with underage girls and isolation from the world at large" are exactly the majority human situation from time immemorial until the rise of Christianity, European colonization, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus I am struggling to clearly articulate the harm. Please help me.

Expand full comment

'Are you really so 'naive' as to think this? What makes mormonism any more harmful than catholicism, judaism, atheism, etc etc?'

That it's false is elementary, and teaching kids false things is harmful. Other things are for example polygamy with underage girls and isolation from the world at large. That it's -more- harmful than those other things is hard to tell and I didn't claim it is, though atheism at least has an advantage in the truth thing.

Of course we probably shouldn't advocate any sort of cultural absolutism because 1) there are probably many things wrong with our own particular culture 2) because of human nature and power structures it would probably become an excuse for repression, conquest, genocide and other nice things.

Expand full comment

One major difference between a small country outside of the US and a cult inside the US is that in the latter case, if the culture indoctrinates its members to prey on, exploit, attack or otherwise harm our citizens we have the defensive recourse of dealing with its members collectively keeping them out, while in the case of the cult inside the US its members have the rights of US citizens and can demand of us the much more taxing requirement that we treat them as individuals which requires expensive and uncertain investigation and requires us to strike a much more equal balance of our interest against theirs.Also, I'm pretty sure, based on my reading of Greek history that it was MUCH better, judged by my values, to be Persian than Spartan. Some cultures, such as that of the Taliban or North Korea are awful enough that I would be somewhat inclined to support their destruction even at modest cost and even if they are not a threat to us. Sparta probably doesn't make that cut, but its harder to tell.

Expand full comment