It seems that Human Nature is suggesting that whenever we disagree with a given moral code from some culture or subculture, it is our duty to subvert it in any way possible.

Perhaps it is our duty to assist murderers escape - we could surgically alter their fingerprints; or rapists - we could mess with the DNA samples; could science help pedophiles and child molesters get more access to their prey?

This is ultimately the outcome of a liberalism that insists on the equality of all cultures and a liberalism that believes in arrogantly interfering with aspects of cultures it finds somehow don't fit its ideal of what all these supposedly great cultures should be.

Perhaps, instead of all this liberalism, we could simply acknowledge that people shouldn't lie, especially in pursuit of marriage; that sex outside monogamous heterosexual committed and religiously sanctioned marriage is abhorrent to many people and has been for a long time, and that honoring the equal human dignity of the genders is a part of what we think a just society embraces.

Not any random moral code, but a sexist, oppressive moral code that occasionally results in the stoning deaths and honor killings of women without hymens, absolutely.

It is absolutely our duty, as people who abhor the abuse and suppression of women, and the tendency to trade them as commodities, and the inclination to hold them to a specific physical standard in order to prove that they are worthy of life, marriage and family, to subvert this "moral code" in any way possible.

And beyond that, a hymen is an arbitrary thing. Mine broke when I was ten because I happened to play a lot of sports. Some women are born without them entirely. A hymen only incidentally implies virginity because the majority of hymens break on first intercourse (or the first time some foreign object was ever stuck up in there). So requiring a hymen is like requiring that the woman express pain the first time she has sex and holding her to the consequences otherwise, even though it's not painful for all women the first time, just for some.

This abusive, sexist test proves nothing and is only embraced by these oppressive cultures because women are seen more as livestock than people- valuable livestock- but not above a look in the moth and a quick grope of the balls to make sure they are up to par.

*mouth

Equating the restoration of an arbitrary genital feature with harboring pedophiles is a very stupid comparison.

Yes, it would be. But equating one group of people doing everything to undermine honest relationships and values in one culture and another group of people doing the same to another culture... well... that would require some judgment about which culture is superior and has a right or obligation to force its values on the other, even through deception.

How can a society be just if it treats a group of people as commodities, little better than livestock? By your standards, we should embrace the caste system, female circumcision, and outright discrimination of individuals based on gender, coloring, sexuality, and socioeconomic status. Most of these practices are encouraged by religious tenets and are sanctioned if not encouraged. These practices do not further human dignity, they tear it apart and make women and minorities a second class of people.

And, this sexual acitivity outside of marriage that you say is "abhorrent to many people and has been for a long time" does not apply to men of these cultures, but solely to the women. Basically, in many of these nations, men can sleep with any human being they choose, provided that the person is not another man's "property". Many of these sexual practices don't conform to the heterosexual mold that you've stated is the basis for these nations morals, even though they'd love to present it this way.

Trying to advocate an that an individual of a free society not be treated as chattel is not a subversion of a culture. It is merely attempting to preserve the dignity of a human being.

Allowing pedophiles and murderers access to more victims is not the same as saying a cultural practice is unjust. Advocating fair treatment of all people is not breaking a law in a free society. If you want a nation based on theocracy, there are plenty to choose from in the Midde East. But a nation whose laws are supposed to be based on logic and fairness does not bend to a religious tenet that treats a group of people as slaves or worse.

At some point you actually do have to judge other people's cultures and decide whether one aspect or another can be tolerated in your society. At some point, other societies' actions become sufficiently outrageous that you decide it is okay to undermine them. There simply is no justification for this kind of sexism.

This could possibly make some amount of sense if Western doctors were forcing hymenoplasty on Muslim women. But the Muslim women are asking for the procedure. And they are part of the culture, right? So a fairer appraisal of the culture is that it includes premarital sex for women, a fetishization of virginity, and a desire on some women's part to conform to the virginity ideal without actually maintaining their virginity. In that sense, Western doctors are not "undermining" a culture they deem "inferior" by performing the requested procedure.

Or are men the only members of a culture important enough to determine its contours?

BenK:

Yes, it would be. But equating one group of people doing everything to undermine honest relationships and values in one culture and another group of people doing the same to another culture... well... that would require some judgment about which culture is superior and has a right or obligation to force its values on the other, even through deception.

I have no problem calling the part of "my" culture that is capable of respecting women (and not rejecting\ostracizing\beating them) for reasons more substantive that their virginity as being very much superior to the part of someone elses' culture that allows men to devalue women by merit of their hymen.

I don't particularly care whether something is "normal" in other cultures. If it contributes to the overall devaluing of a person and their writes, then I have no problem saying that it is objectively below me.

So long as the standards of human rights are agreed upon, liberalism certainly doesn't have any trouble making distinctions between that which is healthy or unhealthy for a society.

From BenK: "It seems that Human Nature is suggesting that whenever we disagree with a given moral code from some culture or subculture, it is our duty to subvert it in any way possible."

BenK, this makes it sound as if a certain group of people are demanding that all Muslim women must have pre-marital sex and then undergo a compulsory hymen restoration to deceive their future husbands.

Are you suggesting that before an adult can undergo an elective surgical procedure (heck, an elective activity) they must provide documentation that the procedure has been given a thumbs up by their "culture"?

Actually, I'm sort of sorry I responded to this; it makes no sense. The third paragraph first decries liberals as moral relativists and then as moral absolutists. It's impossible to determine what this poster is talking about.

BenK:

It seems that Human Nature is suggesting that whenever we disagree with a given moral code from some culture or subculture, it is our duty to subvert it in any way possible.

Perhaps it is our duty to assist murderers escape - we could surgically alter their fingerprints; or rapists - we could mess with the DNA samples; could science help pedophiles and child molesters get more access to their prey?

This is ultimately the outcome of a liberalism that insists on the equality of all cultures and a liberalism that believes in arrogantly interfering with aspects of cultures it finds somehow don't fit its ideal of what all these supposedly great cultures should be.

Perhaps, instead of all this liberalism, we could simply acknowledge that people shouldn't lie, especially in pursuit of marriage; that sex outside monogamous heterosexual committed and religiously sanctioned marriage is abhorrent to many people and has been for a long time, and that honoring the equal human dignity of the genders is a part of what we think a just society embraces.

Are you actually equating murder with not worshiping (at least in a small way) virginity?And it's liberalism that is the problem not a conservative religious mindset that obesesses over sex in general.These are the people who's religion helped lead them to flying planes into buildings and in this country helped lead people to shoot doctors and assault gays and lesbians andclaim only christians are the true americans.(like a couple of nuts on this board)And your defending it!

In truth, what's really happening is not quite what you describe. Actually, it is barely at all what you describe.

For example, many of these 'inspections' and such are carried on and enforced by women. Thinking about female genital mutilation, that is also largely carried out in the precincts of the females.

No, part of the problem is this limnal state, where people are going back and forth between two conflicting cultures, each of which is in internal conflict. The western culture retains certain traditional values, but honors them largely in the breach. The muslim culture has people who violate standards and norms, but has some radical ways of enforcing those same standards as well.

This isn't about using only the male point of view to define the muslim culture - and that culture doesn't accept or even routinely include premarital sex for women. Heck, they invented the 1 hour marriage specifically to legalistically avoid extramarital sex. However, there is a standard that virgins are inherently more desirable brides in that culture, and women want to boost or regain their value, both in the men's eyes, and in the other women's eyes, and in their own eyes - without the opportunity cost of having remained virgins to the point of marriage, an opportunity cost largely increased by the relative ease of engaging in such affairs in a western culture that has itself slowly backed away from enforcing its own traditional values against such a thing.

No, what I'm saying is that is seems hypocritical to pretend to respect minority cultures and then also decide to systematically undermine their values and the social arrangements that enforce those values.

What a certain group of people is doing is arguing that Muslim women, if they are to be truly actualized and fully human, must have the freedom to enjoy casual sexual intimacy and also be provided the means to 'demonstrate' that their protestations to the contrary are somehow accurate so they can establish traditional family relationships inside a culture we obviously must despise.

This is bizarre on so many levels that it is almost impossible to tease apart the complex of contradictory and self-defeating behaviors.

Does it not dehumanize a person to lie? To cheat? To steal? Why should we be accomplices to that? Why should we pander? What values are those that we espouse that make this the right course of action?

I'm saying that we can't proclaim our acceptance of muslim culture and simultaneously undermine it; that we would feel offended if someone else decided to undermine our values - and rightly so. Thus, we should either drop the charade and decide that we don't care about muslim culture and values at all - that we will enforce our own culture and values on anyone within our purview - or that we should prepare to let the muslims do all sorts of things that radically offend us, as long as they do it 'to each other.'

Personally, I'd argue that we need to make a stand against sexism and racism, and look closely at what really allows a person to be valued and have dignity, and support that. We should support truth telling, support honor, support loyalty and justice, charity, patience, self-sacrifice, family duty, and other virtues. We should not accept the old saw that in absolute liberty people find their complete fulfillment - only that without substantial liberty, people can never be fulfilled.