A nice neighborhood to have bad habits in

they believe in equality, democracy, and free speech

but only for Americans

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No, I really don't believe that. I certainly didn't in the 70's, and I don't even now. Yes, there are obvious counter-examples, from Vietnam (hell, from Texas) down to the prison camps on Cuba, but the American Dream, from way over here, still seems to be of a world very much like America, not of a world of America and everyone else.

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I think that might be true among relatively affluent, educated Americans though even there it's very much 'as long as they are just like us and do it our way'.

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But ALL Americans are relatively affluent, relatively educated - and they have no monopoly on "as long as they are just like us and do it our way", except that "just like us" and "do it our way" have a far broader definition in America than, say, Luxemburg.

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You have obviously never worked in Mississippi or Louisiana

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Nope, but I've travelled in Africa and India, and worked in an NHS hospital in Glasgow. What's your point?

Picking on the southern states, you're already talking about a culture which is at least bipolar (in both senses), and has a wider range of poverty, wealth, inclusion and exclusion than many European countries.

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My point is that in those states most people certainly don't believe in equality, democracy and free speech and I suggest the proportion who do is lower than you would think in most of the US. Certainly there is no widespread belief in equality in the US and the general notion of democracy and free speech is an extremely constrained one.

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Again, I have to take you up on the "extremely constrained" notion of democracy and free speech. Compared to where? And as to equality, I can't see any widespread moves to deny the vote to women or non WASPS.

That statement that "most people" in those states don't believe in equality, democracy and free speech just seems nonsensical - maybe we have different definitions of equality, democracy and free speech?

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My definition of 'equality' would extend well beyond the right to vote. I'd point out that even there a whole host of things are being done to deny the vote to poor people, people who live in the wrong neighbourhood etc. Add to that that in most states anyone who has ever had a criminal conviction can't vote and that the statistics on the unequal application of felony statutes to different ethnic groups show compellingly that non-whites are more likely to be chaged, with a felony (for a given set of circumstances), more likely to be convicted and more likely to receive a sentence that bars them for voting for life and I say that clearly there is a racially and socially biased access to voting rights.

American democracy is constrained by other things. Most notably the extraordinary role that corporate money and corporate lobbying plays in the process. Habermas argues that a viable civil society and informed public discourse are essential for a functional democracy. The US doesn't have them. Clearly this belief is shared by many Americans or more of them would vote.

Free speech... try arguing for atheism in a school in the South and see what happens. I know of biology teachers refused tenure for not sucking up to creationism etc etc.

Edited Date: 2008-09-24 08:42 pm (UTC)

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I can't argue with what you say about the application of power to retain power in America - but I also can't see it as any worse than any other abuse of power to retain it, and can (and will) quote worse abuses elsewhere.

Maybe it is right to castigate America for its failures, because its promise is so much greater, but to do that is to ignore that in absolute terms it is a more equal society, a freer society and a society with less hunger than almost anywhere else on earth.

Maybe biology teachers are being refused tenure for not sucking up to the religious orthodoxy, but very few of them are being killed for it. Again, to say that America does not have an informed public discourse is nonsense - covert censorship and overt lobbying do not amount to fatwhahs and corruption.

Discrimination - racism - doesn't amount to death squads and genocides. I don't think the US is perfect - far, far from it, but in terms of aspiration and practice there's more to admire than condemn.

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and they have no monopoly on "as long as they are just like us and do it our way",

But, almost uniquely they have the ability and the willingness to use physical force against foreign countries to enforce that. Luxemburg will not invade Iraq, nuke Iran or run covert terrorism campaigns in Nicaragua

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Because no European nation would ever invade a neighbour? Or export their brand of, let's call it "muscular christianity" to another continent under force of arms?

Granted, America is the sole superpower around at the moment, but it doesn't seem to be behaving in a way qualitively different from England, Russia or Germany in the last century, or from the way Iraq was behaving prior to the Gulf Wars.

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Sure, but I wouldn't claim that Victorian England or Imperial Germany believed in democracy, equality or free speech.

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I can't speak for Imperial Germany, but by the standards of the times Victorian England was an exemplar of all three.

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Hardly! Free speech perhaps but not democracy or equality. It had one of the most restricted franchises in Europe and you just have to be kidding about equality.

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By the standards of the time - slavery had been abolished (well, the slave trade) and by the end of Victoria's reign the franchise had been expanded almost exponentially: I wouldn't have wanted to live there (although at least I wouldn't have been executed out of hand for being Catholic) but there were a lot worse places to be, and very few better.

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But hardly a democracy. The Lords was more powerful than the Commons. The franchise restricted. Economic equality no way. No local democracy in England and Wales until 1884. Canada, the US, New Zealand, Australia, France, Belgium far more democratic.

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Victorian England was an exemplar of all three

You are joking, right?

Victorian England was fine with an Empire that spanned nearly an entire globe, and it was exemplary wrt democracy, equality, and free speech?

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No, it wasn't exemplary, it was an exemplar. It was ahead of the curve for most of the world of its time. Off the top of my head I can only think of one (ex)colony at that time which had democratic elections (however restricted the franchise) or a free press. And while no one could argue that women had equal rights, their lives were far less restricted than in most parts of the world.

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That is an almost admirable avoidance of the point. What you are arguing is reasonably decent domestic policy, what I was talking about was an abhorrent foreign policy. What hung in balance was a moral judgment about the country in question.

To put it on a different level, I am challenging an assumption that holds that a man is an exemplar if he is nice to his wife and affectionate to his kids, never mind that he goes around murdering prostitutes and orphans once he steps outside his home.

Incidentally, while exemplar the noun means 'a model or pattern to be copied or imitated', exemplary the adjective means 'worthy of imitation'. So I am not too sure what the splitting of hairs was meant to achieve.

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Nope, sorry. If a man (and lets not beat about the bush, we're talking about men) lives in a world where everyone murders their children and also murders prostitutes and orphans, decides, from some divine or insane impulse, that he will not murder his children, then he is some way ahead of the world he lives in, or the times in which he finds himself.
That does not make his behaviour exemplary - for that it must seem worth imitating in a world, such as our own, where murder is not the norm. It makes him an exemplar, in that his behavior, while morally reprehensible, is superior to that of the world around him.

I'm not even going to pretend to support Victorian foreign policy abroad - it was a morally reprehensible. But I'm going to contend that it was no worse than anyone else's. And that in a domestic sense it was superior to most of the world around them at the time, making them an exemplar for other Western states of that time while in no way being exemplary. And, in the interest of a rounded view, also so far in advance of the states which were being colonised that it isn't even on the same page - after all, burning women and selling the conquered into slavery was not acceptable behaviour in England at the time we're discussing, while as far as I know it was commonplace throughout those countries miscalled "The Empire" before the by-blows of Sandringham breezed through.

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I'll be responsding to this comment bit by bit. There is a load of work that needs to be completed this w/e, and I'll pursue this argument when I take a break.

So let me start with your last paragraph:

But I'm going to contend that it was no worse than anyone else's. And that in a domestic sense it was superior to most of the world around them at the time...And, in the interest of a rounded view, also so far in advance of the states which were being colonised that it isn't even on the same page - after all, burning women and selling the conquered into slavery was not acceptable behaviour in England at the time we're discussing, while as far as I know it was commonplace throughout those countries miscalled "The Empire" before the by-blows of Sandringham breezed through.

Let's take a look at the burning of women, and let me now bring the discussion to India, for I am more familiar with the history of this land vis-a-vis the practice and less coversant with the details of when and how it stopped in other lands [still haven't found a copy of Fisch's book].

First the description 'commonplace'. I don't know how you define the word, but records show that the practice was mostly prevalent in Bengal, and in the Rajputana [currently Rajasthan] which together constitute less than 20% of the Indian landmass. Then, in these areas, 1% or less of the widows committed Sati. You may decide if a practice committed by 1% of widows in less than 20% of a country can be called commonplace. All I will say is yes, it happened.

As far as one can make out, the practice appeared around the end of the Gupta Empire [~ 400 AD]. And arguments and protests against it started at almost the same time. It was officially banned for the first time by Muhammed Tuqhlaq in the 14th C.

Humayun banned Sati in 1530s.
Akbar, seeing the failure of an outright ban, in 1550s declared that permission of his officials was needed to commit Sati, and the said officials were instructed to delay the permission for a couple of months, in the hope that the cooling emotions will translate into a desire to keep on living.
Shah Jehan [reigned from 1627 - 1657] upped the stakes by actually offering pensions, gifts, and rehabitilation of widows to wean potential satis off the practice.
Aurangzeb issued an edict in 1663 wherein the officials governing the mansabs were penalised if any act of sati was committed.

Now let us look at the Europeans in India, and their attitudes regarding Sati in the provinces governed by them:

The Portugese banned sati in their territories in the 16th C.
The Dutch and the French banned it in their provinces in the 17th C.
The British allowed it till the 19th C. From 1812, Raja Ram Mohan Roy started a petition campaign against allowing the practice to continue in British territories, and in 1829, William Bentick formally banned it. So there was this gap of 70 odd years [from the Battle of Plassey till the Bentick's ban] when the rules established by the Mughals weren't enforced anymore and the British East India Company didn't care to draft their own rules to stop the practice of Sati.

So no, definitely not on the same page, but not because they were so far advanced but because they had centuries of catching up to do, both with respect to the attitudes of the Pre-British rulers, as well as wrt the other European colonisers.

Now, in the interest of a rounded view, we might as well take a look at the burning of women in England:

Burning of women as the prescribed punishment for counterfeiting, and petty and great treason in England was stopped in 1790. The witchcraft laws were repealed a little earlier, in 1734.

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(I'm a wee bit uncomfortable continuing this discussion against the background of what's happening in Delhi just now - it seems a bit trivial and self-indulgent to be fiddling in the flames on my part, and I'm happy if you want to discontinue it at any point: in the meantime, I'll try to answer as I would at any other time).

So.

I'm afraid my sources for the practice of sati are second hand, from the internet, and I can't vouch for their accuracy - I'll gladly give way to primary sources on any of this.

Admitting that the practice was most common in Bengal (the figure I've seen was 90% of incidences being in Bengal or what is now Rajistan), the figure I find quoted for the years 1814 to 1828, when the English kept records, is around 500 incidences per year in Bengal. I'd consider that to be prevalent in its sense of "widely accepted", though not as being in the ascendancy. And, as you took me to task about questions of moral judgment, how many deaths by burning of innocent women constitute a moral issue? 8,000? 800? 80? 8?

As you point out the English did not ban sati until 1829,and it took a privy council decision to confirm that in 1832. You failed to mention the several of the Princely States did not ban the custom after this, or explain why it would be necessary for the British to ban a custom already banned under the law of individual states.

I've found it claimed in several places that Humayun's fiat against sati was later withdrawn, but in the way of internet "sources" I have no citation for this - you may be able to confirm or deny that claim.

Thank you for the historical information on England's prescribed punishments (though, leaving aside arguments about the morality of capital punishment, it seems a bit strange to compare capital punishment for a crime to the practice of sati). Catherieg Murphy was indeed the last woman burned for coining (on the 18th of March, 1789), but the point, surely is that she WAS the last - once the practice was banned, it never happened again. The various ordinances passed from Humayun to Aurangzeb did not stop the practice. Even now, I believe that there have been 40 documented cases of sati since independence in India.

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Look at the words you chose in your last comment after all, burning women...was not acceptable behaviour in England at the time we're discussing, while as far as I know it was commonplace throughout those countries.... You neither ruled out capital punishment, nor specified Sati and you find it strange that I talk about burning women in England, and don't find the mention of Sati strange? How interesting. Even more interesting is the fact that you haven't yet connected the obvious dots - which practice can be termed more 'acceptable', that which is prescribed by the law of the land, or that which is proscribed by the law of the land?

And yes, the proscriptions of the last 7 centuries haven't stopped the practice. And the reason is probably the same as the reason why we haven't managed to stop murder, or paedophilia, or rape, or terrorism, or suicide - it is one thing to recognise the undesirability of an action and legislate against it, yet another to ensure universal compliance.

You point out that I didn't mention that some princely states lagged behind even the British when it came to banning the Sati. I didn't - there were more than 500 princely states, most no bigger than tiny districts, and I neither know the position of all on Sati, nor remember the same for the states whose individual positions I may have read about. What I mentioned was a] the positions of those who ruled large tracts of India, and b] the position of other Europeans. Both of these were mentioned to refute your claims of a] the English being 'so far in advance' of the people being colonised, and b] being no worse than any other colonisers. And nothing in what you write above negates my point.

I also didn't mention the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj, and the various movements towards widow remarriage, and what Warren Hastings thought of the figures compiled by Bentick, and plenty of other things besides. The reason for this is simple - sati is probably the most well discussed and researched practice of India. If your interest in it goes beyond sneering, you should not have any difficulty finding sufficent reading material.

I am not too sure what you mean when you say I didn't explain why it was necessary for the British to ban a custom already banned under the law of individual states. Which 'individual states' did the British ban the practice in? As far as I know, the British banned it in the areas under their control - after all, it is hard to legislate in an area that isn't under your control.
[tbc]

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[contd from above]

What you call taking you to task on questions of moral judgment, I call challenging the validity of the moral judgment you pronounced. And the notion of the moral superiority of Victorian England is a notion I will always challenge. For the experience of my people doesn't bear out that judgment. Millions of Indians starved to death between 1850 and 1902, not because we didn't produce enough grain but because it was being shipped out. [15.5 million by official records, 31 million according to the Indian records] That fact alone, and there are plenty more like that, compels me to discount any statement about the advanced morality of the British, never mind that they joined the long list of rulers who tried to ban sati.

Now let me move onto the para about Bengal and Sati. let us take the figure of 500 incidences per year. The area of the province in the pre-partition era [the 1905 partition] - 189,000 sq miles. The population of the province in the first few decades of the nineteenth century ~ 50 million [Just an estimate - the 1770 famine reduced the number to 30 mil and after a couple more horrific famines the figure was around 80 mil at the time of the first partition of Bengal]. So 1 incident of sati every 100,000 people. I have never argued with prevalent, but I need better odds than that to describe something as either 'commonplace' or 'widely accepted'.

And, finally, the most significant sentence in your comment above: And, as you took me to task about questions of moral judgment, how many deaths by burning of innocent women constitute a moral issue? 8,000? 800? 80? 8?

Since you obviously feel the need to ask, even 8 deaths are 8 too many. Now that you have your answer, I'd like you to point me to any statement of mine which says or implies anything to the contrary. Failing which I'd like an apology for the red herring quoted above and the implicit insinuation. If you are unable to do either, kindly consider this an end to not just this discussion, but to all and any further discussions. I am fine with argments, I am fine with unresolved arguments, what I am not fine with are passive-aggressive personal attacks.

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I'm familiar with famine in Victorian times. Over 10% of Ireland's population died in famine during England's rule. While exporting grain to England. India contributed to the famine relief. It's the reason I'm Scottish, not Irish. The Victorian's foreign policy was morally reprehensible. I've never argued otherwise.

I picked up "prevalent" rather than commonplace wrongly. I was offended that as far as I could tell you were downplaying the significance of a practice based on numbers - "You may decide if a practice committed by 1% of widows in less than 20% of a country can be called commonplace. All I will say is yes, it happened."

At every point in the discussion above I have been at pains to repeat and repeat that I find Victorian policy morally repugnant.

And, reading that, I can see you made no moral judgement on the practice. All you can say is that it happened.
For obvious reasons, I'm going to try to avoid making an insinuation here. But if I have a problem with your argument, that is it. That you make no moral judgement.

I was not, in the comments quoted above making any insinuations, implicit or otherwise. Insinuation is a disgusting practice, and I would not indulge in it - if I had something personal to say I would say it straight out. I was not indulging in personal attacks, nor aggression, not actively nor passively. If anything I've said before the paragraphs above can be regarded as personal comment at all, it was unintentional and I apologise for any ambiguity of expression that might have caused that, unreservedly.

Given the subject, I plainly underestimated the level at which you would take it personally, which was at best naive on my part.

Having said that, and having apologised for seeming to insinuate anything, however unintentionally, I now consider this discussion over.

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Oh, I make plenty of moral judgments. I just was not aware that, in this day and age, one actually needed to pronounce judgment on the undesirability and the wrongness of sati. I honestly took the issue as self-evident.

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fugney.livejournal.com

Uggh!!! Stop fighting! Both of you!

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"Look at the words you chose in your last comment after all, burning women...was not acceptable behaviour in England at the time we're discussing, while as far as I know it was commonplace throughout those countries.... You neither ruled out capital punishment, nor specified Sati and you find it strange that I talk about burning women in England, and don't find the mention of Sati strange? How interesting."

You raised a practice that was abolished before the time we were discussing. Once abolished, it stayed abolished, and never happened again. While rape, murder etc did indeed continue. And for the avoidance of doubt, capital punishment in any form is reprehensible and should be abolished everywhere.In my opinion.

I'm less informed than you are as to the extent of Princely states. I raised them as an example of areas where the practice was not forbidden after the English banned it.

I did not intend to sneer. I apologise if that was the impression I gave. I have no intention of studying Sati beyond what I thought necessary to answer your point.

"I am not too sure what you mean when you say I didn't explain why it was necessary for the British to ban a custom already banned under the law of individual states."

I was wondering why there was a need to ban something that had already been banned. You answered that when you said it was as perpetual as murder and rape.

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anthrokeight.livejournal.com

I do know I need only be promoted to "male" to be as privileged as it's possible to be. But I would say Americans are pretty good at being inconsistent about things. We can argue we believe in democracy, freedom, etc. Then do a very bad job of it in practice on an institutional level. And then do pretty well at it on an inter-personal level.

And Western feminism did a pretty good job of showing that all kinds of people with good intentions, not just Americans, have a hard time seeing opportunity, equality, and freedom defined in any way other than the way they know. (see, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

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If I take a step back, I guess I see Americans as the right sort of people - they believe in equality, democracy, and free speech.

I find this a very curious statement - partly because of the implication that there are the wrong sort of people, and partly because of the implication that there exist people who profess to not believe in equality, democracy, and free speech. To the extent of my knowledge, once these notions gained a foothold in the political sphere, there have been very few groups [and fringe lunatics at that] who have disavowed these ideals.

The thing is, as I get older and learn more, I still believe in that impression, and feel that it's shared by most people in the world.

Well, count me out from the latter [and if the global attitude polls conducted by PEW over the last decade or so have any validity, count lots of others out as well]. My view is more in line with what Chickenfeet has been saying. No malice ascribed to the Merkins, but as long as the visible majority feels free, democratic, and notionally equal, there isn't much concern about how those less visible are treated, and how those outside its borders are treated.

I've never visited the US, but I have studied its history and politics for 4 years, and have observed the same since then. My impression of the Americans is much more dual than the statement posted by you. Shining ideals and great feats of nation building are one side of the coin. But the flip side of American Exceptionalism encompass the fate of the native Americans, Jim Crow, a foreign policy that has inflicted misery on large swathes of humanity...

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