--Test case: a society that rejects industrialization (e.g., the Amish). If we say, "their way of life is backward, we need to force
[WS:] Miles, there is more into the Amish society than meets the eyes of the pie-in-the sky pomo intellectuals. For the starter, the Amish have a very high rates of child abuse - some of it extremely sadistic, for example a mother pulling her daughter's teeth as a punishment for disobedience. This abuse is a dirty secret of Amish communities, and very difficult to prosecute precisely because Amish do not use mainstream services, such as schools, or health care, which are the primary sources of child abuse detection and reporting. Furthermore, the Amish have a very high suicide rate - which as Emile Durkheim has argued in his classic work - is a result of social pressure to conform to social norms. And that pressure is enormous to maintain the social cohesion and separateness of the Amish communities.
Quite frankly, I sincerely believe that all blas? pomo intellectuals who denounce the horrors of modern industrial society and extol the supposedly idyllic lives on non-industrial societies to promote their nihilistic relativism are full of shit and do not know what they are talking about. Such views, silly as they are, are harmless when confined to the vast wasteland of the internet and academic bullshit, but they become dangerous if various demagogues try to push them into the policy arena - cf. Liza's excellent piece of new-agey moms who refuse to vaccinate their children and who I believe should be prosecuted for child neglect and abuse.
Wojtek
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Are you saying that cultures which drive people to sadistic acts of 'tough love', suicide and child abuse have something wrong with them? Shame on you, Wojtek. Next, you'll be telling LOBsters that clitorectomy should be condemned! Really now, get off your high horse. It's people like you who have caused the extinction of blood sacrifice as a religious practice (except in times of war). You're making the gods very, very angry.
Hi-ho, Mike B)
Wage-slave's Escape http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
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