From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Sun 17 Nov 2002 - 20:39:54 GMT
Absolute cultural relativism is a fatal contradiction in terms. Rather,
cultures occupy niches in fitness landscapes, some more successful
than others. Coercive cultures, that is, those that physically or mentally
enslave their citizenry, are inferior to noncoercive cultures (Berlusconi
had this right). Adherents of coercive cultures can comfortably exist in
wider noncoercive cultures, so long as they do not attempt to impose
their own culture's coercive dictums on the wider population at large.
Coercive cultures, OTOH, cannot seem to tolerate the accommodation
of the adherents of noncoercive cultural forms, even when they do not
force their mores upon their neighbors. When A can contain B but B
cannot contain A, then A is more adaptable, hence more fit, than B.
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