Nope, violence is generally uncivilized. You may have sophisticated violence, but it is still a primitive way to dealing with things. Whether you throw a show or nuke a country, the violence is primitive (maybe justified, but still primitive). The means or motives of violence may not be primitive, but the violence itself always will me. Your sarcastic condescending remark just demonstrates your ignorance of my position.
It is possible I would act barbaric too. Doesn't justify it, I'd still be wrong. There is a different between a mitigating factor and a moral act. EDIT: forgot the double post merger was broken again, sorry.
If someone was to make a scale of all the violent acts occuring in the world, I'm sure this would barely register. So I'd still say that using words such as "barbaric" and "primitive" is a bit prissy. Not to mention that I'm now stuck with this mental image of vikings and early mongolians riding around throwing shoes at each other.
Can we stick to the real issue here, like why this guy isn't being scouted by the MLB? He chucked those shoes at quite a clip.
Well maybe you should've explained your postition a little better. Your posts made it seem like Bush was some innocent little guy and the Iraqi journalist a barbaric warrior throwing shoes for no reason. And after all, not caring about and not respecting other cultures than your own is another feature of primitive and barbaric people, so see for yourself where you stand on that spectrum of yours.. and again
I don't know if you have noticed this before, but people do tend to forget about "moral act" sometimes when they're, say, fucking furious. Just saying.
Sure, it would be low on the scale of violence. Doesn't make it less primitive though, just less violent. The sentiment is still just rage expressed with violence. I am not going to respect a culture just because it is a culture. It needs a valid defense, supported by reason. If I was from a culture where it was the norm to rape our women all the time, it wouldn't mean that it was fine for us to do so, it would just make me a part of an immoral culture. If throwing shoes is how they show disrespect, than that is a primitive part of their culture. Western culture has primitive parts as well (I think less than much middle eastern cultures, but I digress...). Something being a culture doesn't stop it from being primitive, and playing the culture card as a defense is just something to hide behind when you're reasoning fails you. I know. But that doesn't make it moral, just understandable.
No, I UNDERSTAND IT. I just also understand that it is primitive and not moral. In some situations, anyone will probably act primitive though. I am just saying we should still acknowledge the fact that it is primitive, even if we do understand why we might do the same thing.
That's..... not quite what I meant. No one denied the fact that it is primitive. I am neither saying that what he did was right (or even wrong), nor am I defending him for what he did or giving him any excuses. I just wanted to remind you that he is, after all, a human and humans do make mistakes sometimes.
Well concerning the raping of women, that's obviously not a part of any culture, but since you've mentioned it, the culture you and I both come from (call it the western culture or whatever you like) seems closer to being ok with it than any eastern culture. You rape a woman in Canada or Serbia and you'll get a couple of years in prison, but in some Arabic countries or countries in the far east if you dare do it they might even cut your little friend off. You also get a death sentence in some counties for cheating on your wife or husband. So even if they are primitive as you say, maybe that's not a bad thing at all. They retained moral values that our culture forgot a long time ago. They don't sleep with other women when they're married, we can't wait to fuck somebody new. They throw shoes at somebody when they're angry with them, we buy a gun and kill them. Well fuck it, it seems that they're not as bad as the western media would like them to be.
Mutilation should not be a state-sponsored means of punishment, even for rape. If you are single and sleep with a married woman, you have not done anything wrong. Her commitment is not your commitment. You deserve no punishment. Being polygamous is not immoral, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to "fuck someone new", as long as you do so with their consent and you are not committed to another. We get a gun and shoot someone opposed to blowing outselves up. See, I can throw around stereotypes too. Regardless, I admit many things in Western culture are primitive and disgusting as well. But even if we were 100x worse than their culture, it doesn't change the fact that throwing a shoe to show dissent is primitive. Sure, there are tonnes of things worse in every culture, but it is still more primitive than civilized. This is my main point, you keep attacking strawmen.
First off, I'm not attacking you. I apologize if I came across as having something personal against you, because I don't. My main point was that primitive and civilizes are just words, simple labels that lose their meanings when you take a look at the broad picture, at motives behind actions, when you take feelings and emotions into consideration. And they're also very subjective, what seems to you as a primitive action, to somebody else may look like a pretty civilized way of dealing with things. Again I come to different cultures, I don't know how much you've traveled around the world, but I hope in time, you will realize how important it is to respect different cultures, different ways of doing thing and different meanings of various actions regardless of how stupid or wrong or even primitive they might seem to you.
Okay Dusan. I will say that I am not going to respect things if people don't show me the logical reason why the thing is respectable. I won't respect or disrespect something solely due to it being part of "culture". I think throwing shoes at people you disagree with is primitive, whether done here or there. But if you do not want to argue, I do not want to drag you into something you'd rather not be a part of. Just want to make sure my stance is still clear. Thank you for the debate .
I just think there's nothing more to say about this topic and we better stop before it turns into a boring exchange of soliloquies. You'll stick to your opinion, I'll stick to my and that's ok, it would be a hell lot boring if we all agreed about everything. Now, waiting for some new world news
In a way, I think I agree with not respecting the shoe-throwing simply because it's part of a nation's (or religion's) culture. I respect it as being a part of the culture, but I don't respect the act itself, if that makes any sense.