It’s amazing how popular this ancient philosophical metaphysical perspective is. Even Stephen Colbert, a devout Catholic, responded with a similar concept when asked in his questionnaire what happens when we die?

Moksha (Hinduism), Nirvana (Buddhism), returning to the Tao (Taoism), Neoplatonism (ancient Greece), Fanaa (Sufism/Mystical Islam) - over millenia, so many traditions have been captivated by the idea of rejoining with “the One”.

Within Hinduism is the nonthestic framework promoted by Adi Shankara known as Advaita Vedanta which is Sanskrit for nonduality. This takes the concept even further, positing that we are one eternally and that individuality / self are spiritual Maya or illusion.

It’s amazing how popular this ancient philosophical metaphysical perspective is. Even Stephen Colbert, a devout Catholic, in his final episode responded with a similar concept when asked in his questionnaire what happens when we die?

Moksha (Hinduism), Nirvana (Buddhism), returning to the Tao (Taoism), Neoplatonism (ancient Greece), Fanaa (Sufism/Mystical Islam) - over millenia, so many traditions have been captivated by the idea of rejoining with “the One”.

Within Hinduism is the nonthestic framework promoted by Adi Shankara known as Advaita Vedanta which is Sanskrit for nonduality. This takes the concept even further, positing that we are one eternally and that individuality / self are spiritual Maya or illusion.

Meditation but it would take a while to get there. It is fun to work towards it though.

The real answer is that the right side of the political spectrum has lost many of the major conflicts in recent history (civil war, ww2, segregation) - though this is absolutely not true globally. Theres no way to know for sure but we may perceive history very differently if those conflicts had different outcomes. Ultimately, history is written by the victors.

By winning these conflicts “liberals” have been able to shape reality according to their vision but the problem is they’re so used to winning now that they’re not (ideological) battle ready and some conservatives are just itching for some big wins and the oppurtunity to drag us all back into the stone age.

deleted by creator

Maybe, disdain for those people is one thing, but European powers have engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide over the past 500 years on a global scale inconceivable in previous eras of human history, in part because it wasn’t possible with the tech available during most of that time.

Every country in the Global South has a horror story associated with people of European descent (not present day, from the past) which is pretty far reaching if you think about it, as they make up 80% of humanity.

That’s not something anyone today needs to necessarily feel bad about personally but the systems of exploitation that concentrated wealth amongst the 20% still exist today in different forms.

Just ask Emmanuel Macron who is marching around Africa to find another region to exploit after Sahel countries (Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso) united in ridding themselves of French neocolonialism.

Violent settlement, transatlantic slavery, indentured servitude, the creation of a global race based caste system. It’s not that some semblance of these concepts didn’t exist everywhere. It’s the scale and persistence that matters.

Nazism is not a culture, it’s a political ideology that seeks to drag us back into the stone age.

No political ideology “deserves” to exist.

We hold individuals accountable for their actions according to the rule of law. That applies to everyone including them.

It’s easy to fall for reductive dualisms as youve presented.

I stand for upholding the rule of law and inalienable human rights and do not accept Nazi / genocidal rhetoric.

Feel free to criticize these specific people as everyone absolutely should. But if you’re going to say a culture doesn’t “deserve to exist” because you think it “spawned” them, you better be able to name that culture so we know where your true intentions lie.

The abstraction is intentional because you know if you were specific your position becomes indefensible.

Oh you’re back. Theres not much more to say except that I wish you luck on your journey to human decency, if thats the path you decide to choose.

He did though, which is why his comment was removed. Saying a culture “doesn’t deserve to exist” is neo Nazi rhetoric. He’s free to criticize these specific people, advocating for ethnic cleansing is indefensible though. Of course when asked to define the culture he deemed unworthy of existence, he made a run for it.

Hey I made a fascist run away today, not bad.

Ok let’s be precise with our language. What culture are you referring to? Do you have a name for it?

It simply is indistinguishable from fascism because ultimately the fascists decided which cultures were problematic, who was a part of them and therefore who “deserved” to be exterminated.

Your criticism alone isn’t what likens your view to fascism, its the language you chose, which implies a disregard for inalienable human rights that does.

Do you, the one who apparently decides which cultures are worthy and which are not, get to decide how a culture is defined and who is a part of it?

Who is a part of it in this case? Who would you like to erase? People that look like them, speak like them, worship like them?

We punish individuals for their actions according to the rule of law.

You may want to go back to a time when we judge individuals based on the actions of those we perceive to be similar to them. I do not.

I don’t know which culture youve come from to arrive at this worldview, but as problematic and regressive as it is, I still acknowledge your personhood / humanity. I seek not to erase it (despite its flaws) nor do I deem you or anyone “spawned” from it to be unworthy of existance. People, communities and cultures are often indiscrete and in a constant state of adaptation. This type of rhetoric belongs in an era that should be left behind.

Yours is the language that seeks to enable genocide. It normalizes the idea of punishing the many for the actions of the few based on vague, perceived similarities. Criticize all you want but be mindful of the words you choose.

The framing of whether a culture “deserves” to exist was a justification to pursue the extermination of Jewish and Roma people in fascist Germany, as one example. From that and other similar acts of destruction in the name of cleansing or purity came a new world order with the concept of inalienable human rights.

When you speak on the erasure of a culture, which is often an abstract set of ideas around which clear boundaries can rarely be drawn, you justify a collective punishment that is antithetical to this foundational idea.

Individuals should be held accountable for their actions according to the rule of law.

Saying that a culture doesn’t deserve to exist undermines the idea of inalienable human rights, normalizes ethnic cleansing and ultimately takes us back to a much darker period of human history.

I may not have lived through world war 2, but I am not keen on unlearning the lessons that were learned from it.

It’s a stereotype that’s the reverse of the stereotype explained in the article. In most of Europe, perhaps with select exceptions, nobles looked down on the use of spices in cuisine when they became accessible to ordinary folk via colonialism. That led to a bit of an elitist attitude against spice which was the attitude I feel was the mainstream even as recently as the 90s in settler colonial nations from those of European descent. The vibe was, to be brief and blunt “don’t eat that you’ll never stop shitting” and real food is steak, casserole, meatloaf or whatever.

The reversal of that stereotype, since the Europeans that generally looked down on spice only make up 20% of the global population and most other regions enjoy it, was to say “no actually you’re the one with the bland food, it’s not that our food is too spicy”.

There’s exaggeration on both fronts but it’s interesting to see these different perspectives. Both have evolved over time.

Trevor Noah does a funny bit in his most recent standup where MLK Jr and his buddies go to a white diner - for the first time after ending segregation - and after having the (relatively) bland chicken, question everything they fought for.

Yeah it’s easy to think that but I’d be wary of embracing that level of extremism. Colonial powers used similar arguments to justify the extermination of peoples around the world for centuries ie. “the civilizing mission”. Your framing is also indistinguishable from core frameworks within facism.

I agree with your anger but not with your worldview. People and cultures adapt over time, and I’d sooner do what I can to influence change in a culture for the better, before questioning whether one “deserves” human rights. But… that’s just my culture. Let’s hope it deserves to exist 🤞.

Evolutionary psychology and anthropology do not support this conceptualization. Hunter gatherer societies were egalitarian and survived on cooperation. If one member was violent and/or seen as relatively unpredictable they were simply left behind (ostracized) or killed by the rest of the tribe (capital punishment).

In fact, some evolutionary biologists believe this collective culling of highly aggressive individuals over tens of thousands of years actually self-domesticated humans, making our species naturally more cooperative and less prone to random internal violence.

This is what anthropologists refer to as a reverse dominance hierarchy ie. the individual attempting to dominate would be culled while the cooperative collective was the truly dominant force. It’s, in a way, a precivilizational form of democracy.

One has to wonder if we’ve forgotten these ancient corrective mechanisms.

Wow this post made me so grateful for the women in my life (for not being this way).

This is much more cultural than it is biological. Protection doesn’t equate to violence outside of the extreme circumstances.

There are many reasons but one is that modern European cuisine (over the past several centuries) generally looked down upon spice.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/26/394339284/how-snobbery-helped-take-the-spice-out-of-european-cooking

I’ve always wondered if Hot Ones was a concerted effort to broaden the horizons of those who were traditionally opposed to spice.

I would argue racism against south Asians is fairly normalized also as there have been targetted hate campaigns online which spill over into the real world. It goes back to the model minority myth and both not being a traditionally disenfranchised group.

The Kailasa temple was a multi generational effort over more than a 100 years. It was typically a family of artisans across generations.