There are tons of practices which not considered barbaric in our distant past. It used to not be barbaric in the U.S. to own other people, to beat your wife, and to beat up people simply for being gay. What's next? Will it be considered barbaric for us to cut the hoods of penises like we think it is barbaric to cut the hoods of clitorises? Is there no end to this cultural progress? Soon we might even think it is barbaric to devastate the infrastructure of a country or impose stringent trade sanctions indirectly killing thousands. It's a strange world we live in. Just think that in 100 years some practices which we now take as just, natural, necessary, and culturally appropriate will be considered barbaric by our own grandchildren. And in 200 years their grandchildren's children. None of this justifies ironing the breasts of women - it's a practice that we consider barbaric. I'm glad we don't live in a cultural period where that is considered normal. But in these threads where people on all sides of the political spectrum get together and condemn the cultural practices of others, I'm always given pause.
At least in Asia, the only thing being ironed are clothes. Here, neither ironing happening that much.
We have all these advocacies to "Save the Tatas" for breast cancer (while male cancers get less funding) But THIS is the greatest literal example that DESERVES the fight toward saving. Even though its a cultural practice and you're not to intervene, its nice some activists are taking a stand against that. (And of course its ignorance) Yes it does seem like these people have more time and comfort in their hands, are just falling in love with their own genius and start making these standards of "correctness". And you guage them all and it seems mightily just arbitrary. But there are some basic tenets of human rights most cultures can agree on. I think short-sighted dissolving of body parts to fit into a social standard is something most find needless.
Yeah, you've stated what bugs me. Oh, so they are so barbaric. (Implies we are so great!! USA USA USA. ) In the case of neo-con types the implication or even explicit claim is that it why we need to invade them and make them feminists or drone them or invade them or sanction them etc.
WTF!!! I hear about crap like this and the rest and think to myself, what did I do wrong to be born on this ****ty planet. Why couldn't I have been born on the really cool advanced civilization planet?!?!?
Think about it this way. Through your actions you have the ability to make this planet less ***ty. Raising awareness about things like this and helping organizations trying to stop things like this will help to build the cool advanced civilization you want.
That takes the realization that many things which we accept as the natural and right state of things are based on our cultural outlook. That type of realization, the impetus for change, and then finally change takes a long time to achieve.
Unfortunately, the places where people iron breasts engage in all of these practices. They missed a couple millennia of intellectual, cultural and behavioral progress and we either ignore it or in some cases patronize and infantilize their "authenticity." Your comment about trade sanctions is too abstract and injects domestic/regional political ideology into a global human rights discussion; furthermore every country on the planet does it, oppressiveness is based on the size and strength of the particular country doing it.
