Every society believes those things are immoral. Every society eventually will dehumanize a certain group of people to where those actions seem justifiable. There was mass rape of African slaves by American founders like Jefferson but because society saw those slaves as less than human, it was justified. Your sentiment is what makes people not understand how entities like Nazis rise in western democratic nations. Very dangerous ideas from you. Even in modern US history you will have many examples of us service members raping indigenous populations in places like Afghanistan or Okinawa where in many cases they go unreported because the enlisted personnel part of the same squad, platoon etc will often cover for the perpetrators because the "thin blue line" concept works the same way in direct combat occupations in the military where enlisted personnel will cover up war crimes for their buddies. Only when the incident is caught by someone like a officer who's career will be on the line if something like that came out will action be possibly taken or if a embedded journalist does some investigation work and will call the war crimes out to the media.
I hope we aren't talking past each other or I'm not misunderstanding you or mischaracterizing what you're saying. I don't mean to. I think it's clear there are often massive cultural differences. Like if I look at the conduct of the Soviet, Japanese and U.S. militaries in the second world war. They, broadly speaking, had different attitudes towards things like sexual assault, murder and torture. This is well documented. The Soviets were thought to have committed possibly as many as two million rapes in Germany/Eastern Europe in 1944/1945. U.S. troops? 14,000. What does this say? To me, it says you have two different cultures with two different standards of conduct and sets of values. One where rape is illegal, proscribed and widely looked down upon but some bad actors still commit it and hopefully are punished but the judicial system is imperfect and many will get away with it. Another where, rape is accepted, condoned and even encouraged at every level of the organization. That speaks to a difference in cultures, standards of conduct and values to me. Could the U.S. military of said, "Hey, lets rape the sh** out of Italy, Germany and Austria" - Yea, they could have, but they didn't and I don't think the average GI would have done it anyway even without fearing the legal consequences. I American GI's had societal, cultural and values based expectations governing their conduct distinct from Soviet soldiers. I could make more comparisons like with the Japanese conduct towards PoWs and conquered civilian populations and U.S. military treatment of conquered German, Italian and Japanese populations and their treatment of PoWs or others but that belabors the point. The point is there are distinctions between cultures and groups of people with regards to standards of conduct. To your point about the historical failings of the U.S., UK and other countries. Yes, these standards of conduct and values have changed over time. I wouldn't argue against that. In the present day, U.S./U.K. etc etc standards of conduct and values are still distinct from other cultures in the world. I don't really understand the "we are all the same" point - if that's what you're trying to say.
I'm not going to bother responding to posts that contain statements like that. Get bent. If you want to have a civil discussion. Do better.
Understand the countries you talk about have propaganda that say there wasn't systemic rape. Japan has elected leaders for a long time that whitewash the history of Japan like what they did to Chinese civilians. America does this also. So why would they minimize these events? Because like us, they want to be perceived as moral arbiters. Today you have entire swaths of the America population that get offended if you besmirch the good name of Thomas Jefferson.
I sincerely don't understand what you are offended by. I'm telling your logic is how people get surprised their country allowed Nazis to come in power. Germans, Palestinians, Japanese people aren't inherently more evil than you. There were conditions on the ground with how Germany lost WW1 that led to these fascist mindsets that ran rampant in the country. What you are doing is eliminating the chance that a country like America could fall into a Nazi like era. When you believe in the inherent superiority of cultures you become blind sighted to your own faults as a human. And frankly this is what we are seeing Israel. A population that are decedents of oppressed people who can't fathom that they have turned into the oppressor because they believe in their intent superiority in cultural values.
Nobody is claiming by the nature of the location you are born or the color of your skin that you are predisposed to being any more evil then any other person. Difference between societies do exist and do influence peoples behaviors and expectations though. Soviet troops, writ large, behaved differently then U.S. troops. Japanese troops, writ large, behaved differently then U.S. troops. This disparity in conduct was influenced by their societies.
I sincerely believe you aren't bright enough to realize that is the implication you are expressing when you create narratives of inherent cultural superiority. Yes I'm sorry, you are implying there is inherent good vs bad groups of humans. I suggest you visit a Muslim majority country with high wealth inequality like Bangaldesh to understand how culture is an effect not a cause. Go to the urban upper class high rise condo sections of Dhaka and see how many women are living near identical western lifestyles wearing western clothing, no head coverings, see how the people in these areas miss their prayers constantly and barely interact with their faith outside of maybe once a week mosque events. And then go to the poor rural areas of Bangladesh and see how the women there are almost all covered and how these communities are centered around their religion and their 5 time a day prayers. Whatever "cultural value" differences you see between Israel and Palestinians isn't a result of some inherent evil as you imply.
A Japanese citizen would not think this because the media they consume. They would think the opposite.
Also I suggest you spend one month in a Marine infantry barracks where you can hear them wax lyrical about dousing 5.56 rounds in pigs blood while calling indigenous afghanis "sand niggers". You seem to have a severe disconnect of the very inhumane fascist tendencies of our direct combat troops.
I agree that there are different cultures and cultural norms - and I agree at a particular point in time there are differences. However, over a long period of time; exploitation and murder and genocide and exploitation are pretty damn universal. This is especially true when you take into context the relative situations of particular nations or groups of people. For example, the Soviet Union soldiers were facing an enemy that had invaded their country and was close to taking over their nation - that and the bloody history of Russia is largely why the Soviets were harsher than the American's or the English. As for the idea that US soldiers would not rape or kill people - it did happen in Vietnam and it happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus we committed genocide in our recent past. The thin veneer that separates societies or cultures can sleep really easily. Look at how we responded to the 9-11 terrorist attacks. We started two wars, killed millions of civilians - and before then, we had embargo's that killed hundreds of thousands of children. So - I believe a lot of it is circumstantial, and I rely on history for that opinion. Right now I would rather be taken captive by the Japanese or Germans than I would the USA or UK - but that wasn't the case on 80 years ago.
Okay let's test this. So you agreed that culture is nearly just an effect of circumstances that individual groups face and has nothing to do with one group having superior morals. If the United States lost a war in the manner in which Germans lost WW1, I could easily see this nation turn into a Nazi like state full of disgruntled vets blaming the left and minorities sabotaging their chances at winning said hypothetical war.
Perhaps we are speaking past each other. I don't think you understand what I am conveying. Or you're choosing not to. It's plain for everyone to see different cultures and societies have different norms and expectations regarding conduct. And it's not based on skin color or geography. Also, the pejoratives do you no credit and such conduct does no credit to any man of character. Try and do better.
HUGE difference. In Germany, at the end of WW II, everyone in Germany was hoping that the Americans or Brits would get to them before the Russians would. For a reason.
A lot of it that we cannot all know every culture intimately. We can look at past stereotypes and laugh or say it was absurd that people believed them - but we do the same today. I have seen some positive inroads with how black Americans are viewed by America as a whole over the last decade or so, largely because there are so many biracial Americans now - it is hard not to see them as people and not characters. The truth is that Americans and the West have VERY little actual understanding of Arabs or Arabic culture.
Yes that reason has to do with the horrible history Russia had with German invasions killing millions of Russians. That causes bad blood. If Germany did what they did to Russia to the UK which was far beyond some Ariel bombing runs, you can bet your ass those British troops would treat those Germans just as poorly as Russians did.
Yeah - I am sure they were ......... the Germans had invaded Russia, starved the Russians, nearly took Russia and the plan for Russia was to turn it into an empty vessel for German expansion through the extermination of Slavs, enslavement and death of Russians and the kidnapping of children and Russian sex slaves. Those types of things tend to piss people off - the Russian soldiers were also hungry, tired and had been defending their crumbling country at the time. There is no doubt that German's were hoping for American's and the British - and I would have as well if I were a German.
