Why I see cultural intolerance as racist: VERY few people in polite modern western society are explicitly racist in the "I hate everyone with dark skin" way. I tend to use "racist" to mean any tendency in society which consistently and unfairly discriminates against people of a particular ethnicity, even though most of these justify themselves using cultural rather than explicitly racist ideas.
What about the flipside of the coin? What about cultural tolerance? I mean, it's ridiculously simple to argue that people finding elements of other cultures praisworthy is racist. Orientalism, for instance, grew almost entirely out of the belief that the "peoples of the Orient" were much more "exotic" and "rich" and "developed" and "mystical" than those in the Occident. Similarly, you'll see the same kind of construct going round about "spiritual wholeness" and "bonding with the land" in relation to pretty much indigenous group in the world. And I've seen it argued exceptionally well that that is just as detracting to views of a full and complete humanity for the people involved. Isn't this just as powerful argument when used to suggest that you should never find anything good in other people?
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Basic point: philosophy > cultural studies
What about the flipside of the coin? What about cultural tolerance? I mean, it's ridiculously simple to argue that people finding elements of other cultures praisworthy is racist. Orientalism, for instance, grew almost entirely out of the belief that the "peoples of the Orient" were much more "exotic" and "rich" and "developed" and "mystical" than those in the Occident. Similarly, you'll see the same kind of construct going round about "spiritual wholeness" and "bonding with the land" in relation to pretty much indigenous group in the world. And I've seen it argued exceptionally well that that is just as detracting to views of a full and complete humanity for the people involved. Isn't this just as powerful argument when used to suggest that you should never find anything good in other people?