The On-going Never-ending Brexit Story Part Four

So I think there are two kinds of multiculturalism. The first is having segregated communities. That's honestly not a good thing. The other is having the "home" culture adapt and absorb what immigrants bring to the table. That's a great thing!

 

Both the PM and the Chancellor saying that cutting inflation boosts people's income.
They need to be repeatedly called out on this lie.

 

Yeah, that's the main thrust of the Parekh Report I believe.

Immigration, (which has always happened, albeit at a slower pace then over the past couple of decades), has enriched this country immeasurably. Although, if I'm honest, my opinion on that might be not entirely disconnected to my love of chicken tikka masala

But sometimes people who think they're 'on the left' have been too willing to accept utterly appalling practices because they've accepted excuses about them being part of a 'culture'. Female genital mutilation, (FGM), isn't part of a 'culture' and, even if they IS, it's not allowed in this country.

Of course, if we hear a report about the up and coming Welsh sport of alligator wrestling, we'll know who to blame.

 

Good luck with that

Wasn't there a headline in a tory tabloid recently asking why prices hadn't started coming down because inflation had fallen?

 

This is a core issue in Anthropology. Cultural relativism, that we understand and respect cultural practices on their terms, not ours, because all cultures are successful adaptations to live in different environments, is a bedrock of Anthropological understanding. We don't judge other cultural practices based on our standards.

But what about cultural practices that violate our foundational value of individual rights? Practices that we view as inherently immoral?

Well, the problem with that is that just because individual rights is a part of our foundational cultural worldview which forms and shapes our values and what we consider moral and immoral, it does not mean it is better or worse than a culture whose foundational cultural worldview suggests the group is more important than the individual. The group v individual is a universal struggle that every culture deals with; Western society tends to the extreme on the individual rights side, as expressed in the USA's founding documents, for one example. Just because we value individualism does not mean that it is inherently right and a focus on the group is inherently wrong. Once you start changing where your society lies on that dynamic, you start changing what is moral and immoral. They are just two different ways of dealing with the group v individual struggle.

One important component of life that all culture's have are rites of passage - events that transition a person (or people) through different recognizable stages of life. In America such rites of passage include baptism, bar mitzvah, graduation, military boot camp, Mormon (or other) missionary work, weddings, etc. In other cultures the rites of passage might include body modifications (circumcision/genital mutilation) or scarring (eg tattooing), cutting hair for the first time, killing a lion, etc. Interestingly, in many societies where the group is the focus over the individual, the rite of passage can be very painful and does include body modification - it's a way for the group to physically illustrate and remind the individual that it is more important.

So which is right, moral, better? Well, that depends on your foundational assumption of which is more important, the individual or the group. If you are a Westerner, your bias will be toward the former. Obviously the problem that comes with multiculturalism is that the society tries to integrate people who might come from a very different cultural worldview that views the individual v the group dynamic very differently. This will inevitably cause friction as foundational values and morals are being challenged.


tl,dr - it's a difficult anthropological question for which there is no correct answer

 

I appreciate the time you've taken to answer and, obviously, I respect your opinion as it's well informed and a useful contribution to the debate...

BUT!!!

Sometimes a question can be a matter of debate as to the morality of certain practices but, too often, what we're actually excusing are the customs of people in positions of power in those societies, such as men, (usually), but also the rich and/or powerful more generally.

So I think the issue of rights of the individual vs. a wider society matter, whilst it can be important, are sometimes just an excuse.

There's a longer answer to this but I have something to do so will try and respond in a more complete way later on. I just wanted to put on record that the balance has too often been decided on the basis of what somebody wanted to do anyway, not because it was there for some higher purpose.

 

Another wrong un. I'm shocked.

🚨 | BREAKING: Rishi Sunak faces ANOTHER by-election as suspended Tory MP Scott Benton is set to receive a 10-day suspension from the Commons

He was secretly filmed saying he could lobby ministers for gambling investors and leak confidential information to them

[@DailyMirror]

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) October 2, 2023

He is particularly dense and obnoxious, even by Tory standards.

 

This would have been too ridiculous for The Thick Of It.

So to summarise, the Government has just announced plans to scrap the biggest public transport infrastructure project planned for any Northern city, while taking part in its conference in that same city, which its Chancellor chose to travel to by plane. https://t.co/x45OU9DGhu

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) October 2, 2023

 

Just watching the latest poor sap they've put up to argue that 'No decision has yet been made'. I almost feel sorry for the guy... but not quite!.

Greg Hands... that's who it is... apparently.

 

This is just farcical now. Unabashed, outright lies.
How long before we start getting "We've banned the slaughter of all first born children. Vote Conservative."?

💥Absolutely INCREDIBLE moment.💥

New Environment Secretary Claire Coutinho, caught red-handed by @SophyRidgeSky making stuff up, just tries to blag through it.

Ends up basically suggesting that, since "Starmer won't tell us what he really thinks", it's okay to make stuff up.😮 pic.twitter.com/7frb8DyvoC

— Alex Andreou (@sturdyAlex) October 2, 2023

 

Are you threatening to overrule the meat tax?

TLW's a fan of Sophie Ridge but, tbh, all she's doing is the very BASIC job of a journalist. I prefer JoCo myself.

 

Talking about people lying for a living...

Report claiming net zero will cost UK trillions retracted due to ‘factual errors’
Rightwing thinktank Civitas mistakenly cost onshore wind power 10,000 times higher than reality and claimed bill would be £4.5tn

...

The most serious error was the confusion by the report’s author, Ewen Stewart, between power capacity in megawatts (MW) with electricity generation in megawatt hours (MWh). As a result, he presented an unrealistic “£1.3m per MWh” figure for the cost for onshore wind power. The true number is more than 10,000 times lower at about £50 to £70 per MWh. Another error was mixing up billions with trillions.​

 

What kind of right-winger retracts something because of errors?

Faker.

 

A TINO, basically.

 

Just watching Sonia Sodha on 'The Context' and she said, (I don't know if it's right but, it kinda sounds right, tbh), that if you use HS2 and get off it, (as you'll have to ATM), and catch the Elizabeth line, (the only way to get to central London), the trip from central London to central Birmingham will take LONGER than if you'd caught the existing train which we've already got

 

Seeing the Tories mouthpiece channel having similar accusations against them as a number of their MPs is not really a surprise. Hopefully this is the end of people like Wootton and Grimes having any degree of media prominence.

In one case GB News presenter Darren Grimes was accused of "persistent sexual harassment" of a junior straight male colleague.

Grimes was said to have swarmed the man with “incessant” calls and made unwelcome invitations to his hotel room. https://t.co/tzPdvU4hoR

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) October 2, 2023

 

Amazing how I can access my WhatsApp messages from four or five phones ago but Sunak and Johnson can't. One might start to think they may have something to hide.

So that's both Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson failing to fully comply with the order to hand over their WhatsApp messages from the pandemic.

Both men claim they are unable to access key messages from early 2020 https://t.co/ZvsJcTwvIS

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) October 2, 2023

 

If only we had regular local elections where people could determine representatives to make these decisions. We could call them "council's".

People should decide what happens to their towns.

Each town will receive a new Town Board as part of PM @RishiSunak’s long-term plan for towns.

Bringing together community groups, businesses and local authorities to make sure the decisions are the right ones for local people.

— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) October 1, 2023

 

Yeah, I was a town councillor elected back in 2019 for 4 years. I didn't stand again in 2023 because central government kept us short of money so it was a thankless task for no payment.

 

At LAST, a tory who isn't afraid to stand up for people who rent...

Not all renters smoke weed or are in gangs, minister says

See? She's making a positive case for people who choose to rent, (coz, obviously, they could buy a house if they didn't spend all their money on fags, booze and high living).

Not ALL of them smoke weed or are in gangs. Some, we assume, are good people. Y'know... very similar to the Mexicans.

So that's nice

 

This is glorious throughout

Andrea Leadsom getting skewered is a wonderful thing to watch

pic.twitter.com/PXHxa9ZpzW

— Simon Gosden. Esq. #fbpe 3.5% 🇪🇺🐟🇬🇧🏴‍☠️🦠💙 (@g_gosden) October 3, 2023

 

Not all Tory MPs are crooks.

 

Next Tory leader - Nigel Farage.

👀 Rishi Sunak suggests he could welcome Nigel Farage back into the Tory party.

Asked by @christopherhope whether he would, PM says: "Look, the Tory party is a broad church. I welcome lots of people who want to subscribe to our ideals, to our values."

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) October 3, 2023

 

I read an article today about the rising star of the tory party, Kemi Badenoch. Faced with a direct choice between Farage and her, which do you think the average tory party member would go for...





This was the piece...

Kemi Badenoch as next Tory leader? That would not be such a bad thing for the party
The trade minister is showing herself to be tactical rather than strident, and pragmatic on issues such as the climate crisis

Probably a fair appraisal of her.

I mean, she's still a tory... but she's not actually clinically insane or borderline retarded. Of course, she's probably a crook but then, that's covered in the 'She's a tory' statement above and in the absence of the other two, (insanity or mental failure), that's a reasonable third option.

But she's also quite clearly smart...

Badenoch achieved A Levels from Phoenix College, a former further education college in Morden, whilst working at a branch of McDonald's among other jobs.[7][9] Badenoch studied Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Sussex, completing a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree in 2003.[13][14]

She initially worked within the IT sector, first as a software engineer at Logica (later CGI Group) from 2003 to 2006. While working there she read Law part-time at Birkbeck, University of London, graduating as Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 2009.[9] Badenoch then worked as a systems analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group,[15] before pursuing a career in consultancy and financial services, working as an associate director at private bank and wealth manager Coutts from 2006 to 2013 and later a digital director for The Spectator from 2015 to 2016.[14][16][17]​

Compared to some of the dross the tories have put up in recent years, she might be a worthwhile improvement which I think is Simon Jenkin's point.

 

Well, she did "forget" to declare a meeting with Murdoch recently, so she's got some traditional Tory traits.