what's wrong with being pc?

[davemarc]

At 08:23 PM 10/30/96 -0700, Bonnie wrote:
[snip]
>So where do we draw the line?  Is letter-writer for Amnesty Int'l 
>barging in to radically change other cultures?  I suddenly wonder if the 
>concern is simply for feminists and the power they've acquired over the 
>years--suddenly seems like a blink of an eye?  It wasn't.  But back to 
>NIgeria:  as a woman, as a human being, I could never condone the 
>practices in question.  I could argue passionately against my own 
>position here, as cultural norms are and should be determined by the 
>culture, not from the outside.  And yet, for myself, as for others (say, 
>the founders of Amnesty INt'l) there is a space wherein cultures can 
>converge--simply, on the matter of torture and pain.  Am I wrong?
>
No, not at all.  It's a fallacy to think that a "culture" is an unchanging
phenomenon with a clearly defined "inside" and "outside."  Humans interact
and exchange ideas all the time.  Protesting any human practice, whether
"individual" (they all are, in the long run) or "cultural" (they all are, in
the long run), is just as much a part of the culture as the practice itself. 

davemarc