Dating students?

Quote from: A-Train on November 09, 2010, 11:48:43 PM

" In some cultures people (such as virgins) were sacrificed. I think most people now would recognize that killing an innocent person is unethical irrespective of the culture that practices human sacrifice."

The old assumption of universality rears its presumptuous head.  My ethics are THE ethics.  Do you think these sacrifices were done for fun?  Do you suppose they woke up one day and realized the error of their ways?  Pfffft! 
There's a pygmy tribe in Borneo that celebrates a sacremental ritual whereby a young couple, while in the act of making love, are killed, burned and eaten.  As the late master of mythology, Joseph Campbell said about this ritual..."It doesn't get any better than that".

I tried to find out more about that ritual you mentioned above. I found this:

F

Quote

rom The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell tells of a New Guinea cannibalism ritual:

"There is a great shed of enormous logs supported by two uprights. A young woman comes in ornamental as a deity, and she is brought to lie down in this place beneath the great roof. The boys, six or so, with the drums going and chanting going, one after another, have their first experience of intercourse with the girl. And when the last boy is with her in full embrace, the supports are withdrawn, the logs drop, and the couple is killed. There is the union of male and female ... as they were in the beginning. ... There is the union of begetting and death. They are both the same thing.
Then the couple is pulled out and roasted and eaten that very evening. The ritual is the repetition of the original act of the killing of a god followed by the coming of food from the dead saviour."

So, six boys raping a girl, then the last boy and the girl together are killed together, then roasted and eaten. And you think Campbell is really saying, "It doesn't get any better than that" to mean, what, that this is the height of human achievement or ritual. He probably means it doesn't get any more outrageous than that, which is the "ironical" thing I was talking about.
He's not saying it's a good thing.

Really, It's just a bunch of brutal crap to entertain the rulers in a society with extraordinary power imbalance (probably the foundation of unethical behavior in any society). Do you really think the girl and the boy and the other 5 boys all wanted to be a part of that? Nobody wants to be killed and roasted and eaten.

Step back and try to project a little. I can see the rulers getting off on it all, and having their stupid justification for it, but the girl at least probably didn't enjoy the process much. Don't you think it fucking hurt to be killed by logs and whatever other crude weapons?

Only a whack-job would approve of such a spectacle.

I think you missed it.  The ceremony is NOT rape.  The ritual is NOT entertainment.  The participants are NOT dragged against their will.  This is total commitment to one of the most powerful spiritual experiences ever created.  Unless you consider the origins of man and the connecting of humans with their divinity trivial, my guess is that this ceremony conveyed as powerful a message to its participants as is possible.

But on the down side, I understand that some of the meat was under-cooked and chewey.

Can I boink my TA?





Oops, too late to ask

It is likely the same for any inappropriate behavior: If someone is inclined to do it, he/she will find a way to justify it.

Can I boink my TA?

Oops, too late to ask

Oh, you rascally man you! Spoken like a Wanker's Wanker, sir. You do us all proud.

Of course, the only way we'll believe this will be to employ photography. CANDID photography. 'Photographs, eh?' he asked him knowingly. Snap snap grin grin wink wink nudge nudge say no more...

"...the underlying logic is that an outsider cannot fathom the true meaning and significance of the actions in context."

Not at all.  We're all human and spirit and can certainly open ourselves to the messages of ritual.  Or we can shut them out and live within the confines of our own thinking and training.  

Campbell goes on to comment about people, (like yourself), who abhor certain activities of other cultures because the actions don't fit their norms by quoting Shaw's "Caesar And Cleopatra".  A British officer is in the room when Cleopatra tells that her husband is also her brother.  The officer shows immediate disgust.  So Caesar says "Pardon him. Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature."

Why would I think this wouldn't be the case in China?

So are you seriously saying that teachers dating students is acceptable  in Chinese society? Personally I think that's quite a stretch, but if you don't actually think that, then what's the point of the debate about the validity of cultural relativity on this thread?

For various reasons the foreign affairs office here did once in recent memory make a survey of sorts into how many teachers, Chinese or otherwise, were dating students.  In a school of a great many more than five teachers, five Chinese teachers were known to be in relationships with students.  (I don't say "dating" because what Chinese teacher dates?  Who knows how the relationships were viewed, I only know the numbers.)

And a friend, a student, was talking one day of how she introduced one teacher here to one student here.  It was okay, she said, because the girl would graduate soon and both girl and teacher were local people.

And another friend is the girlfriend of a teacher, but not a teacher from here--they met in middle school.


That I'm aware of, no foreign teacher is currently seeing anyone.  It seems the Chinese staff have a lock.

foreign teachers have no power in china

They have the power to take one "lucky" girl (or boy) back with them to their home country to gain foreign citizenship.

That's a pretty big power over a lot of people here.

Not really. Most Chinese uni students would like to go abroad for a visit, but very few have any great desire to leave the motherland for an extended period of time.

Not really. Most Chinese uni students would like to go abroad for a visit, but very few have any great desire to leave the motherland for an extended period of time.

You might be coming at that from a Beijing perspective Decurso. That's not my experience in the hinterlands.

and i think a lot of chinese people don't want to leave because it's pretty different, but they would leave given a realistic chance

Quote from: decurso on November 13, 2010, 06:50:41 PM

Not really. Most Chinese uni students would like to go abroad for a visit, but very few have any great desire to leave the motherland for an extended period of time.

You might be coming at that from a Beijing perspective Decurso. That's not my experience in the hinterlands.

Not my experience either, almost anywhere in China....I think the numbers happy to stay home even with the opportunity to go abroad are much higher now and growing quickly, but IMHO not yet a majority.

well it's impossible to generalise about china as well. for one thing they don't have the culture of having and expressing an honest opinion and another thing is simply cos of the size of the place millions and millions are desperate to leave and millions and millions would never leave whatever you paid them.....

'chinese culture' is just some bullshit made up to justify different interests. how can they have a culture within our understanding of the word in such a vast and populous area with such disparities

well, it's a bit like how everyone says they want to write a book but not many people actually want to sit down and 'do' writing for 4 hous a day for a year....

Quote from: Riz on November 11, 2010, 03:30:41 AM

foreign teachers have no power in china

They have the power to take one "lucky" girl (or boy) back with them to their home country to gain foreign citizenship.

That's a pretty big power over a lot of people here.

If we use that standard, no foreigner should be allowed to date any Chinese person under any circumstances.


Let's see... I can only date people of my own country, my own income, my own social standing.  I can only date people that I have no possible business relationship with.  Our family backgrounds, education levels, IQs, ages, and maturity levels should be as close to identical as possible.  Our personalities must be matched closely enough that neither of us can ever have the slightest power over each other.

Let's see. . .   According to the US Census, there's only one eligible female that I'm allowed to date.