Cultural comparisons

From: Donald R. Oddy <donald_at_grove.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 19:42:35 GMT



>
>From: "Gareth Martin" <gamartin_at_nortelnetworks.com>

>That is too bold a statement - repression is more than just confinement or
>the removal of travel rights (incidentally, the Celts kept slaves not all of
>whom need be Celtic, implying that they are restraining the flight of the
>slave). Why should a tiller of earth care which master takes the taxes?
>Surely, repression is the state of having your production
>claimed/requisitioned/owned by someone else, regardless of the culturally
>specific rationale? I'm afraid I think it is legitimate to look at such
>societes from the 20th C. perspective and observe that they are repressive
>(well, MORE repressive than our own, anyway).

You can't repress someone who has the ability to leave, they may choose not too because the alternative is worse than staying. Equally slavery isn't the worst that can happen, an employee who is paid less than it costs to live is worse off than a slave whose owner is obliged to feed, clothe and house him. While it is possible to compare a society with modern western society and make a value judgement about their respective merits you need to be aware that viewed from the different cultural perspective the opposite conclusion could equally be drawn.

>Although the celts doe not strictly have a state, they do manage a
>remarkable unity of legal lore and cultural tradition. Such an organised
>body, whose origin will lie in the clan nobility, is, I would argue, the
>ideological equivalent of a state, albeit without the attendfant apparatus.

Britain, the US, Canada and Austrialia share an equivelent unity of legal lore and cultural tradition. To describe them as a single state would be absurd because each has it's own independant legal authority. The nearest equivelent would be the individual celtic tribe but even at that level the means of repression don't exist. Individuals may abuse their power but the culture provides ways of depriving them of their power far more effectively than in modern society.

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