Why can't Canada be more nationalist?

[Michael Hardner]

Not a one.

How about caring for your family ?0

[Je suis Omar]

Je Suis Omar, responding to this post (link), can you find Ms. Albright's acknowledgement of those kind of casualty levels first, and then I'll try to put it in context.

Putting murdering half a million Iraqi children into context sounds like a tall order.

Have at 'er, jbg. Would you like a new thread for this?

Edited May 29, 2015 by Je suis Omar

[Bonam]

How about caring for your family ?0

Probably a fairly common human value but certainly not universal.

There are those who have no family and for whom this value is irrelevant. There are those who think the family unit is immoral since it provides impetus for one to treat others unequally, that a perfect human should love all others equally. There are those who are psychopathic and care nothing for family. And of course there is widespread disagreement on what even constitutes a family.

In the end probably the most nearly universal human values are the ones they share with all other natural lifeforms: the individual drive to survive and procreate. But even these are not universal, many people have been convinced to give up their own lives for an external cause, and many others choose not to procreate for whatever reason.

[cybercoma]

How about caring for your family ?0

What if your parents abused and tortured you growing up? What about the deadbeat dads? What about spouses that beat their partners? Not a universal value. Edited May 29, 2015 by cybercoma

[eyeball]

What if your parents abused and tortured you growing up? What about the deadbeat dads? What about spouses that beat their partners? Not a universal value.

It's a positive value that's spread evenly enough around the planet that one can certainly say it's cosmopolitan and that I'm fairly certain outweighs the rest.

[Black Dog]

What if your parents abused and tortured you growing up? What about the deadbeat dads? What about spouses that beat their partners? Not a universal value.

I don't think "universal" means the same thing as "unanimous".

[cybercoma]

I don't think "universal" means the same thing as "unanimous".

Protecting your family doesn't have the same value for all or even nearly all people. There are plenty of people who grew up with abusive or indifferent families, so it goes both ways. Children do not necessarily value their parents and parents don't universally value their children. I'm sure it doesn't have to be unanimous, but if you're going to call it "universal" then it needs to be as close to unanimous as you can get. But even something as intuitive as caring about your family is not without its limits and I think there are plenty of examples of people who are either indifferent or hostile to their families.

[Black Dog]

Protecting your family doesn't have the same value for all or even nearly all people. There are plenty of people who grew up with abusive or indifferent families, so it goes both ways. Children do not necessarily value their parents and parents don't universally value their children. I'm sure it doesn't have to be unanimous, but if you're going to call it "universal" then it needs to be as close to unanimous as you can get. But even something as intuitive as caring about your family is not without its limits and I think there are plenty of examples of people who are either indifferent or hostile to their families.

You're talking about individuals here. Universal values are broader than that and speak to beliefs of societies or cultures.

[Michael Hardner]

You're talking about individuals here. Universal values are broader than that and speak to beliefs of societies or cultures.

Yes, not unanimous but common to all cultures. That's what I mean ... maybe Universal values is too earth centric.

[cybercoma]

You're talking about individuals here. Universal values are broader than that and speak to beliefs of societies or cultures.

Societies and cultures don't have beliefs. They're abstractions of individuals.

[cybercoma]

Yes, not unanimous but common to all cultures. That's what I mean ... maybe Universal values is too earth centric.

Even family, which is a social construct, has different meanings across time within our own culture, let alone being the same across cultures.