Almalieque wrote:
There are fundamentally universal actions that all society considers as bad or good.
I don't want to be rude to you, but that is pretty laughably wrong.
A fair number of people think it's morally reprehensible for me to eat pork. Our views on when a girl is of proper marriageable and impregnable age differs widely for our own culture over time and for other cultures within the present. Pillaging, slaughter, and slavery were all pretty ok as long as it was perpetrated against the next tribe over. It's ok for a man to rape a woman, but it's not ok for a woman to be raped, because that's adultery.
What people think is right and wrong is highly mutable.
Almalieque wrote:
Is that what the women want? If that's what the women believe and want to do, then it's not oppression. Just because in our culture, we see that as negative, doesn't mean it's negative. When I went to college, I saw a variety of Muslim women who clothes varied from fully clothed to tank-top and mini shorts. We can't project our beliefs onto other people and say that they are being oppressed.
I guess I should have been more specific. Take an orthodox Muslim man who believes women should wear a burka, not be able to leave the home without a male escort, and should not participate in government. Many of the women of his society would like to be free from these rules and do consider it oppression. Do you think he believes he is oppressing women or rather that he believes he is doing the right thing?
Almalieque wrote:
If your thought is communal, then it isn't a thought of stealing, it's sharing.
But that's the point. IF I come by to get a pencil, and you're not there I might think it's ok to take it from you because I see pencils as communal. You don't think it's ok because a pencil is personal property to you.
You think I've stolen from you, but I don't think I've stolen from you. It's not that I know I did wrong but won't accept/admit it. I genuinely believe I've acted appropriately while you genuinely believe I've slighted you.
Almalieque wrote:
The original concept is specifically in reference to being a bigot and not knowing it. That is impossible.
But it is possible. Just like a religious man who is oppressing women but believes he is enforcing benevolent divine order or just like the pencil taker who doesn't see himself as a thief, Bigotry is in actions not feelings. When a bigot espouse separation of the races, most probably feel it is for the benefit of society and their children. "Blacks can do whatever they want, but we don't want them around us, dragging us down. Here's some research I found showing a correlation between blacks and crime."