Comment by tjs8rj
5 years ago
Your comment seems to exude a kind of inadvertent tone suggesting "they fault is not with them, but in their lack of civilization". In other words, it's likely racist.
By GDP per capita, India is where the US was at in the 1950s. Would we excuse this behavior in the 1950s West just because "they lack privilege, don't know any better, resort to what they know and have been taught to do..."? Of course not, because relative poverty is no excuse for unethical behavior.
The way I read the GP post it’s more “the way economics are structured strongly incentivized them to engage in this behavior.” which is more a statement about how pressure and incentives work on humans than anything racist. I doubt that people in the US would react differently to the same incentives.
Comparing the raw GDP of the US in the 1950s to India now is glossing over a lot of points. For example, GDP per capita does not capture the (in)equality of wealth distribution in a country. Or how that GDP ranks on a scale: The US in the 1950s was in a high, probably even the top position (I didn’t check exactly which) - India with the same GDP now is definitely not. That makes a huge difference in perception.
It’s easy to dismiss the status value of a brand name piece of clothing or any token that elevates your status if you’re already high up on the ladder.
None of that excuses the behavior in the sense that it makes it “ok”. But it contributes to the explanation of why such behavior clusters in specific communities.
For me, that I’m ahead, it’s easy to look down and say that this is unethical behavior, but it’s important to keep in mind that I’m applying my ethics from a privileged vantage point - and likely you’re doing so as well.
> By GDP per capita, India is where the US was at in the 1950s.
In the 1950s the US's GDP per capita was the highest. Is that the case for India today?
> Would we excuse this behavior in the 1950s West
I mean the 1950s West was no bastion of ethical behavior. Wasn't that when the cigarette industry in the US started its decades-long campaign of misinformation, obfuscation, and false advertising to cover up the harmfulness of their products? And this was flagrantly unethical behavior by some very privileged people. This is without even getting into how women or minorities were treated.
> relative poverty is no excuse for unethical behavior.
One man's "unethical behavior" is another man's "playing by the letter of the rules, not the spirit". Spamming PRs for a free T-shirt is no way comparable to call center scams.
quite the contrary, i was calling it out in the person i was responding to. but now you have accused me of being racist, i am unable to continue the conversation. have a nice day.
I am still divided on your opinion about it being economical, but it was definitely not racist.
Identifying a privilege gap is not racist. India is definitely not in the same place as 1950s America which was the post-WWII boom. Sometimes called the Golden Age of america.
Then again, we do have some cultural issues to overcome, and yes, a lot of the cultural issues are a result of a traumatic period spent under the boot of the colonizers.
That being said, blame is not useful, the people responsible are dead, and hopefully we can mature as a culture. I see lots to be hopeful about, but lots to be fearful about too. The transition of power from colonials to our republic was botched, and now we're stuck with a broken political machine, and the powerful are trying to break it further.
I was very deliberate in avoiding calling you racist. I said explicitly and deliberately that your comment (not "you") seemed (not "certainly was") inadvertently (not "intentionally") racist.