"Tolerance and apathy are the last traits of a dying society." Aristotle

He said it.......over 2000 years ago.

We're there.

Das vidanya

 

So are Muslim countries tolerating women no longer wearing a Hijab in public dying. . .or progressing?

An empty statement about tolerance and apathy is just that, empty.

Also, there is not a single citation that this quote is from Aristotle. It exists in none of his know works. It is a false quote.

 

Most educated Western women know its none of their business as to whether or not Muslim women wear the Abaya..

Forcing American culture and values on other people is strictly for losers.

 

Maybe you can work that out with smallblue.

 

He also was an apologist for slavery.

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He also was an apologist for slavery.

 

His culture was inferior to ours in virtually every way. It would be like him asking a caveman for his opinion.

 

This is not a quote by Aristotle. There is no need to argue why he said it or it's meaning etc.

The source points to the modern evangelical minister D James Kennedy's book in which he states "tolerance is the last virtue of a depraved society". It was then taken, slightly modified, then falsely attributed to Aristotle.

As such it is then used to give weight to someone like the OP's arguments.

 

Ancient Greece had democracy, philosophy and the great Athenian architecture.

Modern America has Obama, rap music and the crumbling wasteland of Detroit.

Pray tell, which seems superior now?

 

Yeah......but we got reality TV.

 

They did not have democracy. They had an oligarchy which openly oppressed the vast majority of the population.

They also have wide spread slavery and institutionalized pederasty.

 

The " tolerance " which Aristotle speaks of is not tolerance towards different people and cultures as someone got it, but towards acts of evil. Letting other people die in the streets, assasinate each other, make abuse of their authority without complain is the wrong kind of tolerance and apathy he intends. A healthy society shouldn't tolerate violence, discrimination, arrogance.

 

doubt aristotle said any such thing unless you can provide a citation of which work he says it. Hint: it doesnt exist.

 

America is a oligarchy as well, and considering the poor condition of the American worker who makes JUST ENOUGH to survive, I'd argue there's slavery as well.

Let's call this a draw.

 

I should care what some bigot said 2000 years ago why?

 

America is a democracy. The vast majority of our population can vote. And you can argue we have slavery but you'd be wrong as (*)(*)(*)(*).

 

Caveman Plato had a tiny fraction of the knowledge I have. He knew nothing of the universe and how it works. I have thousands of years of human knowledge he would not have had access to.

He knew little or nothing of chemistry, or how stars form, or how atoms work. He knew nothing of the real scale of time (on the order of billions of years, not mere thousands), or that the continents move, or that species change and evolve. For us to even begin to compare intellects, he'd have to be taught all this knowledge.

You give Caveman Plato far too much credit. He might very well have been way more intelligent than me...but intelligence and knowledge are not the same thing. And it is really easy to from conclusions that are completely wrong when you lack knowledge. Therefore caveman Plato's view of the world was dramatically inferior to mine.

 

Democracy cannot exist in any state that also has slavery. So no, Ancient Greece did not have Democracy. Not as we define it.

If we enslaved black people again, would you still consider us a democracy?

..and the best technology in the world, and the highest GDP in human history, and accomplishments that absolutely dwarf anything the ancient world has ever done.

Seems obvious to me. What exactly did the ancients do that we have not already done several orders of magnitude better?

List the top 5 kthx.

 

...and the internet.

...and the Space program(s).

...and super computers.

...and jet planes.

...and nuclear power.

...and advanced medicine.

I have no idea why people have such a boner for the ancients. They were great for their time, but we are long past that now. They had a tiny fraction of our knowledge. We are the offspring of the victors...our ancestors out-competed them. Thats why we are here and they are gone...because they were inferior to us.

 

There really isn't all that much difference between us in the moderna ge than in the ancient past.

 

The word "Oligarchy" does not mean what you think it means.

Same thing with "slavery". You might want to visit a dictionary sometime.

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Except for everything. See post #21.

 

I don't mean technologically, I mean in culture and behavior.

 

Let's relax on the schizo jokes here. Some of us have the disease and do not like to be labeled with the far left.

 

You mean how they did not seem to have a huge problem with slavery and we do? Or do you mean how they oppressed women? Or how they abused animals? Or maybe how they didn't have a huge problem with child labor?

 

This is an illiterate statement (or question rather), for 2 reasons:

1. It disregards the huge difference in environment between the modern age at the age of Aristotelian Greece. Slavery and female "oppression" did not contradict morality, because without the presence of these essential elements, society simply wouldn't be able to function. Greeks practiced direct democracy, and every literate and respectable male had to play an active and continuous role in governance of the Polis.

As Marx writes in his Communist Manifesto, what drives political and economic structures to change, and what motivates justification of different forms of liberties and oppression, is the "mode of production" of the people involved. With technological advancements humanity slowly continued to eliminate the prerequisites for forced labor, as things which had to be done by hand in the past, and were of the most essence for group survival, had eventually been automated with the sophistication of mechanisms in travel, trade, water supply, construction, medication, etc.

Therefore for a time when slavery was of the most essence for group survival, it would be immoral to attack it. Therefore for a time when all males had to actively partake in governance, it would be immoral to attack the image of a woman as a house-wife and a child-bearer.

2. Herodotus: "custom is king." Just because something seems to be uncivilized or immoral to you, doesn't mean it should be seen as such to someone else.

 

And intolerant action is a trait of tyranny. - robini123

I love the ancient philosophers but not all they said were nuggets of wisdom.