in essence, i agree with
Shytownzombie - segregation is a bad thing - even if it's done by the choice of those segregating themselves, at worst that is also segregation, at best it's ghettoisation, neither of which are good things.
i think enlightenment can help, but only if it's done right. you used the thai example which is a strange one for me because i wouldn't class tourist industries as a force of enlightenment - it sometimes happens of course but usually the (almost always) white tourists are segregated from the non-white natives, and there is another kind of segregation. the reason tourism isn't a unifying force is that tourists tend to see natives as another quaint aspect of this quaint place they're in, especially if the natives aren't white (for instance this is much less common with tourism in europe).
but i think enlightenment can be useful - technology and philanthropy are far more important than tourism. tourism is essentially another form of colonisation, and colonisation (imho) is bad, as are imperial notions (i love being english but when i think about the british empire it makes me feel sick to think i'm a product of that history). the way to aid nations that aren't so developed to get to a better standard of living is through help as equals - sharing resources, technology, educational advances and so on. sadly in a world dominated by rampant capitalism and where the western (white) world has all the advantages, it is unlikely to happen in any of our lifetimes. hmm, see, we're back to that old inequality of capitalism chestnut!
respect: see, i can sort of understand the respect agenda (as our politicians like to call it), because i think manners are really a lot more important than people seem to think. however... with the gang thing, i don't think we can necessarily blame gangs for their self-segregation or even for their choices. i'm NOT condoning gang activity here, by the way, i think shooting and robbing people for kicks is wrong. but.... gang members are almost exclusively from poor, deprived backgrounds. according to studies (i think) the vast majority are missing a male role model from their lives and they go to gangs to find some sense of family/belonging (this was referred to in a csi:ny ep actually, tanglewood i think, where mac said he had a similar feeling as the kid but joined the marines to find the same answers).
once again this comes back to inequality and deprivation - in a way i find it even sadder than the deprivation of less developed nations: these are kids in the same damn country/system as the ones who are taking all the money and running. it's actually quite hard to interfere (at state level) with the needs of another sovereign state, so i can understand how at some level it's less easy to help nations that aren't functioning at their optimum and why this has to be done instead through aid and/or resources bargaining at commercial level. but these are kids in a society that's meant to be thriving and they just get abandoned.
first they are unlucky enough to be born into a sector of society that is all too often ignored or looked down on, and then they are given very few opportunities to break out of that, because lack of opportunity always hits the poorest/most deprived groups hardest, and on top of that there are all kinds of exclusivity barriers to the opportunities there are. and then they are blamed and punished when they screw up. it makes me f*cking sick. you say they use choice and free will, i don't buy that at all - how can they have freedom of choice when they aren't given all the options that a similar person in a less deprived sector of society would have? that's not a choice, that's settling for what you can get. this is why so much of the military is made up of people with fewer prospects - they are told they'll get pay, pension and a college education along with the sense of belonging they so badly need. it's a really underhanded recruitment method but it does seem to work: lack of opportunity = not a free choice.
On a later return....Has enligthment(education) and respect (Politically correct behavior) improved much in our world today? Or are we to be an endless world of the same in different disguises? And as long as humans react on emtions - hate/greed/love/fear and act on rational thought what should/could change?
i think enlightenment has to be a positive thing - the problem as i see it is that respect is clearly very selective. the "haves" want the "have nots" to respect them, but don't give any in return - THAT is the problem. emotions are involved but they can be a positive driving force as well as a negative, i think they aren't as relevant as they might be, but what is relevant is inequality and until the people who have everything they need and free choice and all that stuff start recognising that people who have nothing are human beings and should be entitled to the same breadth of choice and resources, nothing will ever change. i can't see anything changing, personally.
hmm i have outranted you!
