RE: Grand Master Chess Player Refuses To Defend Her Title In Saudi Arabia. She is wrong
I think your post contains some faulty logic, this is not an insult but just a statment which i believe is true. I would like to have a respectable discussion with you to try to flesh out the argument you are making and see if we can find some common ground and understand each other's point of view. There are two main concerns I have with your post.
Firstly I would like to establish whether or not you are as intellectually dishonest as you claim Anna is. Would you be as critical of her if she was a black woman who refused to go to a nation which treated black people as second class citizens who were refused the right to marry, obtain a passport, travel, or seek an education without permission from a white gaurdian?
Well this is analogous to the conditions that, according to a 2015 Report by Human Rights Watch, women in saudi arabia live under and if you would not be willing to pose the same criticism in both scenarios then how can you justify this distinction? If you can not justify it then perhaps you should question your own intellectual honesty.
As a man who believes strongly in the equality of men, women, and all other individuals under the law I can very much sympathize with why she would take this moral stance, and I would imagine in this analogous situation you would agree. So you should equally well apply the same logic to both scenarios, unless there is a moral distinction between the two.
Secondly you mention a perspective of evaluating cultures, which anthropologists use, to justify your claim that she is wrong in passing judgement on other culture's. This appears to be a fallacious argument, which attempts to avoid making an actual case for cultural relativism by appealing to an expert opinion. This wouldn't be too bad, after all there is nothing wrong with appealing to experts in certain scenarios; however you appear to conflate expert opinions on anthropology, which seeks to study behavior and cultural developments of humans, with expert opinions on philosophy, which seeks to evaluate values based on logic.
In addition to these points there are a number of other areas in which your post is lacking. You make multiple leaps of logic, such as the fact that you attack her as being intellectually dishonest without actually making the case that her refusal to travel to a country which does not recognize the fundamental rights of individuals of her gender is morally equivalent to respecting the quirks of culture of a country which she may have chosen to travel to.
Id love to hear a response to this to see you explain your reasoning and promote a dialogue which advances both of our understanding of the issues at hand.
I lived in Japan and saw basically or non-Japanese treated as second class citizens. It happens all around the world. I mention this in my post above. Read before you comment. Heck, try to use google and check that this is happening everywhere across the globe and people are ok with it. Fat people, people with zits, ugly and such are also treated as second and even third class citizens. Such is the world.
Human Rights are a joke for the very reasons I mentioned above. Only apply on paper, not real life.
Your fourth paragraph is nonsensical but tried to appear intellectual. Simply, you can visit a country that treats you differently because as a human being should be able to accept that some cultures are different as others. Whether you are an anthropologist or not is irrelevant. It is common sense.
I actually explained how she is intellectually dishonest by mentioning that she was ok to visit Russia that doesn't accept LGBT rights but she has problem being escorted my men for a few days in another country.
Pick up on reading comprehension before you try to pass criticism.
None of these people are discriminated against by law though are they. She has less rights legally in Saudi Arabia, hence her making a stand and not wishing to visit. Totally understandable in my opinion.
Firstly there is no need to be defensive. As I said before these are not personal insults, I'm just trying to understand your perspective.
Now I did overlook that sentence about Japan, but there is no need to claim that I'm not capable of reading; your argument should be strong enough to stand on its own without trying to attack my character over an honest mistake.
As far as the substance of your post goes...
In your first paragraph here in your response and in the paragraph where you mention Japan you seem to be making the argument that we do not subject Japan's racial discrimination to moral scrutiny so we should therefore not subject Saudi Arabia 's gender discrimination to moral scrutiny. Is this a fair characterization of your argument?
If so I think that this argument as it stands is not valid, after all we could take this argument the other direction and say "We subject Saudi Arabia's gender discrimination to moral scrutiny so we should subject Japan's racial discrimination to moral scrutiny". This would be just as suitable unless we make an argument for moral relativism or to be specific, metaethical moral relativism being applicable to these issues and that this relativism then implies that we can not pass moral judgments on other cultures.
Now you have not made this argument, but rather originally differed to the perspective of anthropologists and have now back tracked that position to simply claim that its common sense that one should be willing to subject themselves to the standards of another society because a human being "should be able to accept that some cultures are different [than] others."; however saying "well it's just common sense" is not an argument and functions to portray me or anyone who disagrees with this claim as lacking common sense. Additionally I would claim that the statement is wrong in two regards, not only is this not common sense, but it is an indefensible position to take when we look at it in certain applications and therefore can not be a general principle.
For example if one is born or otherwise finds himself in a society which would allocate him to a life of slavery, would you not agree that he would be justified in passing a moral judgement on said society or should he just say "when in rome" and resign himself to slavery?
This post is gettting kinda long and I think ive made my core points so I wont go on in this post, but I would also like to add two points. First that I never made the claim that she, or anyone else, was or was not intellectually dishonest and second that when you call my writing nonsensical, back it up and point out where I am wrong, I am receptive to criticism.
This post was edited for clarity.