How can one measure the values of any society?
There are a multitude of possible valid responses. But to me, there is a simple way to determine the values of a society. And that is ... how are the poor and politically powerless treated?Rich, politically powerful men of the majority class can make out fine in any society. That's been true for all history and remains true today, even in corruption-ridden hellholes like Russia and Nigeria.But how do poor and politically powerless minority members in a country live? What efforts does the government make to ensure their basic needs for food, shelter and medical care? Are women given the same opportunities and access to education and employment as men? Are poor peoples' human rights respected or are they subject to routine police harassment and exploitation for actions for which the rich and powerful get off scot free?Never mind the shiny words on a country's constitution. How a country treats its poor and powerless members tells you everything you need to know about a country's values.
What is the Pre-Islamic Era? How were women treated? Society during this time?
At the early stage of Islam era, especially Mohammed's time, women actually were being treated much farer than any culture. And after Mohammed's death actually power falls to his wife. It was many years later that the Islamic culture degenerated into a suppressing nature to women. If you read the Koran Islam is very serious about integrity and fairness. Some extreme measures we see today in some Islamic states are not the true face of Islam.
A mordern society is judged by the way it treats its lesser peoples. How can we call ourselves civilized in the face of staggering homelessness, abject poverty and pervasive hopelessness? Are we really civilized?
A mordern society is judged by the way it treats its lesser peoples. How can we call ourselves civilized in the face of staggering homelessness, abject poverty and pervasive hopelessness? Are we really civilized?Modern societies are judged in several ways, how that society ‘treats its lesser peoples’ is only one of them. The question that follows is an interesting one on top of it. One way to look at it is to consider is that a society is a culmination of peoples and culture. One of the biggest issues facing any society and culture is that each culture and society is constantly improving. Look into the past, and one can easily see how ‘uncivilized’ then ‘modern society’ was in comparison to our own. Today we are vastly more civilized than say 100 years ago, however in another 50 we too shall be deemed less civilized.Another way to view it, is in regards to what society? Is the society in question on a large scale such a country? Smaller perhaps? Or local cities and communities? Or is it even smaller and down to the individuals? One could argue that how Canada treats their ‘lesser peoples’ as you put, compared to the U.S. is incredibly more civilized, and the U.S. begins to look barbaric. However, how one state in the U.S. treat their ‘lesser peoples’ compared to the other 49 (and territories) could be far more civilized than the rest. Should we downscale it to the local areas, we can use my home state Michigan. Detroit vs (Insert smaller rural villages/towns). Detroit has more to offer the homeless, the indigent, etc. in terms of assistance and help. The smaller towns and villages do not have the resources, so they do not have as much civilized means to offer assistance. However, diving deeper into the peoples. The people of Detroit have a far worse barbaric attitude towards ‘lesser people’ than say those of a smaller rural area.Modern society is really speculative and perceptual. As modern for someone is 2000-2019, others modern is 1990–2019, still others 1970’s-2019. And a few only view ‘modern’ as 2015–2019, with a wide range of those that fall in between. Also, to restate my previous comments, regardless on how civilized or not we as a ‘modern’ society may seem to be, as a whole, the society will and shall only improve over time. And thus, this too shall pass.
A society often can be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens.?
Take a look at the conditions in our childrens' schools, more and more money spent, but fewer and poorly paid teachers, and fewer facilities and services for the students. The cash is eaten up by corporations like McGraw-Hill, and Kaplan, under privatization in the name of "testing" and "accountability." There's now a multi-billion-$ industry that's based on vilifying teachers' unions, and entirely dependent on money snatched from school budgets. Look at the old people eating dogfood when the food stamps run out before the end of the month. Take a look at that guy trying to crowdsource development funds for honest-to-gawd "People Chow" and getting inquiries from schools and old age homes. Now -you- tell ME where our corporate masters have us standing regarding the most vulnerable.
Is GDP a good measure of economic growth? Why or why not?
GDP is the final value of goods and services produced in a country. To measure its effectiveness as a measure to describe an economy's indicator, one must look both at its advantages and disadvantages and also the possible alternatives.Advantages:Using GDP as a measure of a nation's economy makes sense because it's essentially a measure of how much buying power a nation has over a given time period. GDP is also used as an indicator of a nation's overall standard of living because, generally, a nation's standard of living increases as GDP increases.Disadvantages:1. It doesn't count unpaid volunteer work.2. Wartime disaster increase the GDP of the country.3. It doesn't show the distribution of income among different people.4. It doesn't show whether people belonging to a country having high GDP are happy or not.5. It does not account for quality of goods.If you measure India's GDP, it is the 10th richest country but this measure also does not take into account the purchasing power of people. By measuring GDP with respect to purchasing power parity, India becomes the 3rd richest in the world.But then again, this measure has its drawbacks. One can't say for sure what all goods should be included to calculate it.Human Development Index that can be used to measure economic progress. It uses statistics like life expectancy, education and income levels to measure a country's progress but then again it has its drawbacks like failure to include any ecological considerations, lack of consideration of technological development or contributions to the human civilization, focusing exclusively on national performance and ranking, lack of attention to development from a global perspective, measurement error of the underlying statistics, and on the UNDP's changes in formula which can lead to severe misclassification in the categorisation of 'low', 'medium', 'high' or 'very high' human development countries.Bhutan uses yet another measure as an indicator. It is the Gross happiness Index which measures the happiness level of people in an economy. As cheesy as it might sound, it is very difficult to calculate something as qualitative as happiness.That leaves us with just one measure i.e GDP.Even though we are all well aware of its shortcomings, we don't really have a choice simply because it is the only thing that can be precisely calculated and can be used as a measure to compare economic progress of various countries.
Why do people treat the poor differently?
they are lazy. I hate them. They'd rather ask for money than work. My friend who's a server at waffle house said that this homeless guy came into the restauraunt and said "You know, I probably worked harder than you today" Total bullshit. Standing on the corner asking for money doens't count as work, no matter how harsh the weather is. cause it doesn't contribute to our society. Wiping a dirty sponge on people's car windows doesn't contribute either. One excuse they always use is "I cant find a job" Thats total bs as well, many places are constantly hiring. Also mexicans dont even have papers to work here yet somehow find jobs. It seems to me that problem with these blacks is simply laziness.
How is civilization measured?
There is no one measurement of a civilization. It depends on what a person uses to compare them. A number of people will have a different opinion as to what any one criteria should be used. When 3, 4 or more measurements are used, the combination of various possible means of measurement will be in the 100's. President Kennedy once said " The strength and durability of a society can be judged by how it treats its elderly.". Others believe how it's children are treated and raised.Education, medical care, poverty levels are also used as measuring a civilization's success. But then you get as many people, who use financial wealth creation, and military strength, as the main determining factors. Even today, nations wealth is measured by GDP (Gross Domestic Product=total dollar value of all goods and services provided). And nobody can prove beyond a doubt, that one measurement, is more important, than another. It's all conjecture and opinion based Ancient Greece was recognized for it's development of philosophy and Democracy. A society of great thinkers was the measurement. The Roman Empire for it's architecture , roads, great building, sewer systems which stand today made engineering feats an important measure. The British and French were great because of trade, wealth creation, military power. Portugal, Spain, the US (space exploration) were noted for their exploration. So it mainly all comes down to, is what each individual, or group, sees as the most important measurement, or measurements, they believe outweighs all the other methods of measurement and determining factors.
The way you can tell whether a society is civilized is by........?
I think it's sad when people say "never mind about animals because humans are more important" In the west, we live in rich countries, there is no reason why we can't help less fortunate people, and at the same time treat animals with decency and kindness. Any one with any sense knows that anyone who miss treats animals is likely to be miss treating people as well. Animals are vulnerable, and they give so much to us as a society and as individuals, all mistreatment of the vulnerable, people and animals, stems from the same mentality, we should strive to protect both:)
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” ― Mahatma Gandhi. What is the moral philosophy behind this assertion?
When we adopt morals out of the fear of the system and the punishment it might inflict upon us then its not morality in true sense because we will try to do something immoral when we think there is no observer. But a truely moral person or a nation would adopt morality not out of fear of punishment but will adopt it as a matter of free choice. Animals are not going to take us to court for what we do to them but when we are truely moral we will take the best care of them. Thus treating even the weakest and the meekest with love and compassion shows our true morals .... :)