Personally, I hate this line, because I only ever hear it trotted out to excuse bad behavior that people know they shouldn’t. Saying that being a loud nuisance in public is people practicing their culture is just as absurd as saying Irish men getting drunk and beating their wives is practicing Irish culture. It might be a negative cultural stereotype some of them actually live up to, be it doesn’t mean it should be tolerated.
Even if you want to accept that it’s a valid argument, one’s right to practice their culture ends where it limits the rights of others to do the same. People don’t get carte blanche to make everyone else change their lives to accommodate a culture with no sense of appropriate volume or consideration for others.
And yeah every September a portion of my country takes up a chunk of a lot of cities for a weekend to get drunk because Germany. Every March they do it because Ireland. Every June because gay. That adds to cultural vibrancy and in its absence communities can become unpleasantly sterile.
People should play their rap, but remember some of their neighbors are sleeping. Community festivals, and night gatherings are beautiful and wonderful expressions of culture. And also I swear to the gods some of us work really early in the morning.
I miss the vibrancy of places that had such things like my college dorms. But I don’t miss trying to sleep through it when people got too loud.
Beating your wife? I could not see as a cultural thing.
That’s kind of exactly my point, though. I see claiming being loud and inconsiderate to others as people practicing their culture to be just as disingenuous an argument as saying wife-beating is a part of Irish culture that just has to be accepted. It’s just brought out to defend bad behavior, often with the implication that if you continue to criticize said behavior, you’re automatically in the wrong, having revealed yourself as bigoted against whatever group you’re criticizing.
Personally, I hate this line, because I only ever hear it trotted out to excuse bad behavior that people know they shouldn’t. Saying that being a loud nuisance in public is people practicing their culture is just as absurd as saying Irish men getting drunk and beating their wives is practicing Irish culture. It might be a negative cultural stereotype some of them actually live up to, be it doesn’t mean it should be tolerated.
Even if you want to accept that it’s a valid argument, one’s right to practice their culture ends where it limits the rights of others to do the same. People don’t get carte blanche to make everyone else change their lives to accommodate a culture with no sense of appropriate volume or consideration for others.
Sure, I guess more social friction will solve the issue.
I’d say getting drunk could also be a cultural thing.
Beating your wife? I could not see as a cultural thing.
And yeah every September a portion of my country takes up a chunk of a lot of cities for a weekend to get drunk because Germany. Every March they do it because Ireland. Every June because gay. That adds to cultural vibrancy and in its absence communities can become unpleasantly sterile.
People should play their rap, but remember some of their neighbors are sleeping. Community festivals, and night gatherings are beautiful and wonderful expressions of culture. And also I swear to the gods some of us work really early in the morning.
I miss the vibrancy of places that had such things like my college dorms. But I don’t miss trying to sleep through it when people got too loud.
That’s kind of exactly my point, though. I see claiming being loud and inconsiderate to others as people practicing their culture to be just as disingenuous an argument as saying wife-beating is a part of Irish culture that just has to be accepted. It’s just brought out to defend bad behavior, often with the implication that if you continue to criticize said behavior, you’re automatically in the wrong, having revealed yourself as bigoted against whatever group you’re criticizing.