2011-10-11

 

Bias of sophistication

Being Portuguese, southern European, and culturally Catholic teaches you to deal with bias. From the left as from the right; from North, East, West and even from the South. Take this little gem from Frank Bruni in the NYTimes.com. Why is Portugal (and Spain and Argentina) much less expected to approve gay marriage than Holland and Belgium, or any "Scandinavian-style bastion of social progressivism"? This sort of thinking is nothing more than bigotry, probably an unquestioned vestige of the age-old anti-catholic bigotry pervasive in protestant-dominated cultures. None of these "second-class" countries needs to show a "badge of sophistication" to any others. All countries are progressive in some causes and conservative in others. Portugal was the first country in the World to abolish the death penalty in the 19th century, for instance. And all those bastions of progressivism? Everyone has skeletons. Hey, apartheid is a dutch word. Tropicalia is a Portuguese word. The US just killed Troy Davis. So go give yourself a "badge of sophistication".


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