Dear you all! I’ve been taking a lot of photos lately and I just want to share my good shots and some amazing view at my Middlebury College! Any comment are welcome! Feel free to judge it, but please no offended language in here. Thanks for your visit.

Hand Up While Shotting The Pic!

The awesomeness of Winter

Legendary of my College

Channa = C (From Cambodia) ,  Bob = B (from U.S)

C: Morality is the main minority of Cambodian society even though it’s against human rights or law, we are obey the traditions of our culture and identity.  Some main moralities are, a wife must respect her husband and shouldn’t shout at her husband, man is the biggest priority in the education system, woman shouldn’t be educated, parents will decide about their kid’s wedding and everybody has their own morality code.

B: How dare you say there are such things like an inhuman person in society? How can everyone in your country live with all these rules and moralities? It sounds like a communist state.

C: Cambodia is not a communist nation. We do not torture or force anyone to do it, but society needed people to be moral.

B: What kind of politics system is that? I have never heard about it.

C: Do you know about the words “Social benefit”[1] and “Social Function”?  It is very important for everyone, I think.

B: Social Benefit? Is it when we have to pay taxes, life insurance, school fee, military service or something we need to pay back to society?

C:  Maybe. It is something that you must give back to the community that you are living in, it’s called community contribution. From a philosophy point of view it’s defined by a word “Utilitarianism” that’s means you have to do it to make your life easier and better for your future, it can bother you right now, but in the future it will give you back a good life.

B:  Still skeptical. Let move a step forward to define the meaning of “Morality”. What is it about?

C: It is not an easy word to define and it does depend on Cambodian society itself. “Morality referred to that code of conduct that is put forward by a society”[2]. Just like what I told you in the beginning.

B: What anti-human rights idealism! How the world can ignore this? Where is the power of the Law?

C: Morality is the Law of Cambodia.

B: Impossible! Then immorality is illegal in your country.  That’s not what we call Law. “Law is rules established by a governing authority to institute and maintain orderly coexistence”[3]. “Anthropologists claim that morality, like law, applied only within a society”[4], but it’s not valid for every society, it is relative. Cultural relativism rights are the justification of this, because they create it to protect all those morals that can harm one another from one society to another society.

C: Hold on. What happens if I’m using my rights to protect my morality?  Morality is a part of culture and tradition also. Don’t you think that they create law or rights are limiting everyone’s freedom?

B: Freedom? It comes from different shape, such as political freedom, intellectual freedom, and personal freedom, negative and positive freedom. Which one are you referring to?

C: Yes, all of it, I don’t think you use this word in U.S society or not, because human rights have exactly the same definition as freedom. How can you distinguish between these two? If I say “It’s my human rights to create morality to protect my identity of my culture” Is that still called freedom?

B: It’s true that all Asians are conservative! Don’t you know about “Nazi Morality” and “Khmer Rouge Morality” both of them killed million of people because of their personal morality, Nazi killed Jew and Gypsies because they hate them, Khmer Rouge kill all smart peoples because they want to create a new morality of society. Is that the morality you have and people needed? Can not be like that, it’s too violent, if law is not powerful, morality will destroy society because of its limitation.

C: Should morality be limited or unlimited?

B: There two kinds of morality. “Individual morality” and “Public or Plural Morality” and it’s shown in different size. Individuality should be limited, because it can harm one another and in this world “no one are being isolated”[5]. Public morality is hard to limit there are four perceptions, “first the theory is unacceptable, and the second is to say that human life are simply not subject to moral assessment, the third response holds that morality itself is extremely demanding, its authority is limited, and the last response is when morality demanding too much, it will never end”[6]. The first and second is consider as a well-being of individuality. The third and fourth by contrast deny this because morality will never satisfy its demand.

C: So if they limited morality, than they are limiting my freedom and rights; it seems invalid for the word “Utilitarian” that you mention before, because no one will be happy when their freedom is being limited.

B: Oh I forgot! There is another meaning of “Morality” that should be the conclusion for you. Morality can be in its “Universal normative sense”[7]. About your culture identity you can only use this morality in your society or I call it as “Self-regarding”[8] to society. Of course you can have your own freedom and morality but society has laws that you have to respect, or if you don’t want to obey, you are free to leave and find another society that can suit you.

C: What is the best for us then, if you say this is not right and that is not wrong?

B: Politically, human rights are the option. Negative and positive rights allow you to offer and do everything but respect one another. On the other hand negative and positive freedom is not the conclusion, because it’s “too much”[9], you can’t use your freedom to commit a suicide or kill someone because it’s harming another person who has their own freedom also.

C: We can’t call morality when we can’t to kill someone, because it’s inhuman. Humans have morality to be ascetic but inhuman doesn’t.

B: What do you mean inhuman?

C: Neutrality, to kill someone is animal nature and politically it’s illegal. Law stated that when you murder someone you are not a human.

B: What about “Death Penalty” is that humanity? Where is the self-protection for them, who being accused by the murdering law? Remember a “Brazilian guy dead innocently because of the British police though that he is a terrorist”[10]. Where is the justice of the law?

C: I have told you already. When someone is against law they are not human anymore. That’s why we created law to protect society’s welfare. But about the Brazilian guy, it’s call “The preventive function of government is more open to abuse than its punitive function”[11], that’s means they made a big mistake to killed him, but they did to protect the other innocent civilian that terrorist bombed them.

 B: There you go! Finally you got my words. You said morality is the minority of your country, but of course it should be limited otherwise law won’t have the power anymore.

C: It’s hard to limit morality because my country has very strong culture about morality that implied to our identity so if we limited the morality therefore our identity will disappear. I agree with you, but it does depend on each society.

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[1] Mill on Liberty

[2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

[3] http://www.lectlaw.com/def/l009.htm

[4] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

[5] John Stuart Mill on Liberty Chapter 4 page 67

[6] Samuel Scheffler “Human Morality” Chapter Two page 17

[7] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

[8] Mill on Liberty chapter 4 page 69

[9] Nietzsche 3 Essay on Ascetic Ideals Chapter 1

[10]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/4713109.stm

[11] Mill on Liberty Chapter 5 Application page 81

I’m trying to collect a good documentary about this history to post it on my blog here, so everyone could see it and understand more. I will spend a few days posting those good documentary. I would like to indicate this post to all innocent Khmer victims that were killed by the brutal humanist Khmer Rouge. May god bless you all. Peace.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR884ADWf3g]

 Part 1

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWK5eZzL8aQ]

Part 2

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU6VC99gEgc]

 Part3

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fHoTOj10QY]

 Part4

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm1rLno9oLI]

Part 5