Insanity: South African Luxury Hotel Creates Fake Slum for Rich Tourists to Stay in
- Thread starter The Real
- Start date
Its the free market at work...@DEAD7
If people find it offensive, and reject it. It will disappear... that's how the market works. That said, i'm sure you guys want some form of govt. to come in and arrest/fine people
Interesting response on the article page:
I'm bracing for criticism, but I can actually dispute this article in an infinite number of ways, with sourced evidence.
1. Many urbanist and political thinkers (including Friedrich Engels) believe that isolation of socio-economic classes destroys democracy, inhibits social change, and may have led to terrible living conditions in early industrial UK. In this way, whether a rich person is volunteering at a homeless shelter, biking or walking through a slum, or even trying to experience it in a safe fake slum, they are getting exposure to the other side. This is also seen in philosophical and Buddhist texts and mentioned by Zeno, Marcus Aurelius, and others. This article then hilariously contradicts itself on two levels, by saying that it is appalling to learn in person about a real life slum, a fake slum, and if this is the ca...se, to only watch them on TV and to be as disconnected as possible from the problem.
2. According to anthropologists like Alan Smart, 40% of the world is living in illegal conditions, and these slum environments can be perfectly valid ways of living. People create vast social networks and and cultures within their community, ranging from Hong Kong shanty towns, to South African. This hotel may as well be themed with any other culture, as to deem it invalid would be instituting a dominant discourse (Focault) on that lifestyle, and in turn, contradict the spirit of the article itself.
3. "tour through a slum in order to stare at slum inhabitants like they’re animals at a safari" pretty well describes all tourism on Earth. People go to foreign countries to see how others live. Whether the demographic is richer or poorer than you, you observe them from the position of an outsider. You can never fully understand what it is like, but only try, which is what both the tours and the hotel is trying to give. I'm assuming this radio station understands tourism, as it deals with Africa on a regional scale.
I understand the position this article and commenters have, but I think we are coming to false conclusions on about the nature of slums and tourism.
JuvenileHell
Veteran
lol, you're puffy daddy fareal... You don't stop. or give a fukk.
That said, i'm sure you guys want some form of govt. to come in and arrest/fine people
Interesting response on the article page:
I'm bracing for criticism, but I can actually dispute this article in an infinite number of ways, with sourced evidence.
1. Many urbanist and political thinkers (including Friedrich Engels) believe that isolation of socio-economic classes destroys democracy, inhibits social change, and may have led to terrible living conditions in early industrial UK. In this way, whether a rich person is volunteering at a homeless shelter, biking or walking through a slum, or even trying to experience it in a safe fake slum, they are getting exposure to the other side. This is also seen in philosophical and Buddhist texts and mentioned by Zeno, Marcus Aurelius, and others. This article then hilariously contradicts itself on two levels, by saying that it is appalling to learn in person about a real life slum, a fake slum, and if this is the ca...se, to only watch them on TV and to be as disconnected as possible from the problem.
2. According to anthropologists like Alan Smart, 40% of the world is living in illegal conditions, and these slum environments can be perfectly valid ways of living. People create vast social networks and and cultures within their community, ranging from Hong Kong shanty towns, to South African. This hotel may as well be themed with any other culture, as to deem it invalid would be instituting a dominant discourse (Focault) on that lifestyle, and in turn, contradict the spirit of the article itself.
3. "tour through a slum in order to stare at slum inhabitants like they’re animals at a safari" pretty well describes all tourism on Earth. People go to foreign countries to see how others live. Whether the demographic is richer or poorer than you, you observe them from the position of an outsider. You can never fully understand what it is like, but only try, which is what both the tours and the hotel is trying to give. I'm assuming this radio station understands tourism, as it deals with Africa on a regional scale.
I understand the position this article and commenters have, but I think we are coming to false conclusions on about the nature of slums and tourism.
I respect that you make your case without simply talking shyt.
Xtraz2
Superstar
I see nothing wrong with this, I think it's a good thing that people can get a glimpse of wut life is like in tha slums, it brings humans closer together
That said, i'm sure you guys want some form of govt. to come in and arrest/fine people
No one said anything about arrests or fines. No need to jump to conclusions. As for rejecting it- that's exactly why it won't disappear. Rich people love slumming. Only a callous person wouldn't find it tasteless and offensive, though.
I'm bracing for criticism, but I can actually dispute this article in an infinite number of ways, with sourced evidence.
1. Many urbanist and political thinkers (including Friedrich Engels) believe that isolation of socio-economic classes destroys democracy, inhibits social change, and may have led to terrible living conditions in early industrial UK. In this way, whether a rich person is volunteering at a homeless shelter, biking or walking through a slum, or even trying to experience it in a safe fake slum, they are getting exposure to the other side. This is also seen in philosophical and Buddhist texts and mentioned by Zeno, Marcus Aurelius, and others. This article then hilariously contradicts itself on two levels, by saying that it is appalling to learn in person about a real life slum, a fake slum, and if this is the ca...se, to only watch them on TV and to be as disconnected as possible from the problem.
2. According to anthropologists like Alan Smart, 40% of the world is living in illegal conditions, and these slum environments can be perfectly valid ways of living. People create vast social networks and and cultures within their community, ranging from Hong Kong shanty towns, to South African. This hotel may as well be themed with any other culture, as to deem it invalid would be instituting a dominant discourse (Focault) on that lifestyle, and in turn, contradict the spirit of the article itself.
3. "tour through a slum in order to stare at slum inhabitants like they’re animals at a safari" pretty well describes all tourism on Earth. People go to foreign countries to see how others live. Whether the demographic is richer or poorer than you, you observe them from the position of an outsider. You can never fully understand what it is like, but only try, which is what both the tours and the hotel is trying to give. I'm assuming this radio station understands tourism, as it deals with Africa on a regional scale.
I understand the position this article and commenters have, but I think we are coming to false conclusions on about the nature of slums and tourism.
It's a simplistic and wildly ignorant response.
First, it begins with the same exaggeration yall libertarians love, by conflating an extreme instance with a general class of phenomenon, in this case, a sanitized slum experience with no actual poor people involved with "seeing the other side." Not only is this illogical, in this case, it's objectively false.
Second, even if it was "seeing the other side," not all cases of "seeing the other side" are equally ethical. Surely we can agree that putting a poor, Black African slum dweller in a cage in a north American zoo and having visitors stare at them is not the same thing, ethically, as volunteering at a homeless shelter.
Third, even if it was seeing the other side, there's no guarantee that this interaction will be beneficial. Most people who visit these places don't become great activists or benefactors to the poor.
Four, slums can foster "valid ways of living," but that alone doesn't justify creating a fake one for tourists to visit like a zoo. The "validity" of slum life is promoted in academia to ensure that those people's lives are seen to have dignity and worth, not to suggest that slums are, by objective living standards, just the same as anywhere else. It's the same situation with rappers speaking fondly of the ghetto.
Five, deeming it invalid isn't "instituting a dominant discourse." This is a piss-poor understanding of Foucault, for whom a dominant discourse can only be instituted by an individual or group objectively more powerful than its target. A true Foucauldian argument would be that the power relations in this scenario are deeply imbalanced in favor of the wealthy hotel and its visitors as opposed to the people who live in those conditions for real. That means they don't have a significant voice in the matter of its construction or maintenance, and even if they have complaints, they will be less likely to be heard or to matter. This is equivalent to saying that if Black people object to Blackface and protest against it, they are trying to "institute a dominant discourse."
Six, "tour through a slum in order to stare at slum inhabitants like they’re animals at a safari" does not "pretty well describe all tourism on Earth" by a long shot. This is another example of illogical exaggeration and conflation of an extreme case with a general phenomenon, and so ridiculous I shouldn't even have to explain it.
Seven, the argument that "you can never fully understand what it is like, but only try, which is what both the tours and the hotel is trying to give" once again conflates extremity with the general. There are many, many ways to visit actual slums (I've engaged in some of them in South Africa myself) which aren't outright offensive or distasteful, and which actually involve contributing a little to those people while you're at it. This isn't the only choice, and it's far from the best, or even a valid one, for people interested in "seeing the other side."
So, you dont think any action should be taken against this?
State action, no, but I'm fine with actual slum people or just decent folks protesting, boycotting, or putting pressure on them in other ways.
Mr Uncle Leroy
All Star
brilliant...does the actual shanty towns benefit?
Last edited:
the real problem in south africa is the europeans (dutch & jews) there holding black people there. i don't care how long there've been there they just need to go.
take a look at a company like de beers siphoning resources out of there making the rothschilds more money they don't need. they've made those south africans slaves in their own country living in poverty.
i was looking at a list of the famous south africans and there's not even one real south african on the list. just a bunch of stupid ass "south african" jews in hollywood.
does this nicca look south african to yall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R._Rotem
does he give a fuq about south africans?
real south africans are starving bussin guns and being reported as animals as these euros steal their resources living the lavish lifestyle.
take a look at a company like de beers siphoning resources out of there making the rothschilds more money they don't need. they've made those south africans slaves in their own country living in poverty.
i was looking at a list of the famous south africans and there's not even one real south african on the list. just a bunch of stupid ass "south african" jews in hollywood.
does this nicca look south african to yall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R._Rotem
does he give a fuq about south africans?
real south africans are starving bussin guns and being reported as animals as these euros steal their resources living the lavish lifestyle.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
What's a "real South African"? and while you're at it, what's a "real American"?
Ricky Church
Stole Timberlake's Spaceship-Coupe
a real south african is someone black like those zulu ppl. the real owners of that land.
you have the honors of describing what a real american is. I can't describe anything devils get their hands on...
Last edited: