> Outsiders attempting to generalize, analyze, dissect, and fix things about cultures they barely understand more often than not cause historical and irreversible damage.
Maybe it can also cause progress? For instance, the condemnation of Apartheid by the western world probably helped end it.
(I don't mean to say arranged marriage is the same as Apartheid, obviously.)
The concept and system of arranged marriages is not something that needs fixing. It has evolved and will continue to evolve to adapt to changing conditions and attitudes among the youth and parents in India. A marriage is much larger than whether it was arranged or born out of (fleeting/puppy/divine/heavenly) love.
The concept and system of _Apartheid_ is not something that needs fixing. It has evolved and will continue to evolve to adapt to changing conditions and attitudes.
This is actually true. You don't have to fix anything. Changing environmental pressures will induce change in any state of affairs as long as there is interaction among agents.
What I just wrote may be controversial, but it does not make it false.
The difference is to what degree does another agent, external to the system in question (here, the system that has apartheid), feels they have the right to intervene and accelerate the change in a direction they judge is fit.
Sometimes you can argue that everybody is better off -- people inside the system and outside (on the outside, I would argue it is mostly a psychological benefit, at least immediately after the change is induced) -- but the arguments are never perfect. And to think that there is a "correct" side to it is (usually) a fallacy.
My point is that your argument validly defends Apartheid. It is a standard (if somewhat impolite) rhetorical technique to parrot your opponent's arguments in a way that makes them seem obviously flawed.
Maybe it can also cause progress? For instance, the condemnation of Apartheid by the western world probably helped end it.
(I don't mean to say arranged marriage is the same as Apartheid, obviously.)