You do realize that by trying to take this kid's child away you are in fact trying to force your culture on to him.  A culture he rejected by moving away from it. 

Would you say that if a man from Australia decides he likes aborigine culture better and leaves Sydney to live like the aborigines with his son he was abusing him?

He rejected modern culture and moved to the wilderness with his son to start a new culture, at an age where parents can legally make choices for their children.

Either you respect other cultures or you don't.  The minute you try and pick and choose you AREN'T picking to tolerate other cultures and instead only tolerating cultures that aren't too far off your own.

And I mean really, I can think of many places with much worse cultural choices then that based on survivalism, like the many cultures where women have zero power, or where racism and anti-semtism exist and outright executions of people who slightly fall out of the norm.

How do you know the boy had any previous life, previous friends, previous anything? They may have been regularly on the move prior to this, or maybe the boy was extremely introverted and kept to himself. Or maybe they lived in farm country and he would have had to travel a mile down the road just to get to the next neighbors, who just so happened to be childless.

And you don't HAVE to attend a proper school, if you can be legally homeschooled. Granted, this boy probably wasn't LEGALLY homeschooled, but that doesn't mean his father didn't still educate him.

You people are jumping to so many conclusions here.

I like to think that the boy's father was a former CIA agent who had retired after completing a huge mission and bringing in a major crimelord. However, said crimelord escaped from prison a year later and swore revenge against the agent, so the CIA had him and his family moved to Germany under witness protection. They lived there for a couple years before they were finally hunted down again, and the mother was murdered, though her murder was staged to look like a traffic accident. The accident was supposed to kill all three of them, but the father and son managed to escape with only minor injuries as their car and the mother burned until it was impossible to recognize anything among the wreckage. The father had no choice but to flee into the wilderness with their son, to disappear entirely.

Sorry, the type of relativism you're talking about is simply unacceptable. We might as well throw out laws all together, and let people do whatever they want, after all, they someone can just say 'your laws are rooted in this culture, and I've decided to reject this culture, so you can't touch me'. The whole cultural relativism only applies to people who come from other cultures (e.g. aborigines). This man did not come from an aboriginal culture , nor did he attempt to start another culture. Culture is something collective, not individual. He did not live in a community, he lived isolated like a hermit.

It's also quite insulting for aboriginals to compare them to this guy. I don't think you know much about them, but I can assure you that they're don't live like wild animals. And parents do not have the legal right to take their children out of school, and they also have the legal obligation to offer them the necessities.

Ya know, you're quick to jump on people for the silliest things. Sometimes the stuff you post are so out of whack I dunno whether to reply to them or avoid you altogether. Like the other day, you called me a rapist out of the blue, and months before that you called me intolerant against homosexuals. And I think you were banned not so long ago for calling someone a troll or something? Just chillax man. Stop being so aggresively awkward all the time.

Anywho, this story is quite interesting. If anything, the kid probably has some awesome survival instincts ... along with a very troubled mind that went through so much mental, emotional abuse over the year.

So... you outright admit to being extremely close minded? Did you also just try to bring laws in to justify something when we're talking about it in a metaphysical sense? Also, who are you to say whether someone can change their culture or not? I find European cultre in general fucking retarded, as well as American culture, am I not allowed to have my own culture that removes the idiocy of Europe and the US? Furthermore this guy and his teenage son managed to live "like this" for 5 years, they seem capable enough to survive beyond just wild animals. Then you again bring in legality to seal your own close mindedness.

Homeschooling is illlegal in most of Europe (including Germany). There's also a huge difference between being introverted and being isolated from society.

I also find your last paragraph unlikely, but it would make for a pretty interesting movie.

I don't see how I'm close minded. Culture refers to a particular form/stage of civilization. It is a social phenomenon, the symbolical encoding of human experiences. It is somethign very complicated, and not something you can just change like you change your shirt. It's certainly not something that you can 'invent'. Culture is born and develops naturally as a result of a group of people's colelctive interractions with the world.Individuals can have their personal beliefs, but an individual's personal beliefs do not make up a culture. Actually, culture influences people's individual beliefs, since all people are born in a certain culture that provides a certain view of reality.

If you don't like Western culture, you're free to move to whatever place in the world you want to, and if you can immerse yoruself in their culture, if you find that possible. However, if you live in a certain country, you have to follow their rules and laws (which will be rooted in their culture), the only exception being if you're part of an ethnic minority which has it's own culture (Native Americans, Aborigines, Gypsies etc.), case in which most countries would allow the group you're oart of some form of autonomy.

And if you hate Western culture so much, you should know that shallowness and immaturity are sterotypes of the people part of said culture. Be careful not to display those traits when you're going on about how the West sucks.

Sorry, the type of relativism you're talking about is simply unacceptable. We might as well throw out laws all together, and let people do whatever they want, after all, they someone can just say 'your laws are rooted in this culture, and I've decided to reject this culture, so you can't touch me'. The whole cultural relativism only applies to people who come from other cultures (e.g. aborigines). This man did not come from an aboriginal culture , nor did he attempt to start another culture. Culture is something collective, not individual. He did not live in a community, he lived isolated like a hermit.

It's also quite insulting for aboriginals to compare them to this guy. I don't think you know much about them, but I can assure you that they're don't live like wild animals. And parents do not have the legal right to take their children out of school, and they also have the legal obligation to offer them the necessities.

This is just going to be another one of those cases your not going to understand till you take a sociology class.

Culture forms views, but views ALSO form culture, because that's exactly what culture is.  A persons views.

The smaller the group or culture, the larger the impact a persons view will have an culture.

Your view is biased and... actually quite bigoted for two reasons.

1) The importance on ethnic minority.  Why shouldn't someone be able to give up their culture to accept a minorities culture?  To suggest they shouldn't is akin to inferring that said culture is inferior and only fit for the minority out of tradition.

2) A focus on what only exists currently, which basically rejects all counter culture movements.

You know what was a counter culture movement?  The Civil Rights movement in numerous countries.  According to you, those people should apparently have to conform to racism and sexism, since back then it was the law, and there was no ethnic or racial minority involved.

Your arguements always seem to veer straight for liberal to Neoconservative/Authoritarian.