Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Muir on April 13, 2012 at 6:07pm

The point is that one's thoughts are not predetermined because of your skin color or ethnicity 

I agree with that, DJ. But I do think ones thoughts are INFLUENCED by your culture. I won't go so far as to say predetermined, but certainly in some cases very strongly influenced by your culture and your language.

Thoughts are articulated in words, and some languages bend thoughts like a prism.

Arabic, I think, is a very poetic strange language. An American gets cut off in traffic, and he unleashes a torrent of bizarre obscenity. A Saudi might scream out "A thousand Pestilences upon your children", or in Beirut the man might say "God Curse the boat that brought your forefathers here"..... Sounds equally bizarre to a Merican.

Permalink Reply by Brandon Michael on April 15, 2012 at 3:12pm

Well, as an actual example this article describes how having a name for a color in your language helped you see it.

In short, the range of stimuli that for Himba speakers comes to be categorized as "serandu" would be categorized in English as red, orange or pink. As another example, Himba children come to use one word, "zoozu," to embrace a variety of dark colors that English speakers would call dark blue, dark green, dark brown, dark purple, dark red or black.

Permalink Reply by Suburban Sentinel on April 13, 2012 at 9:10am

More feel good, politically correct B.S.  By the way I'm not a racist, I hate everybody equally.

Permalink Reply by D.J. on April 13, 2012 at 5:03pm

Assuming you're being serious in this post, and I can't really tell, can you explain your view a little more?

Permalink Reply by Suburban Sentinel on April 15, 2012 at 3:48pm

Serious about the politically correct BS part, tongue in cheek on the racism part.

Permalink Reply by D.J. on April 13, 2012 at 5:02pm

Shields, I do not mind proving both to you. I just can't bring myself to believe you care.

That's a cop out if I've ever seen one.

Shields 1 Titus 0.

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on April 13, 2012 at 5:06pm

Kid, don't make a fool of yourself. Shields & I have been quarrelling for years? Do you have any reason to enter this quarrel? I don't mind calling him names I would not use in polite company. I'd mind having to do it to you, too.

At any rate, if you have an interest in the question, does it not strike you that you could find out whether or not it's a cop out without annoying me by asking in your own name for the proof? You would allow me to show my precious superiority without the unpleasantness of Shields & you would find out whether I can do what I claim to do without annoying me in advance. That's your first lesson in searching scepticism - take it to heart-

Permalink Reply by D.J. on April 13, 2012 at 9:17pm

I can't think straight due to your ego. Excuse me while I attempt to recover my thoughts.

Permalink Reply by John Muir on April 13, 2012 at 10:29pm

Only men of a very narrow age spectrum are capable of rising to Titan intellect. You're a kid, I'm an old fool - we should know better.

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on April 14, 2012 at 2:55am

It's not my ego that gets in your way - it's your ego. I was right: all you had to do was ask in your own name the question to which you wanted an answer. Your ego caused you not to do it.

As for the problem raised before, it is fundamental. We are emphatically on the side of the individual who promote or defend individual rights. The argument behind those rights is that thinking is done individually; the mind is not a collective author. There is a kind of collective authority: the laws of the land. But in America, there is a Father of the Constitution; all the men who sat on the committee who wrote the final draft are also known, as is the conspiracy of the Philadelphia Convention. All collective authorities: the Congress, the Courts, are answerable individually for breaches of the public trust. But the most precious jewel of modern republicanism, the executive, is one alone. One of two reasons advanced is accountability.

But as you move away from this understanding of the individuals who matter, you move toward mob rule, where no individual is individually answerable, or to a cult that enslaves the members. Americans were once an unusual people. When they fought for Washington, the officer corps could hardly put an army together, because the men were volunteers - temporary soldiers, not under full officer authority. The German officer who taught Americans to drill noted that when he drilled the world's most professional army, the Prussian, he'd give orders & the troops would obey; but when he gave orders to Americans, they would first ask why.

The question of the individual & the group is the question of rulers & ruled. Americans believe that they obey the rules with their consent & that they could become rulers, if they so chose. This allows them to live their lives without becoming servile to gov't. A man can judge by his own best lights what's what & if he dislikes the way things are done, he can try to change it. He need not bow before any group or popular opinion or majority.

Permalink Reply by LShieldes on April 14, 2012 at 5:06pm

Is that your reasoning? Wow, I can understand now why you didn't want to put it in writing, you never understood what I even said.  So sad

Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on April 14, 2012 at 5:10pm

Shields, you have a way of suggesting that what you said is so stupid that no man with a head on his shoulders could think there is any sadness in not understanding it... I suppose you can say you are only returning the favor: in that what I said had nothing to do with what you said, your meaningless answer is only fitting. But there is this difference: I forward an argument that should gain by its perspective of the most important things whatever it must lose from my lack of ability or talent. You forward none...

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