"Michael Kaplan" <view@xxxxxxxx> followed, about the Subject: old revolutionaries
writing:
> as for 'designed societies': chomsky's work in linguistics sort of blows
> that myth away. all societies are equally 'designed',
do you mean there that societies are designed equal or are designed "similar or equivalent" by some chains of events?I would suggest societies happen by some chains of repeated coincidences, accidents, cohesions factors ( like defending themselves from enemies..), instincts of members to look for a kind of protection against natural (castles, walls around cities) or supranatural events (lightnings, nightmares or non-understandable events) including pseudonatural ones eventually inspiring religions and blind belief in good behaving divinities)
societies become complex, from tribal to pseudodemocratic.
I think there is no inherent design in societies. just a purpose, or some happening(s), becoming common and traditional or the like.
just as all languages are basically the same (functionally, at least).
suppose you refer only here to spoken ones...
but it's remarkable how each society thinks it is somehow superior to the others.
not sure of that. diferent ,yes, I agree.
But superiority derives from power struggle, when comparing societies.
Are Dafour tribes inferior, as a group, to wallstreet brookers ? in which way ? if so it's just a tought.
Not actually a verificable fact . If you place such a broker alone in the soudanese desert, he' l loose any superioty complex asap.But If the brooker comes with a batallion of military or a group of Rangerovered adventurers, he'll compensate his "natural" inferiority by a kind of imported power imposed on the environment the Dafour tribes can "naturally" tolerate, and similarly a Sudanese countryman parachuted and let alone into Wall street coudn't survive a long time. That desert guy should come with all his tribe , at least, to build together a home in central Park, if the Park rangers let them cut trees to just do that...But actually that group could survive more easily that way in NewYork than the Rangerovered guys let without gas after a while in the desert... who knows...
adaptability and selfreliance of the natural , without the artifices the western way of life (WWL) needs to stay alive ....
It would be remarkable if each society as a group or by parts could see, understand, respect and maintain ,using mutual tolerance, the diferences wich are the richness of the human societies as a whole.
But probably some basic or group instincts work against such option.
And even education can't always solve all those intolerances.
Griffith was certainly educated...
heidegger wrote: "when the french begin to think, they will do it in
> german." what nonsense.
actually, if a person could understand and eventually think using a crossover "over" the language barriers it would be a beginning of a better tolerance.
(translators are probably very tolerant people.. )
(Simultaneously if everybody on this planet earth would speak only Thai or French Canadian it would be extremely boring...diversity is a common goal of mankind, beginning with his genetical process of reproduction generating diversity - there should be an universal goal of diversity, not of difference on planet earth)
>
> i had an argument in a sauna today with two bush supporters. they put
> forth the standard, uninformed argument for the iraq war: "if we don't
> kill them first, they'll come and kill us." for the ignorant, that's the
> central issue in the election. i suggested the reverse: "if we (the
> third world) don't kill them, they (the americans) will come and kill
> us." in fact, that's the more historically accurate scenario.
>
Georges Lucas spoke a few days ago about the how and the why of our enpowered actions.
without referring directly to the Irak situation, his point was that power and know-how gives the "how" to manage difficult events and attain anticipated results, but we frequently forget the "why" of those enpowered actions which can create unprevisible results, just as wars are. He quoted Napoleon, Alexander the Great and others, not Bush... but everybody understood)
And he's certainly a star of wars descriptions, isn''t he ?
(I ignored he's an anthropologist, btw)
Its always impossible to win a fight against stupidity and imbecility, any kind or way.
Encountered people can be of those two kinds, even if well (?) educated.....
Education as a whole is not a panacea..
other elements play a huge role in creating humanist and tolerant minds, i suppose.
Patrick
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