From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Dec 14 2003 - 21:23:04 GMT
Hi Ian, Wim, Mark,
> Wim said, and Mark agreed ...
> [Quote]
> It is as pointless to call
> Europeans 'more intellectual' than Americans (or vice versa) as it is
> pointless to call a baboon 'more biological' than a rhino. Contrary to
> Pirsig in some of his writing I don't consider it useful either to ....
> [Unquote]
>
> Interesting that the argument is purely pragmatic - ie pointless,
> not-useful ... We must be careful though, not to create a PC taboo,
> preventing such comparisons. Clearly evolutionary cultural speciation
> between Americans and Europeans is quite different to the evolutionary
> biological speciation between baboons and rhino's. There is much less
> cross-communication (cultural or biological) between the latter pair for
> a start.
>
> I think we all recognise that generalised statements comparing
> "Americans" with "Europeans" are just short-hand, but without such
> metaphorical generalisations, we have to write much longer sentences -
> which actually get in the way of communication unless we're allowed to
> use convenient labels like "American" without everyone taking offense.
> By American we simply mean a culture of ways of thinking and acting
> which we have found it convenient to label "American". The trick is to
> remember that fact, and not to strangle the language by making it non-PC
> to use the terms.
Excellent comment, Ian. Far from being pointless, stereotyping and
generalizing make communication more efficient. To avoid them in the
name of P.C. is to avoid reality. Pit bulls are more aggressive than
other breeds, older people have slower reflexes than the young, the
major media leans to the left, and according to the MOQ reality is
morality, ie., some things are better than others.
Platt
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