So you say, but from whence the pudding? As language gets more freeform--that is, while remaining cognizant of the rules and informed by convention, likelier and likelier nevertheless to flaunt them, to deliberately ignore them for purposes not apparently so much in evidence to you--does that not make it more expressive, not less? Dashing off a text message replete with abbreviations and symbol mash might indicate thoughtlessness, if sent to someone you barely know. The same thing might indicate a shared sense of privacy, if to a friend or close associate. Either way, the literal interpretation of your message is given color and additional meaning by your chosen form of expression, much pithier for having avoided the verbosity of conventional (read: stodgy) English, and correspondingly so more piercing and direct.
Communication is nothing if not contextual in essence and expression, and to declare that it is robbed of meaning by our contemporary canvas, wide at the margins, is to mistake grammar for literary intent.
"Their" language is every bit as capable of expressing intricate thoughts and emotions--maybe not to you, an outsider perplexed by MySpace and flummoxed by AIM, but certainly to the people who use these services day in and day out. Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it simple.
Good points, even if I remain unconvinced. Regarding China's cultural taboo (perhaps too strong a term, in retrospect) against privacy, I've been able to find very little on the internet directly relevant to the topic. Yet the presumption pervades all writings about Chinese culture, and to a lesser degree other East Asian cultures. Here's some pages I've found that obliquely reference the difference between Western and Chinese cultures in attitudes towards privacy:
"Some attractive concepts become undesirable in Chinese. For example, privacy refers to something that one doesn't want others to know about, something almost evil." -- Annie Wang
"In China, American teachers... are confronted with attitudes toward the self;... toward concepts of freedom, privacy, individualism,... all of which also emphasize how essentially American the teachers are."
Finally, the Economist ran an article recently arguing that China's notions towards privacy and private space are only now beginning to approach Western conceptions of the same, as floor area ratios go up, family sizes go down, and interaction increases with Western-influenced media and their inherent value systems. Naturally, I can't find the article now that I want to reference it, but I remember it was just a couple weeks ago if you want to look for it.
I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint, but don't statements like "it is the duty of the Free to selflessly attempt to liberate the oppressed" reek of cultural imperialism? Should we in North America try to liberate the French from their laws against publishing even the most transparent, ridiculous falsehoods regarding Holocaust denial? Should the French try to liberate us from our own oppressive values derived from and informed by Christian fundamentalism? Certainly it's within the rights of all to try, but in what sense is our protection of free speech in the West categorically superior to the prevailing Chinese attitude that censorship may sometimes be necessary in order to preserve culture and maintain social order, aims that we in the West, I think, can agree are desirable.
It's not just censorship, either. Personal privacy, for example, isn't much of a concern in Chinese culture. Are we obligated to "liberate" China's citizens from their cultural taboos against desiring privacy?
Source? I have a friend in mainland China who ships CDs and DVDs in and out of the country all the time. Are you saying that if I FedEx a package to Shanghai, the CCP's going to intercept it, rip it open, and toss any computer media they find? Sounds physically impossible, to these ears.
As you seem to imply, it's hard to construe censorship as an intrinsic bad. Laws against libel and slander are probably the form of censorship most universally accepted, across all cultures and regimes, as helpful. Suppression of political speech, meanwhile, is usually considered harmful. The issue is really just where to draw the line.
The following anonymous comment currently sits at -1, Troll: "Have you ever considered that it's a bit ethnocentric to try to 'save' Chinese from their own conservative culture?... The fact is that most Chinese support censorship."
I didn't write the above (though feel free to disbelieve me), but I know I've struggled with the same question. It's quite true that the CCP's efforts to protect China's conservative values, through censorship, enjoy wide support among the population--just as a majority of French and German citizens support their governments' suppression of Nazi propaganda and Holocaust denial, and arguably rightly so.
Certainly I personally wouldn't want to live under such a government, but then, apparently a majority of Chinese wouldn't want to live under ours. Who are we to say they're wrong in their desire to be so nannied?
OK, I'll bite... where do you get your information? Me, I pick it up from a bunch of different sources that I've come to "trust" through a history of (apparently) consistently accurate information. If one or more of them start spouting bullshit, my trust in them will erode. That's what trust is to me. Of course you can't believe everything you read, but if you refuse to believe anything, then how do you have any idea what's going on at all other than for stuff you witness personally?
In today's political climate, the Democrats are left of center, and anyone to the left of them barely even makes it on the spectrum. This isn't going to change by reaffirming the GOP and its policies every election cycle. On the contrary, it's just going to keep getting worse and worse.
The Democratic party isn't going to come back to your definition of the left, not in the next few years, because--well, what happens if they begin speaking out en masse against the death penalty? (Never mind that the Democratic position at the state and national level is already much less favorable to it. Even John Kerry opposes it on principle.) Then they'll maybe win your vote, but they'll lose ten more in the political center (see above). No, as I said, change happens incrementally, and voting for hopeless candidates outside the current political mainstream reeks of angsty spitefulness and selfish uncaring for people for whom there is still a meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans.
My perspective is that in both cases, people say the system MUST be working correctly, given that mistakes are caught and remedied within the system. The problem is, how many more mistakes remain undetected? How many errors, instances of vandalism, and outright misrepresentations of fact are still on a typical Wikipedia page that simply haven't been discovered yet?
Yes. But I'm very choosy about whom I trust. At some point, I figure, you're going to have to trust somebody for everything you didn't witness personally, so it's worth it to take the time to invest yourself in sources that are (1) consistent and (2) reliable. Under neither of those criteria, I'm afraid, does Wikipedia rate very highly.
No, of course I'm not asking you to compromise your values. I'm asking you to be smarter about expressing them. The fact is that this administration is pulling this country's political center to the right, making you and the Greens look ever more extremist. "Real" political change comes incrementally, and you're going to go nowhere if the GOP keeps winning elections because you keep voting for the likes of Nader.
A two-party state is mathematicallyinevitable under our current voting system, which voting for Nader (or anyone else) isn't going to change. More to the point, spending your vote on someone you know doesn't stand a chance of winning, instead of someone with broader support, is to throw, e.g., gays, foreign students, &c. to the wolves for at least the next four years--despite your claim that there's no difference between the parties. Can you live with the knowledge that you could have helped, but chose not to?
Here's something I'll never understand. If you're so intent on voting for someone who expresses your views as best as possible, why not just write your own name in as a write-in candidate? It'd have as much influence as as voting for Nader, right?
Once the Democrats are back in power, shifting the political center back (if ever so slightly) to the left, you and the Greens will have a better chance of getting anyone to listen to you. The longer Bush and the conservative wing of the GOP have the upper hand, the further they drag this country to the right, and the loonier you sound to the center. So, first steps first. I can't believe you haven't figured this out yet.
And while YOU may be pampered and comfortable enough in your gated campus life to believe there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans, the fact is that for the rest of America there are REAL differences between the parties' platforms. Have you forgotten gay rights? A woman's right to choose? Teaching evolution in public schools? Claiming that there exists no real difference between the parties is short-sighted, selfish, and destructive.
"Perhaps we should only listen to folk who are close to the end of their paid working lives, as they may be more likely to tell the truth without fear or favor."
I'm sorry, but have you really just not been paying attention for six years? You really think this administration hasn't been any less open or transparent than others in recent memory?
Slashdot Mirror
Have you seen Apple's newest patents for their gesture interface? I haven't been able to sleep since.
Ah shit, you're right. I can't believe I let that one past.
They're capable of communicating amongst themselves, and that's all that matters. That you're unable to understand is, if anything, a benefit.
So you say, but from whence the pudding? As language gets more freeform--that is, while remaining cognizant of the rules and informed by convention, likelier and likelier nevertheless to flaunt them, to deliberately ignore them for purposes not apparently so much in evidence to you--does that not make it more expressive, not less? Dashing off a text message replete with abbreviations and symbol mash might indicate thoughtlessness, if sent to someone you barely know. The same thing might indicate a shared sense of privacy, if to a friend or close associate. Either way, the literal interpretation of your message is given color and additional meaning by your chosen form of expression, much pithier for having avoided the verbosity of conventional (read: stodgy) English, and correspondingly so more piercing and direct.
Communication is nothing if not contextual in essence and expression, and to declare that it is robbed of meaning by our contemporary canvas, wide at the margins, is to mistake grammar for literary intent.
"Their" language is every bit as capable of expressing intricate thoughts and emotions--maybe not to you, an outsider perplexed by MySpace and flummoxed by AIM, but certainly to the people who use these services day in and day out. Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it simple.
Yup. And if you fab your own x86-compatible CPU, you'll save another $100. Remember: don't buy a branded processor!
Oops, found that article after all. Here it is. It's a good one.
Good points, even if I remain unconvinced. Regarding China's cultural taboo (perhaps too strong a term, in retrospect) against privacy, I've been able to find very little on the internet directly relevant to the topic. Yet the presumption pervades all writings about Chinese culture, and to a lesser degree other East Asian cultures. Here's some pages I've found that obliquely reference the difference between Western and Chinese cultures in attitudes towards privacy:
... are confronted with attitudes toward the self; ... toward concepts of freedom, privacy, individualism, ... all of which also emphasize how essentially American the teachers are."
"Some attractive concepts become undesirable in Chinese. For example, privacy refers to something that one doesn't want others to know about, something almost evil." -- Annie Wang
Lots of goodies
"In China, American teachers
Finally, the Economist ran an article recently arguing that China's notions towards privacy and private space are only now beginning to approach Western conceptions of the same, as floor area ratios go up, family sizes go down, and interaction increases with Western-influenced media and their inherent value systems. Naturally, I can't find the article now that I want to reference it, but I remember it was just a couple weeks ago if you want to look for it.
I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint, but don't statements like "it is the duty of the Free to selflessly attempt to liberate the oppressed" reek of cultural imperialism? Should we in North America try to liberate the French from their laws against publishing even the most transparent, ridiculous falsehoods regarding Holocaust denial? Should the French try to liberate us from our own oppressive values derived from and informed by Christian fundamentalism? Certainly it's within the rights of all to try, but in what sense is our protection of free speech in the West categorically superior to the prevailing Chinese attitude that censorship may sometimes be necessary in order to preserve culture and maintain social order, aims that we in the West, I think, can agree are desirable.
It's not just censorship, either. Personal privacy, for example, isn't much of a concern in Chinese culture. Are we obligated to "liberate" China's citizens from their cultural taboos against desiring privacy?
Source? I have a friend in mainland China who ships CDs and DVDs in and out of the country all the time. Are you saying that if I FedEx a package to Shanghai, the CCP's going to intercept it, rip it open, and toss any computer media they find? Sounds physically impossible, to these ears.
As you seem to imply, it's hard to construe censorship as an intrinsic bad. Laws against libel and slander are probably the form of censorship most universally accepted, across all cultures and regimes, as helpful. Suppression of political speech, meanwhile, is usually considered harmful. The issue is really just where to draw the line.
The following anonymous comment currently sits at -1, Troll: "Have you ever considered that it's a bit ethnocentric to try to 'save' Chinese from their own conservative culture? ... The fact is that most Chinese support censorship."
I didn't write the above (though feel free to disbelieve me), but I know I've struggled with the same question. It's quite true that the CCP's efforts to protect China's conservative values, through censorship, enjoy wide support among the population--just as a majority of French and German citizens support their governments' suppression of Nazi propaganda and Holocaust denial, and arguably rightly so.
Certainly I personally wouldn't want to live under such a government, but then, apparently a majority of Chinese wouldn't want to live under ours. Who are we to say they're wrong in their desire to be so nannied?
Thoughts?
OK, I'll bite... where do you get your information? Me, I pick it up from a bunch of different sources that I've come to "trust" through a history of (apparently) consistently accurate information. If one or more of them start spouting bullshit, my trust in them will erode. That's what trust is to me. Of course you can't believe everything you read, but if you refuse to believe anything, then how do you have any idea what's going on at all other than for stuff you witness personally?
In today's political climate, the Democrats are left of center, and anyone to the left of them barely even makes it on the spectrum. This isn't going to change by reaffirming the GOP and its policies every election cycle. On the contrary, it's just going to keep getting worse and worse.
The Democratic party isn't going to come back to your definition of the left, not in the next few years, because--well, what happens if they begin speaking out en masse against the death penalty? (Never mind that the Democratic position at the state and national level is already much less favorable to it. Even John Kerry opposes it on principle.) Then they'll maybe win your vote, but they'll lose ten more in the political center (see above). No, as I said, change happens incrementally, and voting for hopeless candidates outside the current political mainstream reeks of angsty spitefulness and selfish uncaring for people for whom there is still a meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans.
Of course, but the question is which multiple sources do you choose to trust? That's what I've meant all along. Sorry if I haven't been clear.
My perspective is that in both cases, people say the system MUST be working correctly, given that mistakes are caught and remedied within the system. The problem is, how many more mistakes remain undetected? How many errors, instances of vandalism, and outright misrepresentations of fact are still on a typical Wikipedia page that simply haven't been discovered yet?
"At least the errors are being caught[,] as flawed as the ... system might be."
Isn't that the same argument made by proponents of capital punishment in the American justice system?
Yes. But I'm very choosy about whom I trust. At some point, I figure, you're going to have to trust somebody for everything you didn't witness personally, so it's worth it to take the time to invest yourself in sources that are (1) consistent and (2) reliable. Under neither of those criteria, I'm afraid, does Wikipedia rate very highly.
You have time to dig through page histories and whatnot? I'd rather just go consult a source I already trust.
That said, I do use Wikipedia quite a bit... but only because I have the time to waste.
No, of course I'm not asking you to compromise your values. I'm asking you to be smarter about expressing them. The fact is that this administration is pulling this country's political center to the right, making you and the Greens look ever more extremist. "Real" political change comes incrementally, and you're going to go nowhere if the GOP keeps winning elections because you keep voting for the likes of Nader.
A two-party state is mathematically inevitable under our current voting system, which voting for Nader (or anyone else) isn't going to change. More to the point, spending your vote on someone you know doesn't stand a chance of winning, instead of someone with broader support, is to throw, e.g., gays, foreign students, &c. to the wolves for at least the next four years--despite your claim that there's no difference between the parties. Can you live with the knowledge that you could have helped, but chose not to?
Here's something I'll never understand. If you're so intent on voting for someone who expresses your views as best as possible, why not just write your own name in as a write-in candidate? It'd have as much influence as as voting for Nader, right?
Once the Democrats are back in power, shifting the political center back (if ever so slightly) to the left, you and the Greens will have a better chance of getting anyone to listen to you. The longer Bush and the conservative wing of the GOP have the upper hand, the further they drag this country to the right, and the loonier you sound to the center. So, first steps first. I can't believe you haven't figured this out yet.
And while YOU may be pampered and comfortable enough in your gated campus life to believe there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans, the fact is that for the rest of America there are REAL differences between the parties' platforms. Have you forgotten gay rights? A woman's right to choose? Teaching evolution in public schools? Claiming that there exists no real difference between the parties is short-sighted, selfish, and destructive.
"Perhaps we should only listen to folk who are close to the end of their paid working lives, as they may be more likely to tell the truth without fear or favor."
:-)
You mean like second-term presidents?
Yeah, that was my point.
I'm sorry, but have you really just not been paying attention for six years? You really think this administration hasn't been any less open or transparent than others in recent memory?
Here's one. I'm sure there are others.