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Post by permutojoe on Aug 26, 2017 3:16:15 GMT
Is it because we're a bunch of group thinking tag-alongs?
What if somewhere else there was a civilization where everyone was just their own person?
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Post by general313 on Aug 26, 2017 17:31:06 GMT
If we weren't group thinking tag-alongs, we'd have way more languages in the world than we already have, and communication would be that much more difficult.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Aug 26, 2017 17:35:03 GMT
You'd not be able to avoid that there are some commonalities when you get a bunch of people interacting, as they influence each other in various ways.
For example, someone makes food that you like, and you might make it yourself because of that, you might ask other people to make it for you, etc. Then other people try it and like it, too, and it perpetuates that way. Same thing goes for clothing, art/music, etc.
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Post by them1ghtyhumph on Aug 27, 2017 5:55:39 GMT
Because it has to be
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Post by permutojoe on Aug 27, 2017 14:20:56 GMT
If we weren't group thinking tag-alongs, we'd have way more languages in the world than we already have, and communication would be that much more difficult. Oddly enough languages are dying out fairly rapidly, causing what could be looked at as a mass cultural extinction event.
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Post by general313 on Aug 27, 2017 21:59:24 GMT
If we weren't group thinking tag-alongs, we'd have way more languages in the world than we already have, and communication would be that much more difficult. Oddly enough languages are dying out fairly rapidly, causing what could be looked at as a mass cultural extinction event. Not odd. That cultural extinction is accompanied by a cultural assimilation. We are left with fewer cultures, sure, but those remaining grow ever larger in population and influence.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Aug 30, 2017 12:27:00 GMT
If we weren't group thinking tag-alongs, we'd have way more languages in the world than we already have, and communication would be that much more difficult. Oddly enough languages are dying out fairly rapidly, causing what could be looked at as a mass cultural extinction event. That's just cultural evolution, and cultures always evolve. There's no way to get rid of culture, and no way to keep it static.
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Post by permutojoe on Aug 30, 2017 13:29:45 GMT
Oddly enough languages are dying out fairly rapidly, causing what could be looked at as a mass cultural extinction event. That's just cultural evolution, and cultures always evolve. There's no way to get rid of culture, and no way to keep it static. Agree, however, there is a regrettable loss of cultural information as languages die out. A language literally tells you how the people who spoke it view the world.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Aug 30, 2017 13:36:03 GMT
That's just cultural evolution, and cultures always evolve. There's no way to get rid of culture, and no way to keep it static. Agree, however, there is a regrettable loss of cultural information as languages die out. A language literally tells you how the people who spoke it view the world. Right. But at least if we have a record of the stuff that no longer is a part of a culture, we don't completely lose that information.
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Post by permutojoe on Aug 30, 2017 13:51:13 GMT
Agree, however, there is a regrettable loss of cultural information as languages die out. A language literally tells you how the people who spoke it view the world. Right. But at least if we have a record of the stuff that no longer is a part of a culture, we don't completely lose that information. Yes. Hopefully each language and all its minor nuances are being documented.
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Post by mrellaguru on Aug 30, 2017 16:26:07 GMT
Even the idea of "being your own person" comes from a culture that promotes individualism.
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Sept 4, 2017 18:30:48 GMT
HP Lovecraft had an opinion for everything:
The fact is, my instinctive loyalties and area of interest seem to follow cultural rather than biological lines…a tendency directly opposed to the Nazi tribal ideal. Undeniably, my own blood kinfolk on the continent interest me less than my cultural kinfolk—whose blood diverges sharply from my own as the stream recedes in time. The northern nations—biologically akin to me—seem foreign and of minor interest; whilst France, Italy, and Greece—the successive cultural precursors of the Anglo-Norman civilisation around me—seem close, ancestral, and of vital personal interest. To me the Roman Empire will always seem the central incident of human history—and this perspective cannot but colour (both consciously and unconsciously) my national interests and literary appreciations in connexion with the modern world. Incidentally—this perspective was quite typical of the 18th century, to which I am so inextricably bound. The conflicting inclinations and tastes of a composite civilisation—where race and artistic-intellectual heritage spring from different sources—form a curious study. Conscious, objective interests tend to follow the line of culture rather than of race; but inward mental and emotional processes (ethical concepts and compulsions, social-political preferences, trends of imagination, modes of every-day living, &c) gravitate toward the line of race. An Anglo-American can talk art and history and philosophy with a Frenchman better than with a German…yet his unconscious habits and outlook and way of life make him vastly closer to the German in practical, everyday matters. >from a letter written June 13, 1936
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Sept 6, 2017 17:20:02 GMT
Another Lovecraft quote:
Really, the great question in any immigration policy is not so much the effect on the remote future as the maintenance of enough congeniality of population to save the legitimate natives of a place from feeling like strangers on their own hereditary sod. Only a damn fool can expect the people of one tradition to feel at ease when their country is flooded with hordes of foreigners who—whether equal, superior, or inferior biologically—are so antipodal in physical, emotional, and intellectual makeup that harmonious coalescence is virtually impossible. Such an immigration (policy?) is death to all endurable existence, and pollution and decay to all art and culture. To permit or encourage it is suicide—as you can clearly see in that hell called New York, where a chaos of scum has raised a stench intolerable to any self-respecting white man. Biologically, the Nordic is probably not superior to the best Mediterranean stock, or the unbroken and now almost Semitic white stock; but just as the Chinese culture ought to be preserved where it once entrenched, where the Nordic culture is once entrenched, it must be preserved. >from a letter written September 27, 1926
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Post by faustus5 on Sept 6, 2017 21:59:06 GMT
Yeah, because Lovecraft's credentials as an anthropologist or sociologist are impeccable. Quoting him is like telling someone about the nature of neurology by quoting the musings of your plumber.
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Sept 6, 2017 22:00:47 GMT
Yeah, because Lovecraft's credentials as an anthropologist or sociologist are impeccable. Quoting him is like telling someone about the nature of neurology by quoting the musings of your plumber. He was a much more eloquent writer than yourself.
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Post by faustus5 on Sept 7, 2017 10:43:03 GMT
He was a much more eloquent writer than yourself. Actually, he was one of the worst writers in the history of English when it comes to prose. His genius was the way he turned his absurd psychological issues into horror. And his world-building collaborations with other writers. But no one with any taste has ever praised his actual writing.
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Sept 7, 2017 15:51:05 GMT
Actually, he was one of the worst writers in the history of English when it comes to prose. His genius was the way he turned his absurd psychological issues into horror. And his world-building collaborations with other writers. But no one with any taste has ever praised his actual writing. I dont care for his prose actually--I think he can convey some spookiness in passages but his stories generally bore me. However his letter writing is lively and his articles on genre fiction are informative too.
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Post by someguy on Sept 26, 2017 3:55:14 GMT
A lot of people who CLAIM to be independent thinkers really aren't and just call themselves independent to impress others.
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