User profile: Alien

User info
  • Registered
  • VerifiedYes

Forum posts

0
Forums > Living in Kunming > the second thing-language issue

Dudeson: language is the tool that allows us to reason. Dishonesty destroys the ability to reason and cooperate.

We are not just the species that, far beyond the capabilities of any other, destroys its own habitat and that of other species, we are also the one that creates its own habitat and that of other species. Because of our uniqueness, evolutionary theory really can't predict the results, so it behooves us to take the task seriously - and not just for the future, but for fully-human, fully-conscious living in the present as well. Or we can persist in sneaking about in mutual distrust and remaining blind to and suspicious of what each other knows, sees, etc.

0
Forums > Living in Kunming > the second thing-language issue

In short, if real honest communication is impossible, then what is really going on has to be intuited, guessed at, approximated, gambled on, etc., so that the great gift of human language becomes just another tool or weapon and can be self-serving but not the medium of cooperation. Cf. the entire advertising industry, PR, and political discourse everywhere within the globally-competitive self destruction that we engage in, where the greatest ability to manipulate lies not in what is said (such as by lying), but in the bottom-level dishonesty of attempting, by whatever means, to get other people to believe something that the speaker does not believe himself.
There is a certain equality, however, in the mutual understanding that what is formally written is bullshit - but after that mutual understanding is established, what are we left with? I suggest that it is words-as-weapons.
Hmmm - perhaps I've gotten off the subject.

0
Forums > Living in Kunming > the second thing-language issue

Dudeson, the written language is difficult, but I really don't think the reason for the unreliability of contracts & other documents is the nature of the language. I do, however, think it has to do with the fact of widespread illiteracy in the past and the sophisticated, albeit self-serving, use which those who dominated society through a preachy-moralistic bureaucracy for thousands of years made of it - to the point where written documents became impossible aids to practical life, did not represent real events or conditions, and so were formally respected and then ignored, by people who had real lives to live and had developed the practical sense of how to do it. The preachy-moralism has survived and been incorporated into modern bureaucratic rule, as has the the commonsense that allows people to say yes sir yes sir three bags full and then go do what will allow them to get by as individuals or interest groups divorced from written hypocrisy. And of course this survival strategy produces, and/or reinforces, a hypocrisy of its own. So the contract becomes, like: "Well this is what we will say so that everybody can look good but of course we're not fools who would believe that pretend statements will protect us or advance our interests."

Classifieds

No results found.

Comments

•

Tell it to Steven Hawking. A person's physical stature does not limit his/her potential for work that does not rely on his/her physical stature (e.g., English teaching, as well as physics). The cultural attitude that those who are discriminated against because they do not fit the culturally desired norm should be outcast or should be provided for by special environments that can be sold as entertainment venues to those who will not deal with their own prejudices is a cultural attitude that perpetuates discrimination against all who are 'different'. The problem here, as elsewhere, is a matter of dehumanizing those who are 'different' - prejudicial culture that regiments anything that deviates from its standards, rather than dealing with the prejudice itself. Why not have a theme park within which 'foreigners', with all their funny habits, can be kept, so that they do not disturb the 'normality' of cultural prejudices? Actually, there could be many: one for 'black people', one for Tibetans, one for Japanese, one for gay people, one for Han Chinese people who have given up their 'traditional' clothing for 'western-style' clothing (e.g., the great majority of Chinese, over the past century or so) - in fact we could subdivide and subdivide until nothing was left but mutual nonrecognition. All these would help to maintain the narrow identities of 'normality' that can be relied upon to advance support the cultural attitudes that promote the continuing inability of people to recognize each other as human, and to celebrate and accept their differences - not as entertainment items, no matter how 'cute', but as full human beings. How different is all this from apartheid?

This effort to maintain prejudice can, of course, be profitable to those who invest in it, and convenient for social engineers and political elites who want to maintain an elite power status by reliance on it.

The place is an insult to our common humanity and a spotlight on cultural attitudes of exclusion. Those who find that they enjoy such displays should take a good look at the nature of the culture that has formed them so narrowly. Cultures change; cultures have always changed; cultures are presently changing and will continue to do so; there is nothing sacred about cultural attitudes. Our common humanity is an ongoing project, and those who imagine they are not part of such a project are simply contributing their own blindness to it, and limiting themselves in the process. It's not the 'dwarves' who are the problem, its the people who will not accept them as within the boundaries of 'us'.

•

See John Israel's EXCELLENT book on the history of the university:

Israel, John. Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998

Books about universities do not normally strike me as exciting, but this one is.

John has lived in Kunming for several months per year over the past 10 years or more.

•

Modern nationalism is a manipulative ideology to manage global capital, and nationalist blindness to actual human beings leads to the punishment of innocents. China is not a communist country. People who murder in Pakistan cannot be extradited to China to be judged for murders of people in Pakistan, even if they're Chinese.

Reviews


By

Not quite what you'd call a jumping place, but not bad at all for rather standard US-type meals, not overly expensive, and with a really good salad bar that's cheap, or free with most dinner dishes after 5:30PM. You can get a bottle of beer or even wine if you really want to, but I've never seen anybody do it - maybe that's just to take out. Chinese Christian run, and they hire people with physical disadvantages, who are pleasant and helpful. Frequented by foreign (mostly North American) Christians and Chinese Christians - was started by a Canadian couple associated with Bless China (previously, Project Grace), who are no longer here, but no religious pressure or any of that. Steaks are nothing special, and I avoid the Korean dishes, which I've had a few times but which did not impress me.

As a shop and bakery, it's very good bread at reasonable prices, of various kinds (Y18 for a good multigrain loaf that certainly weighs well over a pound. Other stuff too, like granola and oatmeal that is local, as well as imported things, including American cornflakes and so forth, which some people seem to require.


By

Large portions, seriously so with the pizza, which is Brooklyn/American style, I guess. Convivial, conversational, good place to drink with good folks on both sides of the bar, especially after about 9PM.


By

Really good pizza and steaks. The wine machine fuddles me when I'm a bit fuddled, & seems unnecessary. Good folks on both sides of the bar.