Philosophy Now Forum

Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 9:27 pm Of course my judgments would always have to do with the culture. To repost my typical response to racism, I think it's just so misdirected and ignores the larger picture, because the truth is the biological differences between race is completely insignificant, when you compare it to the biological differences of the two sexes, and yet we don't at all see the same sort of conflict, especially from a lot of these same racist people. If men and women can get along, I think anyone of any race can. It's just a matter of beliefs correlated to those races, and how dividing they are to each other. Of course there will always be racial eugenicists, but those people are simply dumb and in the vast minority to the people who preferably make judgments based on that race's culture, and not the genes of the race itself.

If you meant 'majority' then that's true (except that men and women don't get along all that well either. Just look at the rape, divorce and domestic violence statistics).

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 9:38 pm

Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 9:27 pm Of course my judgments would always have to do with the culture. To repost my typical response to racism, I think it's just so misdirected and ignores the larger picture, because the truth is the biological differences between race is completely insignificant, when you compare it to the biological differences of the two sexes, and yet we don't at all see the same sort of conflict, especially from a lot of these same racist people. If men and women can get along, I think anyone of any race can. It's just a matter of beliefs correlated to those races, and how dividing they are to each other. Of course there will always be racial eugenicists, but those people are simply dumb and in the vast minority to the people who preferably make judgments based on that race's culture, and not the genes of the race itself.

If you meant 'majority' then that's true (except that men and women don't get along all that well either. Just look at the rape, divorce and domestic violence statistics).

I meant that the racists are in the minority. I think that's generally true, and it's safe to say the vast majority of people in general are not racial eugenicists, segregaters, etc.

I'm not saying the relation between sexes is perfect, or even that it's better than race relations, it's just that the racists ignore how good and totally workable it is.

Londoner wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 5:07 pm

Seleucus wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:34 pm I have never met a Korean speaking, Orthodox Christian, Tex-Mex Samoan... have you? The fact is that for whatever reason, most Botswanan licensed vehicles don't go too far from Botswana. And in the rare cases when they do, they still blare Botswana music on the radio!

As ever, when caught peddling inaccuracies you evade. You start up another line, as divertingly absurd as possible, then go back to the old nonsense when you hope everyone has forgotten.

You tried to be very careful with your example didn't you, but you still got it wrong! There are lots of Korean Christians, and some are Orthodox.

But never mind, let's pretend you are right. Is your point that there must be a particular mutation of one chromosome that dictates which denomination of Christian a Korean becomes? Or perhaps you think there is a link between having a epicanthic eye fold and their attitude towards the doctrine of original sin? Is it eating pickled vegetables that cause Koreans to pick a particular religion? Or is it their religion that makes them eat pickled vegetables?

And how come, since both North and South Koreans look similar and speak the same language, North Korea is so different from South Korea? Surely their 'race' should have determined that they would have identical cultures?

Do you know the phrase: 'When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging' ? I'm beginning to feel sorry for you.

Since I can speak Korean passably having lived there for many years I'll fill you on a few details about the language and culture... First of all, you are never going to find a Korean speaking Samoan who practices Orthodox Christianity and is Tex-Mex by culture. I knew one Samoan who could speak some Korean but he wash't Orthodox or Tex-Mex. That's because race, culture, language and spirituality are highly aligned. Most of the Orthodox in Korea are Russians and anyway it amounts to a few thousand souls. North Koreans and South Koreans are culturally homogeneous despite a few generations of political division. If SE Asian Chinese and Greeks in Egypt can retain their culture for one-thousand years, you can guess that division since 1945 isn't going to have, ultimately, that much of an affect. What we are seeing, in fact, is that Koreans whose parents and even grandparents were born in California are still slant eyed, still speaking Korean, still worshiping at their Buddhist shrines and performing ancestor worship rituals and are still eating rice and kimchi for every meal. Furthermore, Korean Christianity is not the same as European or Ethiopian Christianity, each of them continues to express the deep underlying cultural and spiritual traditions of the race despite surface similarities.

A few practical conclusions can be drawn from this. For one, Poles ad Italians easily integrated into the Celto-Germanic culture of America because they all were of relatively close race, culture, language, and spiritual tradition. Secondly, the reason Muslims are not integrating in Europe and American Indians and Chinese are not melting into America is not because of a failure of government policy. Distinct RCLS groups are highly stable and are going to tend to maintain their distinctiveness across centuries if not even millennia. That said, we can draw a third inference which is that since it is possible for components of RCLS to slide, the Australian policy of allowing only English speaking immigrants or the British and Canadian policies of teaching (im)migrants English is probably useless. It isn't going to speed integration, just as converting them to Christianity or atheism isn't going to either because the nucleus of RCLS is highly stable, you now simply have English speaking Muslims who still hold all the values they always have or you now have Christian Native Americans who still have the same underlying spiritual tradition as they have had for tens of thousands of yeas.

PS, best you stop with the name calling and go with citations and strong arguments instead.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 4:54 pm

Seleucus wrote:By in large they succeeded which is why we have so many ethno-linguistic nation states.

I thought you said you were anti-Whorfian?

It's possible that of race, culture, language, and spirituality (RCLS), something can slide. But it doesn't really matter since the fact of learning to speak English doesn't change the values and beliefs of a people. Likewise, becoming a Christian doesn't change the underlying spiritual system of a race either. Korean, European and Ethiopian Christianity are only similar on the surface. By the way, this is the theme of Martin Scorsese's latest movie Silence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua%E2%80 ... istinction

I did, so you think the Han are not the same race as the other orientals?

Everyone can have their own take on this.

How about were Egyptians Black? Were the Hyksos White? Who were the Tocharians? Who were the Huns? Did the Dorian invasion really happen?

Who cares?

Huge debates and conferences related to the Black Power movement and umpteen journal articles. A lot of people care! I'd recommend Black Athena Revisited for a pretty solid, and sane, overview of the subject of Egyptian race.

So 'race' is just whatever you happen to want it to be at the time then sometimes cultural sometime colour.

Yes. That's what I've been saying all along.

People with Progeria Syndrome.

David Gems, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri at Columbia
"Werner syndrome is the most common form of progeria. The first signs of this disorder appear only after puberty, with the full symptoms becoming manifest in individuals 20 to 30 years old. A much rarer progeria, Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome, develops earlier: victims die, apparently of old age, typically at around age 12."

Fine, Kallmann syndrome. Same anti-essentialist points stand.

And yet these philosophers/academics are saying exactly that: Judy Butler and Gail Rubin and Guy Hocquenghem.

If they mean there is no such thing as two sexes they are wrong then.

They are right... and they are wrong.

Both. Isn't that what I just wrote?

Which bits?

Already summarized my position a few pages back which I know you read.

All you are saying is that cultures are hardy.

Yes.

Do you think none of them took Egyptian wives or husbands over that time?

Not many it seems. What happened was the lower classes first went native and the upper classes held out longest. It also matters greatly in a patriarchal society whether it was wives or husbands as far as RCLS goes.

Yep, still got slanty eyes and pale skin, still speaking Chinese languages, still eating Chinese food, and still worshiping at Mahayana Buddhist temples all over South-East Asia. Even after one-thousand years.

Except the other Chinese weren't doing this at home?

Just like communism in Russia, a small matter of a century has had little impact on the overall RCLS.

I don't know? 44 million results on google for the expression though so I guess someone besides me has thought it.

So you think Turks are Korean?

Oh! This has been a huge debate! If you accept the Altaic-tungusic languages hypothesis, then, yes. Most scholars today are leaning against it. The problem is that Eastern languages have not been studied anywhere near as extensively as Western languages so we're really hurting for big hitter linguists and extensive analysis on this question.

Seleucus wrote: ↑Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:41 am
Since I can speak Korean passably having lived there for many years I'll fill you on a few details about the language and culture...

But you don't. You instead muddy the waters with reference to Samoans and Tex-Mex. Despite your claims of expertise in various areas, I do not think you have shown yourself to be a trustworthy source of information.

First of all, you are never going to find a Korean speaking Samoan who practices Orthodox Christianity and is Tex-Mex by culture.

But you are going to find Korean Orthodox Christians. Yes, it would be unusual for a Samoan to choose to learn Korean, but there is nothing in their genes that would prevent them. Likewise, there may well be some Samoans who like Mexican food and wearing cowboy hats; they certainly watch American TV programs. I bet an old Samoan would say that their culture has been thoroughly westernised,

There are plenty of white boys who are Rastafarian by culture, Africans who act like American businessmen, Japanese punks...and there are 10,000+ Koreans who have made their home on my side of London, who seem to have managed to learn English and mix with the locals.

So, when we Londoners get the urge for such alien cultural products as Indian, Chinese, Middle-eastern, Latin American, African - or even Korean foods, we can find them, and eat them....without our Aryan genomes exploding in protest!

If SE Asian Chinese and Greeks in Egypt can retain their culture for one-thousand years,....

But they haven't. Since 1945 the culture of places like China have been utterly transformed.

What is Egyptian culture? The religion of the Pharaohs went through many forms, then it was partly Hellenised, then there were Coptic Christians, then Muslims. I do not know what you mean by 'Greeks in Egypt'; most Greeks were expelled generations ago. 'Greek' of course changes its meaning; it was commonly used to describe religion. So, like all the other things I listed, 'Greeks' in Egypt came and went; so whether we want to call 'Greeks' a part of Egyptian culture - or alien to Egyptian culture - is an arbitrary and pointless choice.

You are currently plugging the 'culture' aspect, as opposed to physical appearance, but the same problem follows you around. What cultural practices define a 'race'? How much foreign food does a member of one race have to eat before they turn into another race? What religion must a Chinese person be to stay Chinese?

Just as with appearance, you cannot give clear definition as to what you think defines a 'race' culturally - because if we applied that definition it would not fit with the answers you want.

PS, best you stop with the name calling and go with citations and strong arguments instead.

As soon as somebody starts a philosophical thread I am interested in, I will stop bothering with you.

Londoner wrote: ↑Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:27 amThere are plenty of white boys who are Rastafarian by culture, Africans who act like American businessmen, Japanese punks...and there are 10,000+ Koreans who have made their home on my side of London, who seem to have managed to learn English and mix with the locals.
...
places like China have been utterly transformed.

Your cultural imperialist dreams are not going to come to pass. There are a few reasons for this.

People strongly love their identities. Muslim and Korean moms don't want their kids to grow as liberal globalists. They want to preserve their identities.

Identities tend to persist because the components are mutually reinforcing and interconnected. Kuran unpacks this principle quite clearly in his Explaining the economic trajectories of civilizations article,

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf

To put it in simple terms, an identity is like an engine. You can't just swap in and out parts willy-nilly, because they all fit together in very precise ways making change very difficult.

It isn't an aberration or a failure of government policy or racist Islamophobic unwelcomeness why very alien newcomers are not integrating. It's actually what would be expected by anyone who understands culture... or has some empathy. Look at it the other way around, do you want to convert to Islam and start wearing a jellabiya and eating camel everyday?

Even when change appears to have happened on the surface, the underlying ethno-linguistic nucleus remains untouched. Nothing has changed in China. "East is East." When Jewish religion came to Europe in the form of Christianity, it actually didn't. Europeans kept believing the same things they always had for thousands of years and gave it a superficial cover of a Middle-Eastern story.

Seleucus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 4:00 am

Londoner wrote: ↑Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:27 amThere are plenty of white boys who are Rastafarian by culture, Africans who act like American businessmen, Japanese punks...and there are 10,000+ Koreans who have made their home on my side of London, who seem to have managed to learn English and mix with the locals.
...
places like China have been utterly transformed.

Your cultural imperialist dreams are not going to come to pass. There are a few reasons for this.

People strongly love their identities. Muslim and Korean moms don't want their kids to grow as liberal globalists. They want to preserve their identities.

Identities tend to persist because the components are mutually reinforcing and interconnected. Kuran unpacks this principle quite clearly in his Explaining the economic trajectories of civilizations article,

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf

To put it in simple terms, an identity is like an engine. You can't just swap in and out parts willy-nilly, because they all fit together in very precise ways making change very difficult.

It isn't an aberration or a failure of government policy or racist Islamophobic unwelcomeness why very alien newcomers are not integrating. It's actually what would be expected by anyone who understands culture... or has some empathy. Look at it the other way around, do you want to convert to Islam and start wearing a jellabiya and eating camel everyday?

Even when change appears to have happened on the surface, the underlying ethno-linguistic nucleus remains untouched. Nothing has changed in China. "East is East." When Jewish religion came to Europe in the form of Christianity, it actually didn't. Europeans kept believing the same things they always had for thousands of years and gave it a superficial cover of a Middle-Eastern story.

As a white American male of a certain age, why do you live in Asia?

I'm working my way up the corporate ladder in a multinational corporation; we market skin whiteners.

Hmmm.

Londoner wrote:

So, when we Londoners get the urge for such alien cultural products as Indian, Chinese, Middle-eastern, Latin American, African - or even Korean foods, we can find them, and eat them....without our Aryan genomes exploding in protest!

Seleucus has I think been fairly consistent that what he is against is certain foreign ideas not foreign practices or the aesthetics of foreign countenances.(except for noisy mosques).

It's true that ideas persist. Instead of arguing with a racist it would be more interesting I think to discuss

1. Some cultures of belief are better than others. (a) The criterion for 'better' b) The status of 'human nature'.

2. Is there a main cause for novel cultures of belief for instance Americanism, communism, the death of metaphysical God, and Axial Age ethics? a) The status of 'human nature'.

Seleucus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 4:00 am
me: places like China have been utterly transformed.

Your cultural imperialist dreams are not going to come to pass. There are a few reasons for this.

How is my pointing out that modern China is quite different from old China a 'cultural imperialist dream'?

Are you saying China still consists of peasants, with few cities, no transport, an Emperor, Mandarins with long moustaches being carried around in litters...? No? In that case its culture has changed.

If you think culture is fixed by genetics, or eye shape, or whatever, that should not have been possible.

People strongly love their identities. Muslim and Korean moms don't want their kids to grow as liberal globalists. They want to preserve their identities.

If we think culture is fixed by genetics, or eye shape, or whatever, why would those moms ever worry about their kids? The kids would have no choice but to resemble their parents.

But the moms know the kids do have a choice; they know that some Muslim and Korean kids can and do become liberal globalists. So both the moms and you admit that 'race' is not the determining factor you claim.

To put it in simple terms, an identity is like an engine. You can't just swap in and out parts willy-nilly, because they all fit together in very precise ways making change very difficult.

If that was true, if you think culture is fixed by genetics, or eye shape, or whatever, then all cultural change would be impossible. We would still all be hunter-gatherers.

You just don't make sense. On one hand you insist that Muslims, Koreans etc. are different from each other. But on the other you insist that such differences cannot arise because change is very difficult.

Do you see? If humans can become Muslims, Koreans etc., then those Muslims, Koreans etc., must be capable of change, of becoming something else. But if humans are forever stuck as Muslims, Koreans etc., then they must always have been Muslims, Koreans etc. So their existence means God must have created them separately, as they are now.

Is that your claim?

Londoner wrote:

How is my pointing out that modern China is quite different from old China a 'cultural imperialist dream'?

Are you saying China still consists of peasants, with few cities, no transport, an Emperor, Mandarins with long moustaches being carried around in litters...? No? In that case its culture has changed.

If you think culture is fixed by genetics, or eye shape, or whatever, that should not have been possible.

What you describe, Londoner, is practical culture. True, beliefs,gods, and so on co-exist with practices. Does Seleucus mean beliefs, gods, and so on when he talks about culture, or is he also including practices?

It would be strange if cultural practices such as ethnic cuisines, ethnic costumes, wheels, internal combustion engines, water carriage sewerage etc etc were not transferable from one society to another. Those have nothing to do with 'race', obviously, and Seleucus must see that.

Ideas may also be transferred from society to society. Seleucus must surely see that too. However ideas are often claimed to be intrinsic to a society's identity. Why is this? Seleucus seems to be claiming that (some) learned ideas are linked to phenotypical characteristics. Lamarckism is not very acceptable is it, Seleucus?

Nevertheless there is something about certain ideas that is very tenacious. Is the tenacious something nothing more substantial than memes? Sapir- Whorf anyone? I myself believe that human nature has certain dimensions, that human nature is not everlastingly plastic. I also believe that humans adapt to physical environments, and that humans can quickly adapt to novel environments, which history shows to be the case.

So what exactly is this of tenacity among human ideas. Seleucus?

Londoner wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:20 am

Seleucus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 4:00 am
me: places like China have been utterly transformed.

Your cultural imperialist dreams are not going to come to pass. There are a few reasons for this.

How is my pointing out that modern China is quite different from old China a 'cultural imperialist dream'?

It isn't. Your cultural imperialism is your belief that foreigners in your country ought to and will integrate. There's no reason why they should have to, and they aren't going to. I at least accept other's and their differences; something which I expect a globalist liberal, like you, actually does not?

Are you saying China still consists of peasants, with few cities, no transport, an Emperor, Mandarins with long moustaches being carried around in litters...? No? In that case its culture has changed.

No, I'm saying that the values expressed in Romance of the three kingdoms or Journey to the West and the cognitive structures and spiritual system of 14th Century China and the China or today are largely unchanged.

If you think culture is fixed by genetics, or eye shape, or whatever, that should not have been possible.

I don't think that. It's a matter of correlation not causation as I have been agreeing with you since the get go.

If we think culture is fixed by genetics, or eye shape, or whatever, why would those moms ever worry about their kids? The kids would have no choice but to resemble their parents.

Again, I don't believe that.

So both the moms and you admit that 'race' is not the determining factor you claim.

I never said race determines culture. You're straw manning or projecting or something? You're fixated on this idea you're speaking with a Nazi racist White Supremacist which is actually far from the case.

If that was true, if you think culture is fixed by genetics, or eye shape, or whatever, then all cultural change would be impossible. We would still all be hunter-gatherers.

I've never said that anywhere in this discussion.

You just don't make sense. On one hand you insist that Muslims, Koreans etc. are different from each other. But on the other you insist that such differences cannot arise because change is very difficult.

It requires an incredible amount of time and and pain. That's how training works. It's very slow, which is why after no less than 100 thousand years essentially every peoples in the world is still practicing marriage, still eating three meals a day, still rejecting incest, still using proper names, still calling their mother with just about the same sounds. Biological evolution is possibly actually faster than rates of cultural and linguistic change.

Do you see? If humans can become Muslims, Koreans etc., then those Muslims, Koreans etc., must be capable of change, of becoming something else. But if humans are forever stuck as Muslims, Koreans etc., then they must always have been Muslims, Koreans etc. So their existence means God must have created them separately, as they are now.

The process of change is very slow. The discovery that allowed it to be sped up somewhat was the discovery of animal training, oxen about 6000 BC and most importantly horse training around 4000 BC. Once the principle of reward and punish was understood, we could begin to train ourselves. (It was this discovery that lead to civilization.)

Seleucus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:03 pm No, I'm saying that the values expressed in Romance of the three kingdoms or Journey to the West and the cognitive structures and spiritual system of 14th Century China and the China or today are largely unchanged.

Yes, and we modern English people still have the values of the Knights of the Round Table. Despite your claims to have traveled all over, you have plainly never met a Chinese businessman.

I never said race determines culture. You're straw manning or projecting or something? You're fixated on this idea you're speaking with a Nazi racist White Supremacist which is actually far from the case.

OK, then what do you think does determine culture so it cannot change? (If you still think that). And does 'race' do anything? Or have you given up on 'race' altogther?

Me: You just don't make sense. On one hand you insist that Muslims, Koreans etc. are different from each other. But on the other you insist that such differences cannot arise because change is very difficult.
It requires an incredible amount of time and and pain. That's how training works. It's very slow, which is why after no less than 100 thousand years essentially every peoples in the world is still practicing marriage, still eating three meals a day, still rejecting incest, still using proper names, still calling their mother with just about the same sounds. Biological evolution is possibly actually faster than rates of cultural and linguistic change.

So there you seem to be saying there are no 'cultures'. That all humans are much the same.

The process of change is very slow. The discovery that allowed it to be sped up somewhat was the discovery of animal training, oxen about 6000 BC and most importantly horse training around 4000 BC. Once the principle of reward and punish was understood, we could begin to train ourselves. (It was this discovery that lead to civilization.)

So is there a class of animal trainers, that has trained the other humans? Where did it come from? Or (unlike horses) do we 'train ourselves'?

In either case, you still had change and if you had it once then you can have it again. I note the importance you attach to horse training, but technology has moved on a bit since then. Round here, we hardly ever see a horse but we see a lot of computers and mobile phones. Is there some reason why we can't change our culture in response to those? Assuming you are still saying we have cultures...it is hard to work out what you think any more.

Seleucus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 5:03 pm

Londoner wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:20 am

Seleucus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2017 4:00 am
me: places like China have been utterly transformed.

Your cultural imperialist dreams are not going to come to pass. There are a few reasons for this.

How is my pointing out that modern China is quite different from old China a 'cultural imperialist dream'?

It isn't. Your cultural imperialism is your belief that foreigners in your country ought to and will integrate. There's no reason why they should have to, and they aren't going to.

In fact, though, throughout history, all sorts of people have integrated and blended languages, cuisines, genes, art, literature, values, etc. etc. Even humans and neanderthals, different species (unlike humans today) interbred!

Who does this integration? People with brains!

Then there's ... well, I'm sure you know.