Dachshund wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:04 am
Walker wrote: ↑Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:29 pm
When you put a large population of anything in close proximity, order is required for the existence of the most. At first glance an ant-hill may seem chaotic, but it’s not. Each ant knows exactly what it’s doing, without doubt, without choice.
This is just the way things are.
Indeed. You are certainly swaying me away from the notion that all Americans are 'nuts'
(That's sarcasm by the way. I'm sensitive to the fact that Americans have a debilitating illness that manifests itself in total blindness when confronted with either sarcasm or irony).
no?
It is interesting what you say about Americans lacking a sense of appreciation for sarcasm and irony. Having lived in England for many years, I know that these are the two foundation stones of the English sense of humour. The English find it amusing when sarcastic comments or an ironic observations are made in jaded, perfunctory manner. They call it "taking the piss" and they do it literally all the time and not to others, but they like to "take the piss out of themselves"- to be self deprecating. I think just about every one has seen Monty Python's film "The Life of Brian"; here the English sense of sarcastic-ironic humour is perfectly condensed and crystallized in a scene where Christ, nailed to the Cross, begins singing a chirpy- cheerful tune called "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"
Also, as soon as you open your mouth in England, the English will assume you are joking unless otherwise indicated But the American sense of humour is different, I saw it in sit-coms like "Friends" and Seinfeld, or "The Big Bang Theory". Americans, I think, are more optimistic people than the English.
The English perspective is that "Life wasn't meant to be easy",
Life wasn't 'meant' to be anything you idiot! It just is what it is, which is very relative, extremely environmentally different.
and they are right, don't you think ? life IS a struggle it IS all to often full of suffering, misfortune, sorrow and hardship.
Yep, yet the good ones don't blame others, you moron!
The English expect doom and gloom,
You shouldn't 'expect' anything, instead just take it as it comes, roll with the punches, as they say.
they are ever wary that failure and disappointment are lurking just around the next corner. Having said that, they are not craven, timorous mice bemoaning their lot in life, rather they have learned to develop a substantial stoicism. They are not "cry-babies" or "wilting lilies." I was trying to understand the origin of this mindset and I thought that maybe is was a result of the weather - the, long, dark depressing winters, the maritime climate of Britain that often see rain fall all the way through summer, the extreme changeability of the weather from bright and cheerful one minute to dank and overcast the next.
Now you're talking of environment as it effects, can you say contradictory?
My second theory was their long, incredible history; a history of tumultuous social and political change, of centuries of bloody warfare both among themselves and with foreign powers of plagues that decimated countless thousands of victims.
Every culture has this type thing looming over it's past, as all humankind dates back to it's beginning.
It is so astonishing and so rich a story, one could not make it up. England has endured tremendous pain and suffering since 5 AD, it seeped into the soil of the land and the blood of the people over countless generations.
American humour is very different from British. Part of it is due to the different ways that American and British kids are brought up. American kids are given the message that they can be anything that they want to be, even the President. That they are fully capable of rising up to be whatever they want to be: doctor, lawyer, State Governor, Stealth Fighter-Bomber pilot, billionaire like Donald Trump, famous scientist and so on. British kids get pretty much the opposite message: "No, dear you are NOT going to be "Prime Minister." Because American kids are raised with a positive, "can-do" attitude, as adults they are more confident and optimistic. This is why their humour is more up-front and open. In American comedy movies the hero is a wise-guy who has a knack for firing off killer one-liners and punch lines, he is popular..a winner and we laugh WITH him (say, like some of Robin William's comedy performances, "Good Morning VIETNAM, for example). In British comedy, the opposite is the case, the main comic in the series or film is an anti-hero, a ridiculous loser, a dork (Like Rowan Atkinson, aka "Mr Bean)) who we laugh AT, not with.
And to laugh at someone other than self, is blaming them for your short comings. I say, 'grow up, stand up and be counted!'
Your first point (above) about the principle of "order" is a fundamental tenet of Conservative political philosophy.
What order? 123, 321; abc, cba; you, you, me; me, me you? If your premises are invalid naturally your conclusions are false!
Edmund Burke the father of modern Conservatism often referred to the principle of "order" in society. What he meant by "order" was what we would now call hierarchy.
What is high, what is low? Who's to say? Quantify any particular order, (hierarchy) as it pertains to human conceptualization. What IQ, being gentlemanly or lady like? You're a fool that has absolutely no understanding of what humans have been, are, or may become. In another thread you spoke of psychology, without having the faintest clue of what you are, why you are as you are, or in the face of all humanity, what you should be.
Burke believed that in any state (society) a natural and spontaneous vertical ranking of people occurs. The bottom pole or base of the hierarchy contains the least able, powerful and competent members of society, while the apex of the hierarchy is occupied by the social elites - the most able, competent and powerful of persons. In between are layered intermediate strata of ability, competence and power. For the "ant-hill to function in a civilised manner each person must know and accept their "station in life" and discharge the obligations of his/her "station" to the best of their ability. This doesn't mean that one cannot advance to the higher station, nor that those in relatively higher stations are immune from falling to lower ranks in the hierarchy. In fact such upward and downward movement are ongoing and establish a dynamic equilibrium. But at any point in time "Each ant knows exactly what it is supposed to be doing, without doubt", because it has been told this by an ant in a position of higher authority. Without this kind of order in society there can be no true individual freedom. Paradoxically, human freedom is conditional on the presence of stable order/hierarchy/authority in the state. Without order (hierarchy) and legitimate authority,
Quantify 'legitimate authority,' you fucking dipshit!
what you will have in any human ant-hill is not true liberty, but mere licentiousness. This is what Burke foresaw in the Jacobin communist revolution in Paris in 1789. The insurgents brutally smashed the
ancien regime in a bid to be free of its, oppressive ,hierarchical social structures. They gleefully guillotined the heads off the upper class elites and for two years an orgy of violent murder known as "The Reign of Terror" saw the street run red with blood. But the Jacobins did not win liberty for the French people, they merely unleashed anarchy and debauchery, because that is what you end up with when you impetuously destroy a long-established, structure of social order in any state.
Wrong! They had it all wrong! No man is better than another. And for there to be rules and laws that 'everyone' must follow, that serve everyones right to life, absolutely does not require anyone to have more than another. Everyone should have the same everything.
Like I've said, 'you're a very selfish dumb-ass that has no real clue.' Just another me, me, me dipshit that can't see the life for the self. You look down your nose and can't see past it. The really funny part is that your sight is obscured by boogers.
Regards
Dachshund
