We’re trying to encourage some good conversation on this site and my reply in this thread was just challenging your eugenic based example and asking for a clarification that is more apt for the topic at hand to this blog post. Just because people disagree or are challenging doesn’t mean it has anything to do with some hidden Orwellian vibe on this blog, quite the opposite in fact. Orwell loved to be clear about language.

This site is for open discussion and questioning, as we should be in this day and age of rapid cultural change; anyone can join in as long as they follow basic netiquette.

We’re trying to encourage some good conversation on this site and my reply in this thread was just challenging your eugenic based example and asking for a clarification that is more apt for the topic at hand to this blog post. Just because people disagree or are challenging doesn’t mean it has anything to do with some hidden Orwellian vibe on this blog, quite the opposite in fact. Orwell loved to be clear about language.

This site is for open discussion and questioning, as we should be in this day and age of rapid cultural change; anyone can join in as long as they follow basic netiquette.

Is there any evidence that all human languages are equivalent?

It’s just a question.

But where did this Daniel Latorre come from, with his pronouncements about which “line of thought is ethically questionable?” Are you preparing them for careers in the thought police now, Harvey?

Is there any evidence that all human languages are equivalent?

It’s just a question.

But where did this Daniel Latorre come from, with his pronouncements about which “line of thought is ethically questionable?” Are you preparing them for careers in the thought police now, Harvey?

Begin: two kinds, female and male – how different, the same?

Different peoples, cultures, languages, appearances/bodies – not all that different. and we change a great deal: How do we get to look like we do? – face and appearance is much about use of muscles – English speakers look different than their cousins who live elsewhere.

We humans are interacting creatures! Child learns language and the world as a study in its m/other – then emerges as a self. Many new ideas here, flowing from the ideas of G.H. Mead – and we are always in change. To concentrate on the fixed properties of humans is to fall – as Dan Latorre says – into the ideas of fixity and eugenics which take observations and turns them into politics.

More coming up soon – about why different looking persons look different – and how our “looking back” at them can shape their appearances.

Harvey

About the premise of your comparison, the only human comparable to the breeding of dogs is– eugenics. This line of thought is ethically questionable and some would say supports a racialist view of human nature. I don’t think this is what you are driving at. Perhaps the conversation would open up more if a better comparable was used.

Harvey, aren’t you talking about more than imagining and ideas here… aren’t you talking about wisdom coming from pragmatic empirical and cultural research on human nature, like the face, emotions, kinesics, non-verbal communication in general, infant development, renewing the practice of descriptive linguistics, (and more)… all this as a basis to renew our definition of human nature– based on study and observation, not on imaginings and ideas separated from actuality; questioning what’s axiomatic and renewing ontology?

About the premise of your comparison, the only human comparable to the breeding of dogs is– eugenics. This line of thought is ethically questionable and some would say supports a racialist view of human nature. I don’t think this is what you are driving at. Perhaps the conversation would open up more if a better comparable was used.

Harvey, aren’t you talking about more than imagining and ideas here… aren’t you talking about wisdom coming from pragmatic empirical and cultural research on human nature, like the face, emotions, kinesics, non-verbal communication in general, infant development, renewing the practice of descriptive linguistics, (and more)… all this as a basis to renew our definition of human nature– based on study and observation, not on imaginings and ideas separated from actuality; questioning what’s axiomatic and renewing ontology?

Harvey: I have tried to imagine the possibility of evidence that “all human languages all are of the same order.” Order of what? Compared to what? If you posit equality, what sense can it make to talk about order?

The equivalence of human languages is one of those “pleasant fictions” that conforms so beautifully to so many liberal prejudices that the very idea of testing it arouses an intense disgust in the minds of most academic hoodoos.

Harvey: I have tried to imagine the possibility of evidence that “all human languages all are of the same order.” Order of what? Compared to what? If you posit equality, what sense can it make to talk about order?

The equivalence of human languages is one of those “pleasant fictions” that conforms so beautifully to so many liberal prejudices that the very idea of testing it arouses an intense disgust in the minds of most academic hoodoos.

I wonder if this is more the point of what Harvey has been writing about and connecting with in terms of others who are working at looking how we are here and now, in all our stages and modes of sociality. Being more critical of what is considered ordinary and out of awareness, than what is exotic and extreme seeming.

I wonder if this is more the point of what Harvey has been writing about and connecting with in terms of others who are working at looking how we are here and now, in all our stages and modes of sociality. Being more critical of what is considered ordinary and out of awareness, than what is exotic and extreme seeming.

Looks are just what the “anthropological” perspective was supposed to transcend, but before we transcend it, maybe the look is worth a second look.

Tutsis are about twice as tall as Hutus, and the difference is so pervasive that when the radio screamed “Chop the tall trees,” all the Hutus knew who to kill. But somehow this huge change in gross anatomy left the fine structure of the brain absolutely identical! We’re all the same! Tall and short don’t mean a thing!

There are some problems involved with extending this approach to other species. My friend’s Golden Retriever jumped in the pond as soon as he saw it, and started retrieving anything that floats without a hint of training, but if I throw a chihuahua off the dock, it won’t even float itself, much less retrieve anything.

A species is nothing but a population that can inter-breed, so some constraints apply to the naughty parts, but for the rest of the anatomy, identity is just a pleasant fiction.

Looks are just what the “anthropological” perspective was supposed to transcend, but before we transcend it, maybe the look is worth a second look.

Tutsis are about twice as tall as Hutus, and the difference is so pervasive that when the radio screamed “Chop the tall trees,” all the Hutus knew who to kill. But somehow this huge change in gross anatomy left the fine structure of the brain absolutely identical! We’re all the same! Tall and short don’t mean a thing!

There are some problems involved with extending this approach to other species. My friend’s Golden Retriever jumped in the pond as soon as he saw it, and started retrieving anything that floats without a hint of training, but if I throw a chihuahua off the dock, it won’t even float itself, much less retrieve anything.

A species is nothing but a population that can inter-breed, so some constraints apply to the naughty parts, but for the rest of the anatomy, identity is just a pleasant fiction.