Dear Sam
You
raise an interesting point about high
definition TV. They say that with time HDTV's will become more
affordable. Will they also become smaller? Or will poor people
be able to buy an HDTV with a 5 foot screen for the same price that they
pay for a current TV with a 1 1/2 foot screen now? Because the way
things are going, poor people will be a lot poorer by 2006.
[Regarding
Where
Does The Truth Lie?] I have often criticized people, including
yourself, for misuse of terms in philosophical discourse. There it
is important. But the history of language is full of colloquialisms.
Even the greatest classical Greek & Roman writers often used colloquialisms.
There's nothing wrong with it. Poetic imprecision is quite all right
in poetry & most daily discourse. I remember a time when auto
mechanics used to call a car engine a motor, & they were no worse mechanics
than they are now. I always thought that black eyed peas were beans.
They look like beans. Peanuts are beans, not nuts. But I still
call them peanuts, not peabeans (or beanbeans, since they're not peas either,
as far as I know). The fact is, Vigna unguiculata is a precise scientific
term, but pea, bean, & nut are not. People say "ladybug" rather
than "Our Lady's beetle", but does it really matter? Lightening bug?
Nuclear bomb, atom bomb, or the Bomb? Biological warfare or germ
warfare? Chemical warfare or gas? It is part of the conservative
mentality to insist upon verbal precision just when poetic looseness is
appropriate, but to become fuzzy just when trying to defend irrational,
illogical political theories.
There
is an intentional irony in the use of the term "ethnic
cleansing". It has been used mostly (& first) to describe
the actions of Milosevic, who is supposed to be a communist & not believe
in the nazi racist idea of ethnic cleansing. Sometimes the meaning
is there, but you miss it, & then condemn what you don't understand.
[Regarding
Specialist]
You are expecting teachers to do much more work than they are doing now.
Under the current system, teachers don't know their specialty. You
would have them teach everything, on the theory that they will learn all
subjects better than they now know one. You would have students remain
with the same bad teacher throughout their school lives. Even more
would go crazy than do now. As I thought you knew, the whole society
has to be changed before education can be substantially improved.
[Regarding
the
Shenandoah Newsletter reprint and Remedy]
I like the story about how the Native Americans came up out of the ground.
But that's myth. The idea that the human race began in Africa, &
spread from there, has little political significance. It's interesting
that Natives have been here much longer than scientists had thought, but
nothing to get hysterical about. Hawaii was perhaps the last place
to be settled by man, about 1200. Captain Cooke arrived only 500
years later, but certainly that's enough time to give the natives there
prior claim. 30,000 years or 100,000 years, either way, the Native
were here before Columbus & Leif Eriksen. The Hawaiian natives
have no "reservations". Recently they have been thrown out of national
park lands, where they have lived for hundreds of years. Hawaii is
small. In this case it would be good if all federal land in Hawaii
would be given to the natives. There's no reason it shouldn't be
done. The same thing could theoretically be done with all US federal
land with regard to the Natives. But that is asking quite a lot from
current social "reality". A more modest goal would be to begin by
trying to stop the current theft of land & resources from Natives,
or the land where they now live, & are acknowledged to own. Also,
the dumping of the toxic waste of non-Native society on Native lands should
stop. Also, enough money could be given to the Natives to build their
societies according to their own will, as partial restitution, since the
loggers & the cattlemen will probably continue to get a free ride on
federal lands until, once again, the whole non-Native society has been
changed. It will have to be quite a revolutionary change, if we are
to see the stone carvings at Mt. Rushmore destroyed.
You
describe a right as something which is customarily tolerated. Actually,
this is the definition of the word "Kosher"; its opposite being "taboo".
Liberals accept tradition, when it is just, rational, and/or aesthetic.
Otherwise, they seek to influence what is customary, what is Kosher or
taboo, in the direction of justice, reason, & aesthetics. We
do it primarily by propaganda, sometimes by means of art as propaganda.
Sometimes we think it is worth going to war over. Laws tend to change,
when liberals have succeeded in convincing the majority that a change in
custom is a good idea. Unless of course the population is too passive
to demand the change. Then we wait for things to fall apart, for
lack of will on the part of the population to make desirable adaptations.
Such is evolution.
Sincerely,
Elliot; N. Merrick, New York
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