Paradox of the Liberal Diverger

Ploughman's Lunch = a sandwich that sounds very traditional and appeals to 'conservative convergers', but was actually dreamed up by a London advertising man in 1974.

Chicken Tikka Masala = a curry dish that sounds very exotic and appeals to 'liberal divergers', but was actually dreamed up by a London advertising man in 1974,

-The French-left vigourously oppose Americana, anglo-saxonism, Hollywood etc, and the subversion of what it regards as France. All of which must feed the mentality that persuade French voters to vote FN.

-'National Heritages' are always fluid, changeable, and never static. Selecting certain elements and wishing to preserve them in aspic is self-deluding. Eg Holland- Tulips (Turkish), Windmills (middle-east) clogs (Greek + Romans) coffee (Ottoman Turks).

Hi, all.

I think things work out in the following way:

1. The social liberal (like Joan) really needs a way to denigrate the social conservative.

2. But part of social liberal dogma is what they call "not judging."

3. This leaves the social liberal in a bit of a quandary: while it's O.K. to call things good, calling people or views "bad" is taboo for the social liberal.

4. So the social liberals hit upon the word "fear." The idea of "fear" is more clinical, and dispassionate. By this trick, the social liberal is still able to denigrate the social conservative (depicitng him as blindly succumbing to lower nstincts of fear, and unable to address maturely the fullnes of the world around him), but the social liberal is able to keep this denigration a bit more disguised, so that the socialliberals can still convince themselves that they're not denigrating anyone.

That is my guess as to how this particular fad of language and world- view developed. Indeed, if you debate a social liberal, you find that as they denigrate you, their minds are always groping for some other way to keep the denigration veiled and more clinical. They won't say that the social conservatives' view is "bad" or "wrong" (since that would be contrary to relativism), but rather, the social conservative's view is called "limited" or "narrow" or "arises from fear." See how this works? The social liberal obviously intends such words as perjoratives, but he can pretend to himself and other social liberals that they are not speaking perjoratives.

In Christ, Chris

-- Chris Butler (chris48butler@hotmail.com), May 09, 2002.

In other words, you can say that there's no absolute right and wrong (ie be a relativist) without saying that you personally don't see behaviours as right or wrong. Most liberals have a cut-off point somewhere, hence the old adage that 'a conservative is just a liberal with a teenage daughter'.

In Crowley,

Momus

I know that from personal experience, the parochial things one has purposely left behind in one's home country are even more annoying when they follow you to a new home. But the things I find parochial and near-sighted, like the aforementioned junk food and delinquency, others are going to be interested in because, for them, they're new. I just kind of blow them off, being of the opinion that I didn't move X miles from home just to get frustrated by the presence of same old, same old.

???????????

no, of course not! i just wasn't sure that gene pool = culture, that's all. it seems to me odd that you can approve of asian and japanese influences coming into Britain, but when the process is reversed you seem to get all jumpy about it.

Because of the disparities. How many American films are showing in Paris right now? At least a hundred. And how many French films are showing in the US right now? One. Amelie. This has nothing to do with the quality of the films involved and everything to do with who owns the distribution networks. There is not a level playing field, and I don't welcome the idea that one day it may be totally impossible to see, in Norway, a film made in Norway (except at the Norwegian Institute, where it's furtively screened as some sort of exotic novelty).

The one thing that's missing here is the viewpoint of someone Japanese, as the wilful blurring of the cinema stats is probably echoed in wilful misrepresentations of Japan with no presence here to counter them in an 'eyewitness' kind of way.

Do you really believe this? That if only they were shown at the local multiplex, Americans would be watching as many French films as the French watch American? Surely the reasons are a bit more culturally embedded than that?

(possible non-cultural infletcted solution => use principia mathematica to translate all languages into non-threatening or invasive objective mathematical formulae => then rational liberal equality AND cultural relativist diversity will reign serene though the multiverse)

haha when i was 10 or 11 i set out devise w. a friend at school a purely rational pictographic universal language: we achieved abt a dozen symbols hurrah then had a huge fight over how to (or whether to) represent the future tense, and fell out forever chiz for world peace :(

It's the Microsoft strategy. Someone has a better product (Netscape, Apple), knock it off and use your sheer size to make your version the ipso facto standard across the world. They're trying to do it right now with mp3.

Compare & contrast - remakes of foreign language films with translations of foreign language books...

I'd hold off on any predictions until we see what happens to the Chinese government first. Personally, I'm starting to think that the Party will lose the Mandate of Heaven within the next couple of decades.

I wish I could offer some sort of coherent/useful take on this general question. Growing up with a certain standard (in my case, reasonably well-off American) does wonders for skewing your perception.

Also, have you read Mishima's Patriotism?

= ultimate textual exemplification of Mark S so far, 2001-2?

japan is already dominating culture, here is an article explaining just this--

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_mayjune_2002/mcgray.html

i don't know how to do the blue writing, i tried in an earlier post and it did not work.

Now see, I just wouldn't have to worry about this kind of thing if I had a spaceship.

I often find myself attracted to "ethnic" things (not to mention women). In a sense, I feel free to roam and choose from various ethnic traditions. (I am aware that this is all very politically loaded, but for the moment I'm not interested in unpacking it or in defending myself.) I depend on the existence of various traditions, which after all depend on individuals who have not strayed as far from their family's ways as I have. I am somewhat rootless (though I have not moved around--I do my traveling from home). Adolescence left me feeling like an outsider in my own immediate world (not unusual, of course) and so it doesn't feel that strange to me to be an outsider in an setting dominated by some particular ethnicity. I already am an outsider and am comfortable/uncomfortable in that role.

Specifics: I like salsa dancing, but I wonder how much longer it will matter to Latinos in the United States, as they become more assimilated and perhaps the kids would rather be going to raves or hip-hop clubs (or whatever is on the horizon). I like Arabic music which works within traditional modal boundaries (within which, mind you, there is a considerably amount of room). Meanwhile, an Arab composer, Marcel Khlaife has composed pieces for oud which operate outside that modal tradition. I give him credit for exploring new territory, but I would rather listen to a good Riad el Sounbatti taksim.

*

Do you happen to know if your moon is in Sagittarius. Mine is, and it is supposed to predict a certain degree of xenophilia (not that I believe in that Astrology pisswank*).

*Word I learned on ILM.

And at worst I think it manifests unconsciously as: Oh, I'm not any particular type of person. I'm just a normal generic person, you know, a white American.

I'm free to "sample" anything. I'm boring and lacking in color.