Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

The personal sexuality of individuals is one with their immediate sense of self that permeates all possible actions they can undertake. This immediacy precedes any and all cultural behavior; or, I should say, it achieves the influence of an essential character trait. Ownership of a gun does not, since the manufacture of guns only ever follows human cultural organization. Homosexuality cannot be anything except part of the immediate narrative of a human character; a gun is always an addition to such character.

The sociopoliticultural beliefs is what parallels homosexuality. Not the gun. I thought I was being clear on that. Furthermore, sexuality is not some sort of rigid dichotomous structure but a fluid state on a continuum, and can only express itself beyond reproductive instincts via culturally conditioned mechanisms. Any material object or mode of action one takes to demonstrate sexually is always already informed by the culture.

Get a fucking clue Dak. This is the most homophobic thing I've ever seen you write.

I don't see anything homophobic about it. Where is the fear? The hostility? There are a variety of ways hetero/homo/bi/a-/etc sexuals communicate their sexuality. The "macho" redneck with the lifted dually on mudders with straight pipes, wearing a BIG DAWGS shirt and cowboy boots, is displaying a different sort of "flamboyancy" than the "gay pride parade" homosexual variety.

 

[Einherjar86]

You're not being clear on anything at the moment.

Homophobia need not be an explicit fear of, or hostility toward, homosexuality. Rather, it's a misunderstanding of how homosexuality operates; this is what you're guilty of. Just as racism need not be an open hostility toward those of other ethnicities; it can simply manifest in how you address the issue.

That homosexuality can somehow be checked, or controlled; that it's something that should be maintained by those who "possess" it, and thus uncontrolled homosexuality clearly must manifest in "flamboyance." This is just an error in understanding what homosexuality is.

 

[Dak]

You're not being clear on anything at the moment.

Homophobia need not be an explicit fear of, or hostility toward, homosexuality. Rather, it's a misunderstanding of how homosexuality operates; this is what you're guilty of. Just as racism need not be an open hostility toward those of other ethnicities; it can simply manifest in how you address the issue.

That homosexuality can somehow be checked, or controlled; that it's something that should be maintained by those who "possess" it, and thus uncontrolled homosexuality clearly must manifest in "flamboyance." This is just an error in understanding what homosexuality is.

So misunderstanding = fear? No. A misunderstanding can lead to fear, as can a perfectly clear understanding. Racism is entirely different from homophobia, and does not necessarily include "phobia" or "fear of". Not denotationally anyway.

A lack of control in almost anything results in a measure of flamboyancy as per definitions of the word: Ostentatious, showy, extravagant.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm not saying you fear it. Read what I wrote! I'm saying you don't understand it.

If an owner of a private business objects to homosexuality, he or she will find overtones of it in every behavior. To the contrary, an owner can ask a gun owner to leave the firearm at home, and: problem solved. You're conflating two entirely different things.

 

[Dak]

I'm not saying you fear it. Read what I wrote! I'm saying you don't understand it.

I understand what you meant. I'm taking issue with your usage of the word homophobia. Specifically, the misuse of the term "phobia". I am already rather particular about denotational accuracy, but particularly with terminology surrounding psychological issues.

If an owner of a private business objects to homosexuality, he or she will find overtones of it in every behavior.

Well then he or she will quickly go out of business. Homosexuals are actually pretty rare, and the "flamboyant" variety even less so. In contrast, flamboyant macho men are pretty common around here.

To the contrary, an owner can ask a gun owner to leave the firearm at home, and: problem solved. You're conflating two entirely different things.

What if that sign was placed in a photography/cake business, and the customer asks for pictures at His&Her NRA themed wedding, complete with pictures including guns and a wedding completed with a 21 gun salute?

 

[Einherjar86]

They could use (radical idea...) fake guns.

And I already explained how I was using the term, but that's fine. What you said wasn't homophobic, but hetero-normative.

If a gay couple wants to have a cake made for their wedding, or photos taken, their homosexuality is on display by the very nature of the service requested. There's no separation, and there's no way to ask them to "tone down the homoeroticism there, gents!"

Or (even more hilarious): "Could you people please only pretend to be homosexual for this photo shoot? I'd really appreciate it. Thanks."

 

[Dak]

They could use (radical idea...) fake guns.

They could, they could use no guns at all. They could not have a wedding, not have a wedding cake, or wedding pictures, or get services from someone who is anti-gun. These are all actions, and none are necessary to life or anything.

And I already explained how I was using the term, but that's fine. What you said wasn't homophobic, but hetero-normative.

Well the normal use is rather hetero-normative, which is why i tried to clarify and show that flamboyancy is not particular to a certain sexual orientation, just that what is more common is often not noticed.

If a gay couple wants to have a cake made for their wedding, or photos taken, their homosexuality is on display by the very nature of the service requested. There's no separation, and there's no way to ask them to "tone down the homoeroticism there, gents!"

Or (even more hilarious): "Could you people please only pretend to be homosexual for this photo shoot? I'd really appreciate it. Thanks."

Of course it is on display, and of course, you could not separate the homosexuality from a homosexual wedding. You also couldn't separate the gun(s) from an gun themed wedding. Why should homosexuals or gun lovers have to alter their preference displays? Why should the business owners have to alter their actions? Let each find another who will voluntary participate and interact. Asking the CCW carrier to abandon his/her weapon for some time is no better/worse/different than asking the homosexual to abandon his/her partner for some time, as a condition of service. Conversely, it is no better/worse/different to demand one service you against their will, regardless of the reason. So if I walk into an establishment with that sign while carrying anyway, or sue for discrimination, or picket, or any other ignorant thing, I am being every bit as disrespectful as the bigot with the sign. I am treating them as means rather than ends.

 

[-CC-]

I'm on the shitter with a D.A.D one and I actually read a Dak vs Ein argument out of boredom. Sorry Dak but you lose. You can't compare burkas with guns, and you are a homophobe, you just haven't realized yet.

 

[Einherjar86]

Of course it is on display, and of course, you could not separate the homosexuality from a homosexual wedding. You also couldn't separate the gun(s) from an gun themed wedding. Why should homosexuals or gun lovers have to alter their preference displays?

A gun lover doesn't have to alter her preference is the point. She can have her entire wedding party pose with fake guns. Or, they can perform a twenty-one gun salute with blanks. The point is that the theme of guns can be entirely simulated. This is impossible when talking about something like homosexuality.

 

[Dak]

I'm on the shitter with a D.A.D one and I actually read a Dak vs Ein argument out of boredom. Sorry Dak but you lose. You can't compare burkas with guns, and you are a homophobe, you just haven't realized yet.

Supporting equal rights = homophobe?

A gun lover doesn't have to alter her preference is the point. She can have her entire wedding party pose with fake guns. Or, they can perform a twenty-one gun salute with blanks. The point is that the theme of guns can be entirely simulated. This is impossible when talking about something like homosexuality.

Homosexuals could simulate a non-homosexual wedding, that is about as fake as fake guns. Have one guy put on a female mask, or one female put on a male mask. Have a substitute spouse stand in for the performance. Etc.

But that's absurd right? Of course. You just can't see why the gun related suggestions are equally absurd. Why not suggest how easy it would be for people to just dye their hair to go into a PoB that discriminates based on hair color. It's all equally bigotry, and if one wants to support equal rights, then by all means let us have equal rights. But none of this "some are more equal than others" while pretending that is not the case. I am fine with people saying they support one sort of bigotry over another. Just don't try and say it isn't bigotry.

On a completely different note: Nation-state fragmentation into city-states moves forward. Stephenson looks more prophetic all the time.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/europes-latest-secession-movement-venice/284562/

On Friday night, people waving red-and-gold flags emblazoned with the Lion of St. Mark filled the square of Treviso, a city in the Veneto region, as the referendum's organizers announced the results: 2,102,969 votes in favor of independence—a whopping 89 percent of all ballots cast—to 257,266 votes against. Venetians also said yes to joining NATO, the EU, and the eurozone. The overwhelming victory surprised even ardent supporters of the initiative, as most polls before the referendum estimated only about 65 percent of the region's voters supported independence.

Of course, it is no surprise to me that both in Crimea (although not fragmentation) and in Venice, the "international democratic community" does not respect such democracy. However, over the coming years I expect fragmentation to snowball, and not without heavy potential for some bloodshed.

 

[Dak]

Also this:

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/bugs-like-made-germ-theory-democracy-beliefs-73958/

Fincher suspected that many behaviors in collectivist cultures might be masks for behavioral immune responses. To take one key example, collectivist cultures tend to be both more xenophobic and more ethnocentric than individualist cultures. Keeping strangers away might be a valuable defense against foreign pathogens, Fincher thought. And a strong preference for in-group mating might help maintain a community’s hereditary immunities to local disease strains. To test his hypothesis, Fincher set out to see whether places with heavier disease loads also tended toward these sorts of collectivist values.

Working with Damian Murray and Mark Schaller, two psychologists from the University of British Columbia, and Thornhill, Fincher compared existing databases that rated cultural groups on the individualist-collectivist spectrum with data collected from the Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network and other sources. The team paid special attention to nine pathogens (including malaria, leprosy, dengue, typhus, and tuberculosis) that are detrimental to human reproductive fitness. What the team found was a strong correlation between collectivist values and places with high pathogen stress. In 2008, Fincher, Thornhill, Schaller, and Murray published a major paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B that laid out the connection.

Edit: Another sort of gun-related thing: Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed told Glenn Beck to read Foucault. I loled.

 

[Einherjar86]

Supporting equal rights = homophobe?

It has to do with your very offensive representation of how homosexuality works.

Homosexuals could simulate a non-homosexual wedding, that is about as fake as fake guns. Have one guy put on a female mask, or one female put on a male mask. Have a substitute spouse stand in for the performance. Etc.

Do you not see the difference in this? Do you truly not see the absolutely oppositional difference between the two? That they are opposites?

I'm saying that gun owners can use fake guns and still communicate the message of their fondness for firearms. Asking homosexuals to pretend not to be homosexual is asking them to do exactly the opposite: i.e. disguise their homosexuality. How is this at all making your case?

But that's absurd right? Of course. You just can't see why the gun related suggestions are equally absurd. Why not suggest how easy it would be for people to just dye their hair to go into a PoB that discriminates based on hair color. It's all equally bigotry, and if one wants to support equal rights, then by all means let us have equal rights. But none of this "some are more equal than others" while pretending that is not the case. I am fine with people saying they support one sort of bigotry over another. Just don't try and say it isn't bigotry.

No, Dak, I can see clearly now... the rain is gone...

You're making homosexuality into something like an accessory, and that is why you're being offensive and categorically incorrect. You're describing it as something that someone can dissociate from their every waking move, or that someone can simply simulate. That is, that there exists some kind of performative homosexuality that isn't "real" homosexuality (you use the word "flamboyant"). It's an incredibly bigoted thing to say.

So yes, I do think you're being institutionally homophobic (and hetero-normative).

 

[Dak]

It has to do with your very offensive representation of how homosexuality works.

Do you not see the difference in this? Do you truly not see the absolutely oppositional difference between the two? That they are opposites?

I'm saying that gun owners can use fake guns and still communicate the message of their fondness for firearms. Asking homosexuals to pretend not to be homosexual is asking them to do exactly the opposite: i.e. disguise their homosexuality. How is this at all making your case?

No, Dak, I can see clearly now... the rain is gone...

You're making homosexuality into something like an accessory, and that is why you're being offensive and categorically incorrect. You're describing it as something that someone can dissociate from their every waking move, or that someone can simply simulate. That is, that there exists some kind of performative homosexuality that isn't "real" homosexuality (you use the word "flamboyant"). It's an incredibly bigoted thing to say.

So yes, I do think you're being institutionally homophobic (and hetero-normative).

No, I didn't say any of those things, and apparently I cannot put it into terms that express otherwise. I know the pc police forbid any treatment of homosexuality other than to put it on a pedestal to the trumpeting of equality, but I see no reason to play along. I have no "straight man's burden". We're all brothers (and sisters) in bondage.

Of course "flamboyant" homosexuality is real. It is just that flamboyancy is also not necessary to homosexuality anymoreso than it is necessary to heterosexuality. Otherwise, there would be no flamboyancy in anything to point to because there would be no counterexample. It would all just be simply an is. All homosexual males would be rockin the Judas Priest look and all heterosexual males would drive massive pickups and act like Arnold clones or whatever. Are you offended by my labeling the Heterosexual American Bro Dude and Macho Man flamboyant also? Yet these stereotypes do not actually define the sexuality itself.

More good stuff on PSMag:

http://www.psmag.com/magazines/magazine-feature-story-magazines/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/

Anthropology is the social science most interested in cultural differences, but the young scholar’s methods of using games and statistics to test and compare cultures with the West seemed heavy-handed and invasive to some. “Professors from the anthropology department suggested it was a bad thing that I was doing,” Henrich remembers. “The word ‘unethical’ came up.”

So instead of toeing the line, he switched teams. A few well-placed people at the University of British Columbia saw great promise in Henrich’s work and created a position for him, split between the economics department and the psychology department. It was in the psychology department that he found two kindred spirits in Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan. Together the three set about writing a paper that they hoped would fundamentally challenge the way social scientists thought about human behavior, cognition, and culture.

Too long of an article to quote but good stuff.

The growing body of cross-cultural research that the three researchers were compiling suggested that the mind’s capacity to mold itself to cultural and environmental settings was far greater than had been assumed. The most interesting thing about cultures may not be in the observable things they do—the rituals, eating preferences, codes of behavior, and the like—but in the way they mold our most fundamental conscious and unconscious thinking and perception.

For instance, the different ways people perceive the Müller-Lyer illusion likely reflects lifetimes spent in different physical environments. American children, for the most part, grow up in box-shaped rooms of varying dimensions. Surrounded by carpentered corners, visual perception adapts to this strange new environment (strange and new in terms of human history, that is) by learning to perceive converging lines in three dimensions.

Among Westerners, the data showed that Americans were often the most unusual, leading the researchers to conclude that “American participants are exceptional even within the unusual population of Westerners—outliers among outliers.”

Given the data, they concluded that social scientists could not possibly have picked a worse population from which to draw broad generalizations. Researchers had been doing the equivalent of studying penguins while believing that they were learning insights applicable to all birds.

 

[Einherjar86]

No, I didn't say any of those things, and apparently I cannot put it into terms that express otherwise. I know the pc police forbid any treatment of homosexuality other than to put it on a pedestal to the trumpeting of equality, but I see no reason to play along. I have no "straight man's burden". We're all brothers (and sisters) in bondage.

Dak, don't take this the wrong way. You didn't "say" any of those things, just like the manager who chooses a white job candidate over a black one isn't intentionally racist, or probably even consciously racist. It's in the way you talk about things, not in exactly what you say. You just have to be more careful. We might all be brothers and sisters in bondage, but you have no claim to gender intolerance and neither do I. There are histories to keep in mind, and contexts that we need to acknowledge. Your attitude is one of sweeping under the rug; and while this is admirable in a sense, it's not an appropriate solution.

I can sympathize with your "plight" of gun owners (although I seriously don't agree), but the honest truth is it cannot compare to the quantity, the sheer amount, of intolerance experienced by those who've experienced racism, or homophobia, or bigotry in the name of Reason itself. Your desire to claim a place beside the blacks of the slave trade, or the gays beaten in the '70s and '80s, sounds more like a desire for martyrdom than genuine intolerance.

More good stuff on PSMag

I just read this; please read all of what I have to say. I have one glaring, overarching problem with all such articles; and this problem is apparent in nearly everything that you post.

That this quote:

A MODERN LIBERAL ARTS education gives lots of lip service to the idea of cultural diversity. It’s generally agreed that all of us see the world in ways that are sometimes socially and culturally constructed, that pluralism is good, and that ethnocentrism is bad.

- is a gross misunderstanding of what an actual, intellectual liberal arts education entails.

It may be true that in popular circles, the sentiment of quote above gets circulated; but this is a vulgar and dangerously simplified interpretation of the true concern of the humanities and/or liberal arts.

The truth - and I want to be clear about this - is that liberal arts institutions and programs are more interested in the question of cultural diversity. No one is prepared to definitively state that all cultures are basically the same at a cognitive/intellectual level. No serious academic is prepared to say that. But we hear it, time and again, from publications like this.

And yet they never actually quote an academic journal or book that says that. Hell, maybe some do... but not the majority.

Arjun Appadurai (an anthropologist) says of culturalism/cultural diversity:

Throughout the world, faced with the activities of states that are concerned with encompassing their ethnic diversities into fixed and closed sets of cultural categories to which individuals are often assigned forcibly, many groups are consciously mobilizing themselves according to identitarian criteria. Culturalism, put simply, is identity politics mobilized at the level of the nation-state.

In other words, Appadurai (and many others) are entirely aware of the contradictions and ideological problems of multiculturalism. The agenda isn't to "pay lip service," but to interrogate and investigate the problem.

One of the biggest issues with making claims of intelligence, or cognitive awareness/aptitude, etc. is that neither of those terms (or concepts) enjoys a universally agreed-upon definition. The author of that article writes:

The stakes Henrich used in the game with the Machiguenga were not insubstantial—roughly equivalent to the few days’ wages they sometimes earned from episodic work with logging or oil companies. So Henrich had no problem finding volunteers. What he had great difficulty with, however, was explaining the rules, as the game struck the Machiguenga as deeply odd.

This isn't a sign of a level of abstract intelligence that can be registered on any universal scale.

 

[Dak]

Dak, don't take this the wrong way. You didn't "say" any of those things, just like the manager who chooses a white job candidate over a black one isn't intentionally racist, or probably even consciously racist. It's in the way you talk about things, not in exactly what you say. You just have to be more careful. We might all be brothers and sisters in bondage, but you have no claim to gender intolerance and neither do I. There are histories to keep in mind, and contexts that we need to acknowledge. Your attitude is one of sweeping under the rug; and while this is admirable in a sense, it's not an appropriate solution.

The last thing I believe in is being ignorant or ignoring history. However, wallowing in it doesn't achieve anything. It does not move us forward, is not progressive. That isn't sweeping under the rug but focusing on the now and the future.

I can sympathize with your "plight" of gun owners (although I seriously don't agree), but the honest truth is it cannot compare to the quantity, the sheer amount, of intolerance experienced by those who've experienced racism, or homophobia, or bigotry in the name of Reason itself. Your desire to claim a place beside the blacks of the slave trade, or the gays beaten in the '70s and '80s, sounds more like a desire for martyrdom than genuine intolerance.

But that is the thing. I am not comparing it in any historical sense, nor do I see any such "plight" of CCW carriers to be addressed in the case of the discriminating business. I am specifically in favor of such limitations - as long as all business owners are free to make their own discriminations. However, if I cannot ban X group for Y reason, neither should anyone else be able to.

I just read this; please read all of what I have to say. I have one glaring, overarching problem with all such articles; and this problem is apparent in nearly everything that you post.

That this quote: - is a gross misunderstanding of what an actual, intellectual liberal arts education entails.

It may be true that in popular circles, the sentiment of quote above gets circulated; but this is a vulgar and dangerously simplified interpretation of the true concern of the humanities and/or liberal arts.

While I did not quote this because even I tire of this sort of polemic, I do think that regardless of the intent of some or most instructors, this is the end result. That is, the result critiqued here is what is achieved. Alinsky points out most people have a series of happenings rather than experiences, and a series of happenings in colleges creates this widespread vulgar form of multiculturalistic understanding in former and existing students, which is only reinforced by popular media.

The truth - and I want to be clear about this - is that liberal arts institutions and programs are more interested in the question of cultural diversity. No one is prepared to definitively state that all cultures are basically the same at a cognitive/intellectual level. No serious academic is prepared to say that. But we hear it, time and again, from publications like this.

One of the biggest issues with making claims of intelligence, or cognitive awareness/aptitude, etc. is that neither of those terms (or concepts) enjoys a universally agreed-upon definition. The author of that article writes:

This isn't a sign of a level of abstract intelligence that can be registered on any universal scale.

You have to remember that traditional economics and old psychology did in fact (and often still do in general) see people as rather homogeneous. It is only recently that more steps have been taken to correct universalized research findings that turn out to have not been so universal after all. For instance, the Emic vs Etic structure of multicultural research in psychology is still relatively underexplored.

I was wondering if you were going to notice the guy got put in between psychology and economics. Ultimately I think the cultural difference difficulties and contingencies revolve heavily around language. Our own American history has a great example surrounding the term "Indian Giving".

 

[Einherjar86]

The last thing I believe in is being ignorant or ignoring history. However, wallowing in it doesn't achieve anything. It does not move us forward, is not progressive. That isn't sweeping under the rug but focusing on the now and the future.

I don't believe you would have the same attitude if a debt needed to be paid.

But that is the thing. I am not comparing it in any historical sense, nor do I see any such "plight" of CCW carriers to be addressed in the case of the discriminating business. I am specifically in favor of such limitations - as long as all business owners are free to make their own discriminations. However, if I cannot ban X group for Y reason, neither should anyone else be able to.

But you still haven't addressed what I feel is a very simple rejoinder: that the discrimination against people is not the same as the discrimination against guns. You cannot discriminate against homosexuality without discriminating against those in whom it exists. You can discriminate against guns and yet be entirely open and tolerant of those who own them.

While I did not quote this because even I tire of this sort of polemic, I do think that regardless of the intent of some or most instructors, this is the end result. That is, the result critiqued here is what is achieved. Alinsky points out most people have a series of happenings rather than experiences, and a series of happenings in colleges creates this widespread vulgar form of multiculturalistic understanding in former and existing students, which is only reinforced by popular media.

I think we see it more in those who are uneducated, in fact; those who have not had that kind of education. The people who only watch Rachel Maddow or Piers Morgan. I believe the education has less to do with, and in fact creates more open-minded individuals.

You have to remember that traditional economics and old psychology did in fact (and often still do in general) see people as rather homogeneous. It is only recently that more steps have been taken to correct universalized research findings that turn out to have not been so universal after all. For instance, the Emic vs Etic structure of multicultural research in psychology is still relatively underexplored.

But liberal arts/humanities programs and scholarship are part of the reason why economics and psychology no longer see people that way (at an academic level). So why have they become the enemy now?

I was wondering if you were going to notice the guy got put in between psychology and economics. Ultimately I think the cultural difference difficulties and contingencies revolve heavily around language. Our own American history has a great example surrounding the term "Indian Giving".

I did notice. I figured it was one of the reasons why this article made you excited.

 

[Dak]

I don't believe you would have the same attitude if a debt needed to be paid.

I try to live in the present and future rather than the past. If I were a debt counting person I'd probably be a pretty angry individual (obviously not necessarily at "society" or whatever, but individuals I have had to be around). It's not worth it. I was told by more than one person during my first couple of years in the Marines that they didn't know why I hadn't attempted/committed suicide. Probably because I score in the 90th percentiles on determination/grit surveys.

But you still haven't addressed what I feel is a very simple rejoinder: that the discrimination against people is not the same as the discrimination against guns. You cannot discriminate against homosexuality without discriminating against those in whom it exists. You can discriminate against guns and yet be entirely open and tolerant of those who own them.

"I'll serve your loser ass if you leave the gun out". "I'll take pictures of you sir but not at your wedding to sir #2". Which is more tolerant?

I think we see it more in those who are uneducated, in fact; those who have not had that kind of education. The people who only watch Rachel Maddow or Piers Morgan. I believe the education has less to do with, and in fact creates more open-minded individuals.

The uneducated people I am around watch Fox.

But liberal arts/humanities programs and scholarship are part of the reason why economics and psychology no longer see people that way (at an academic level). So why have they become the enemy now?

Liberal Arts Degrees are not any more homogeneous than cultures. Neither are the people receiving/providing them. For every person who pays attention to a good educator, there are 50 not present physically or mentally. That doesn't even good into the bad educators, nor all the classes that have nothing to do with multiculturalism whatsoever. So you get a liberal arts degree, didn't really take a sociology or anthropology class or whatever, didn't pay attention anyway, and then start watching good ol Piers or whoever.

I did notice. I figured it was one of the reasons why this article made you excited.

It was one reason. Psychological observation studies are a great source of information, and a perspective that either sees action as economic, or will observe obviously economic behavior, is of mutual benefit. Heavy/complete reliance on economic "models" is killing us(among other things).

 

[Einherjar86]

"I'll serve your loser ass if you leave the gun out". "I'll take pictures of you sir but not at your wedding to sir #2". Which is more tolerant?

Uh... the first one! At least someone is being served.

Liberal Arts Degrees are not any more homogeneous than cultures. Neither are the people receiving/providing them. For every person who pays attention to a good educator, there are 50 not present physically or mentally. That doesn't even good into the bad educators, nor all the classes that have nothing to do with multiculturalism whatsoever. So you get a liberal arts degree, didn't really take a sociology or anthropology class or whatever, didn't pay attention anyway, and then start watching good ol Piers or whoever.

Ah. I was talking about graduate degrees. Undergraduates... sure, makes sense; actually, I kind of think that UltimateApathy is a liberal arts undergrad who latched onto very specific points that he learned/read in one class.

It was one reason. Psychological observation studies are a great source of information, and a perspective that either sees action as economic, or will observe obviously economic behavior, is of mutual benefit. Heavy/complete reliance on economic "models" is killing us(among other things).

I think you'd find that Jean Baudrillard would have said the exact same thing.

 

[Dak]

Uh... the first one! At least someone is being served.

I guess it's obvious I don't see it that way lol. Lots of people are willing to "do anything for a buck". You can be courteous and respectful while at the same time not associating in particular ways.

Ah. I was talking about graduate degrees. Undergraduates... sure, makes sense; actually, I kind of think that UltimateApathy is a liberal arts undergrad who latched onto very specific points that he learned/read in one class.

He also claims to be from some nordic country iirc. Different educational format which I claim no familiarity with.

I think you'd find that Jean Baudrillard would have said the exact same thing.

Unfortunately my familiarity with Baudrillard ends with name recognition.

Separately, as Rothbard points out, there is no such thing as "the raw data". Observational studies, even if the observation were somehow unbiased, would still create data subject to interpretive bias. For example, in that article it discusses the "gift giving cultures", which have been used before to supposedly disprove more Austrianish descriptions of economic behavior. However, this was very easily shown to be not the case. Gift-giving cultures have merely established a different system for mutually beneficial engagements. Ultimately, people are still engaging in that "gift economy" to further their own prospects. The gift is given because it brings material and/or psychological benefit either immediately or in the future.

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Gift_economy

 

[Einherjar86]

You can extrapolate several arguments out of the gift economy situation. Many leftists have researched examples of gift economy, but not for purposes of claiming it as some socialistic paradise that disproves capitalist economics.

In a sense, the "gift" is a constitutuve concept of any economics whatsoever. The gift precedes any economic system as the basis for an economic system. The definition of "gift" might change in its specificity depending on what a culture deems valuable. The payment of some form of currency is basically an insurance that a "buyer" need not feel any obligation to give the "seller" something in return for the gift. An odd way to think about it is: "Here, I want you to have this watch my grandfather left me. But I don't want you to feel obligated to give me something in the future, so how about you pay me $100 for it now."

Many theorists have elaborated on how a gift isn't really a gift, among them Bataille, Baudrillard, even Marx himself. A gift always entails something in return, or (at the very least) instantiates something in the symbolic order through which the receiver of the gift feels some kind of obligation.

The difference is that none of the philosophers I'm thinking of are interested in psychology because their primary concern lies in what the gift symbolizes in the cultural arena. In many gift-giving cultures, the giving is a collective, public, ritualistic event. This means that the giving of the gift is always instantiated as a culturally acknowledged symbolic transaction, and acceptance constitutes some form of obligation. The psychological feeling of satisfaction doesn't mean the debt is paid, because no one else experiences this satisfaction (with the exception of, perhaps, those close to the receiver). The debt becomes symbolic on a social level.

So a gift is never really a true gift as we conceive of it in the abstract. Gifts are, in fact, rudimentary objects of economic transaction.

EDIT: new post on posthumanism (no surprise there).