tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post1585045993799302610..comments2024-02-27T02:19:19.667-08:00Comments on rethinking history: Hypocrisy 2 - naval disasters and feminismNigel Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13176570029569275055noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-20684609594283600242013-07-21T00:15:04.267-07:002013-07-21T00:15:04.267-07:00I won't quibble on Clinton, Obama etc not bein...I won't quibble on Clinton, Obama etc not being what is traditional 'ruling class' (British meaning is roughly 'aristocracy' whereas US meaning is very foughly 'wealth'), but will mischeviously comment on them being very much modern 'political class' (which is the real ruling class these days).<br /><br />As to the whose survival is 'warranted' bit. that is back to first year philosophy.. The 70 year old on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer VS the 11 year old hemophiliac with only a few years to live etc. good luck with that one.<br /><br />(And yes, I don't bother spell checking nearly enough... constantly amazed what predictive text does too.)Nigel Davieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13176570029569275055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-52371004401214248752013-07-20T23:22:57.545-07:002013-07-20T23:22:57.545-07:00it was Bush's family that set him up with a cu...it was Bush's family that set him up with a cushy job piloting an airframe in the National Guard which they knew was obsolete and would therefore protect him from deploying and facing danger... it was NOT Clinton, who did not come from a wealthy, privileged background. Otherwise, barring punctuation errors (e.g. dog's vice dogs), nice article.<br /><br />Morality should dictate a preference/priority given to those who have a better chance at survival/reproduction/contribution to society being saved. Children, yes. Women and men, only if warranted. What purpose is served by saving a 70 yr old of either sex whose productive years are past vs. saving a younger person of either sex who could still contribute?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1977310098529084891.post-27182007721224057882012-01-29T06:30:21.281-08:002012-01-29T06:30:21.281-08:00I think I want to shed some light on the 'poli...I think I want to shed some light on the 'politically correct' term for you for a moment. Remember back to the late 1960's and early 1970's, when an emerging cohort of people were discovering that history was not as they had been taught, and struggled to figure out, in essence, what was really going on.<br /><br />Part of that struggle was a reworking and redefinition of language. The doctrinaire communists, at least in the US, thought, because of their historical materialism, that there were correct and incorrect 'lines' or approaches to current political problems. (Yes, I know, you already probably know this in spades). With all seriousness the groups would debate whether this or that approach was 'politically correct'.<br /><br />At the same time slightly overlapping, but generally far larger and mostly distinct groups were struggling, along the lines of the weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, to reshape language and terminology to provide a friendly home for the new realizations about human history and the nature of reality and possibility.<br /><br />This second effort was fairly spectacularly successful in a short time. Hard to know why ... some of Doris Lessing's speculations on ideas and the time for them come to mind. But the upshot was that by introducing different terminology ... terms that lived, like 'african-americans' instead of negroes or even blacks;'native-americans' instead of 'indians' 'feminists' instead of suffragists, 'gays' instead of other epithets, to name a few identity related, and others that died, such as 'wimmin', 'chicanos', etc.<br /><br />But the upshot was that language was changing and mirroring some of the new prides of identity on one hand, and ways of looking at social organization on the other.<br /><br />Beginning in the late 1970's, but particularly with the ascendency of Reagan, Thatcher and their supporters, there was a determined effort to conflate the two senses of 'politically correct'. Specifically, the attempt was to influence the media discourse to depict and associate any effort to rename, rebrand or think differently in language with the stilted, overly doctrinaire and rigid exaggeration of 'political correctness' practiced in communist criticism/self-criticism.<br /><br />This was done without any effort, and in fact with a careful disregard for whether the new concepts were true or false; it was enough that they were new and challenging. In true Orwellian fashion, the new was mainly successfully branded with the staleness and 'out-of-date'ness of the old by using the term 'politically correct' whenever a new term or semantic possibility emerged.<br /><br />Most of this was done on the unconscious level, and received and processed below the level of consciousness. It's an odious practice, and continues to this day.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com