[FRIAM] culture vs things (was: capitalism vs. individualism)

[Merle Lefkoff]

Pinker is an idiot.  Always has been.

On Mon, Nov 11, 2019 at 9:13 AM glen∈ℂ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes! Along the same lines of communities policing themselves, pluralists
> are at risk of runaway relativism. I was reading this article <
> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/02/smashing-the-patriarchy-why-theres-nothing-natural-about-male-supremacy>
> recently and was taken aback by this excerpt:
>
> > Steven Pinker, for instance, has argued that men prefer to work with
> “things”, whereas women prefer to work with “people”. This, he said,
> explains why more women work in the (low-paid) charity and healthcare
> sector, rather than getting PhDs in science. According to Pinker, “The
> occupation that fits best with the ‘people’ end of the continuum is
> director of a community services organisation. The occupations that fit
> best with the ‘things’ end are physicist, chemist, mathematician, computer
> programmer, and biologist.”
>
> I'm distressed by *celebrity*. But I don't draw a clear distinction
> between the cultural (aka "people") and the natural. I've forgotten who
> introduced me to it. But I like the concept of the "naturfact" ... like
> "artifact", but a found thing modified or remade by us ... partly
> synthetic, partly natural ... part thing, part "people". It's this mixing
> of the 2 categories that makes me interested in "stigmergy". One person's
> purely synthetic "city" is another person's purely natural habitat.
>
> When I hear people seemingly committed to an obviously incompetent and
> corrupt person like Trump, no matter what he says or does, I can't help but
> think their commitment is purely a cultural commitment. They, like me,
> don't see a sharp distinction between natural things and cultural things.
> So, since they're part of my "tribe", I feel a special responsibility to
> criticize them and argue the complement: that there *is* a difference
> between real things (like facts) versus spun narratives or "cults of
> personality" (wherein both Trump and JFK are 2 peas in a pod, regardless of
> any other differences).
>
>
>
> On 11/11/19 3:26 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > The most distressing, to me, aspect of what is happening is that the
> discussion - rational on both sides, critical of both sides, has been
> reduced to a pretty much exclusive focus on one office and one individual.
> It is impossible to have an informative discussion about actions taken by
> the individual, in historical context, in terms of philosophy, policy, and
> context.
> >
> > I was speaking recently with a friend whose profession is political
> historian. She was comparing Trump and JFK with regards actions in the
> areas of nepotism (and generally trusting family and "cronies" over
> political professionals) and the intelligence community (both men spoke ill
> of it and ignored it). Interesting stuff, but she could not imagine such a
> discussion getting attention, or getting published, in today's black and
> white rhetorical context.
>
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-- 
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
merlelefkoff at gmail.com <merlelefoff at gmail.com>
mobile:  (303) 859-5609
skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
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