People differ in what leads them to happiness. Do you remember saying that last time?
I certainly do. If you are not entirely convinced of that proposition, just look around and see what kind of people are sitting together. Some look like they are in long-term relationships. Considering what and how they are talking to each other, and how they look, do you think you may have locked yourself into a relationship with any of them?
You mean they are lucky that they found each other. It's a matter of taste, isn't it?
We are very fortunate that we differ in our tastes, because if not, only the selected few would find company.
In your case, the unwanted suitors are the ones who fail to understand that there exists such difference which can be sometimes---all right, I rephrase, "very often"---enormous, huge, humongous...
You have understood it all!
I thought I wasn't supposed to... By the way, are you sure that we are so different from one another? Many people claim that they want to meet 'interesting' people, but when you bring an interesting person to a gathering, most of them complain that s/he is eccentric or crazy.
I would take that as further evidence of how different we are, or more specifically, how different you are from others.
I see it as a manifestation of our desire to have it both ways, similar and different. We all want something different, once in a while, but within limits.
The problem is that people complain as if they were not constrained by such limits, whereas in fact their admissible range of variation is quite small. The true reward comes when you succeed in understanding and appreciating something you did not before, but that requires quite a bit of effort.
Plus, we all need something to hate, or at least, dislike.
We cannot possibly love every person in the universe and everything under the sun. It is a matter of how you deal with your feelings of hatred, disgust, repugnance, dislike, aversion, or how you fulfill your need to dislike something or somebody in a way that is not destructive.
I have also noticed that we desire both the old and the new.
Something familiar can be boring, but at the same time, reassuring. Something known to have persisted for generations feels imposing, because most of us accept it without question. It is comforting to know, however, that what you are made to believe in has withstood the test of time and is likely to endure after your lifetime.
To complicate matters, what we think is tradition changes.
It is a contradiction in terms, but since nothing in this world is static, that seems inevitable. Tradition must adapt to changing circumstances, if it were to survive.
Dishes that were traditionally prepared with a mortar and a pestle are nowadays made with a food processor---for example, pesto and almond milk. Taste is sacrificed for convenience, because we have so little time for cooking compared to the old times.
Not all traditions need to be modified for the worse. Occasionally, simple, new interpretations revive what has been known for the longest time, but had fallen into the category of obsolete. What was old becomes new, so to speak. That way, the new is not too new, and meets the needs of the masses.
The Occident's interest in Hatha Yoga has boosted its domestic popularity, I heard.
I would like to think that it is not just because of the endorsement by the West, but also because of the recognition of the greatness of the culture, made possible by coming into contact with other cultures.
Organic food is what we had in prehistoric times, but we are going back to that for ecological and health reasons. We may say that that latest furoshiki fad is also motivated by our concern for the environment.
At some point, it was nothing but a proof of greater affluence if the number of private cars per capita was larger. Today, it's a sign of environmental irresponsibility and short-sighted city planning.
Don't you think that it is a great irony that we go back to what we abandoned earlier?
There is one type of tradition that must continue to evolve in order to survive, and that is language. It has been demonstrated many times that languages fall into disuse and eventually become extinct when they lose the capacity to describe our daily lives. That is, to keep up with the times.
What about Latin?
You're right, that one is still popular among aficionados of language, history, theology, philosophy, etc., but it has been dead as a vernacular for so long. It will be difficult to bring it back to life if it could not describe what we can do with our personal computers, for example.
Doesn't it mean that the survival of languages other than English is threatened?
To put it strongly, yes. When new terms are coined so frequently, we cannot leave it to the public at large until their equivalents are invented in other languages. We consciously need to come up with a translation before the word in English---for example, e-mail---becomes established as the word in other languages.
If I am not mistaken, Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow said something to that effect in their book, "The Story of French."
In fact, a language never stays exactly the same, even without advances in technology. We constantly come up with new words and expressions, sometimes merely to substitute those that already exist and have served us well.
Or, some of us dig out words that have been forgotten for centuries. Wasn't Jacques Chirac known for that? It fits your formula of old disguised as new.
True, there is some kind of revival in languages, too, and their history is not strictly one-way, as I may have ended up asserting a moment ago.
Anyway, adjustment to modernity is a convenient reason---or excuse---to amend some customs and habits that persisted under the name of tradition and religion.
Indeed. How can you otherwise convince people to give up their judgment systems which they are brought up with? You cannot appeal to rationality, because we operate under different systems, all of which are considered rational by their adherents. I think the only way that may come close to convincing them to change their ways is to emphasize the necessity of adaptation to the modern times.
If J.C. and M.A. were alive today, they would have wholeheartedly approved of homosexual priests and female truck drivers, right?
I certainly do. If you are not entirely convinced of that proposition, just look around and see what kind of people are sitting together. Some look like they are in long-term relationships. Considering what and how they are talking to each other, and how they look, do you think you may have locked yourself into a relationship with any of them?
You mean they are lucky that they found each other. It's a matter of taste, isn't it?
We are very fortunate that we differ in our tastes, because if not, only the selected few would find company.
In your case, the unwanted suitors are the ones who fail to understand that there exists such difference which can be sometimes---all right, I rephrase, "very often"---enormous, huge, humongous...
You have understood it all!
I thought I wasn't supposed to... By the way, are you sure that we are so different from one another? Many people claim that they want to meet 'interesting' people, but when you bring an interesting person to a gathering, most of them complain that s/he is eccentric or crazy.
I would take that as further evidence of how different we are, or more specifically, how different you are from others.
I see it as a manifestation of our desire to have it both ways, similar and different. We all want something different, once in a while, but within limits.
The problem is that people complain as if they were not constrained by such limits, whereas in fact their admissible range of variation is quite small. The true reward comes when you succeed in understanding and appreciating something you did not before, but that requires quite a bit of effort.
Plus, we all need something to hate, or at least, dislike.
We cannot possibly love every person in the universe and everything under the sun. It is a matter of how you deal with your feelings of hatred, disgust, repugnance, dislike, aversion, or how you fulfill your need to dislike something or somebody in a way that is not destructive.
I have also noticed that we desire both the old and the new.
Something familiar can be boring, but at the same time, reassuring. Something known to have persisted for generations feels imposing, because most of us accept it without question. It is comforting to know, however, that what you are made to believe in has withstood the test of time and is likely to endure after your lifetime.
To complicate matters, what we think is tradition changes.
It is a contradiction in terms, but since nothing in this world is static, that seems inevitable. Tradition must adapt to changing circumstances, if it were to survive.
Dishes that were traditionally prepared with a mortar and a pestle are nowadays made with a food processor---for example, pesto and almond milk. Taste is sacrificed for convenience, because we have so little time for cooking compared to the old times.
Not all traditions need to be modified for the worse. Occasionally, simple, new interpretations revive what has been known for the longest time, but had fallen into the category of obsolete. What was old becomes new, so to speak. That way, the new is not too new, and meets the needs of the masses.
The Occident's interest in Hatha Yoga has boosted its domestic popularity, I heard.
I would like to think that it is not just because of the endorsement by the West, but also because of the recognition of the greatness of the culture, made possible by coming into contact with other cultures.
Organic food is what we had in prehistoric times, but we are going back to that for ecological and health reasons. We may say that that latest furoshiki fad is also motivated by our concern for the environment.
At some point, it was nothing but a proof of greater affluence if the number of private cars per capita was larger. Today, it's a sign of environmental irresponsibility and short-sighted city planning.
Don't you think that it is a great irony that we go back to what we abandoned earlier?
There is one type of tradition that must continue to evolve in order to survive, and that is language. It has been demonstrated many times that languages fall into disuse and eventually become extinct when they lose the capacity to describe our daily lives. That is, to keep up with the times.
What about Latin?
You're right, that one is still popular among aficionados of language, history, theology, philosophy, etc., but it has been dead as a vernacular for so long. It will be difficult to bring it back to life if it could not describe what we can do with our personal computers, for example.
Doesn't it mean that the survival of languages other than English is threatened?
To put it strongly, yes. When new terms are coined so frequently, we cannot leave it to the public at large until their equivalents are invented in other languages. We consciously need to come up with a translation before the word in English---for example, e-mail---becomes established as the word in other languages.
If I am not mistaken, Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow said something to that effect in their book, "The Story of French."
In fact, a language never stays exactly the same, even without advances in technology. We constantly come up with new words and expressions, sometimes merely to substitute those that already exist and have served us well.
Or, some of us dig out words that have been forgotten for centuries. Wasn't Jacques Chirac known for that? It fits your formula of old disguised as new.
True, there is some kind of revival in languages, too, and their history is not strictly one-way, as I may have ended up asserting a moment ago.
Anyway, adjustment to modernity is a convenient reason---or excuse---to amend some customs and habits that persisted under the name of tradition and religion.
Indeed. How can you otherwise convince people to give up their judgment systems which they are brought up with? You cannot appeal to rationality, because we operate under different systems, all of which are considered rational by their adherents. I think the only way that may come close to convincing them to change their ways is to emphasize the necessity of adaptation to the modern times.
If J.C. and M.A. were alive today, they would have wholeheartedly approved of homosexual priests and female truck drivers, right?
Posts
