Sunday
(0)Show me a cultural relativist at 30,000 feet and I'll show you a hypocrite...If you are flying to an international congress of anthropologists or literary critics, the reason you will probably get there - the reason you don't plummet into a ploughed field - is that a lot of Western scientifically trained engineers have got their sums right.
- Richard Dawkins, from a collection of brilliant essays, "The Devil's Chaplain", crushing all manner of shoddy thinking.
Speaking of cultural relativism:
I’m ready for another fleecing, it’s time for another installment of Star Wars. Reading this review, http://www.variety.com/VE1117927015.html, the following caught my attention:
"the transformation from Anakin into Darth Vader, the face-off between Anakin/Vader and his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, the morphing of the Republic into the Empire,"
A republic morphing into the Empire? Well, shit, homey, I can hear the spooky Star Wars Darth music playin’ in the background right now instead of “Hail to the Chief,” as POTUS goes touring through the Baltics.
Jedi mind tricks abound
Art: “These are not the droids you’re looking for”
Life: "’It's such a joy to come to the country that loves and values freedom,’ Bush told Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.”
It’s no secret that George Lucas modeled much of Star Wars off of the decline of our republican virtues due to the Civil War. First of all, STOP, before you say anything, I don’t believe in slavery, bitch. BUT the civil war ripped the guts out of our republic and gave raise to governmental powers that were never thought of in the wildest nightmares of the founding fathers.
Slavery bad…Centralization of governmental power at the federal level is fucking pretty bad too.
Art imitating life past and present
Art: Senator Palpatine using emergency powers wants to create a “Grand Army of the Republic" to counter the threat of "separatists."
Life past: Lincoln did the same thing, minus the light sabers.
Life present: Just how much has been done since 9/11 in the name of emergency powers? Also, as noted by many sources, Palpatine looks a lot like Joseph Lieberman.
http://www.theinternationalsprawl.blogspot.com/
Posted by Stakonovite fake at May 8, 2005 02:38 PM
It's a goddamed movie for Christ's sakes. Do stop reading whatever you want to into this sort of thing, it doesn't serve any point and only turns you into far more of a cynic.
We have already suffered enough parallels being drawn here, most recently by Galloway and his rentaJihad mobs, between Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven and "the evil modern West oppressing the poor downtrodden masses in Palestine and Iraq who only want to kill Jews and Americans live in peace".
Enough already.
Posted by Julian Taylor at May 8, 2005 03:22 PM
suffered enough parallelsHang on, are you suggesting that it is wrong for people to flay Kingdom of God because it transplants the left wing view of Islam into the dark ages, ie. Christians = bad stupid mindless violent plundering warmongers, Muslims = why-can't-we-all-just-get-along pluralists, because "it's just a movie"? Despite the fact that this depiction of the Crusades has absolutely no historical basis?
Enough alreadymy arse. That kind of shit should be exposed and ridiculed as frequently and as publicly as possible.
Posted by I'm suffering for my art at May 8, 2005 03:49 PM
Dang, that first sentence is ugly. Preview (and subsequent review) is my friend...
Posted by I'm suffering for my art at May 8, 2005 03:51 PM
Dawkins is being a bit like Dr Johnson who famously commented on Bishop Berkeley's Idealist philosophy by saying "I refute that by kicking a brick".
As soon as you start to try to analyse a 'culture' and question its values you immediately run into deep plilosophical trouble. Trying to make judgements on this basis is impossible not only for philosophical reasons but for the sheer impossibility of actually knowing what a 'culture' is. What one can do is to make some sort of judgement of the practical effects that the culture has on a group of people who have it.
I think Dawkins is saying this remarkable, reliable flying machine is the result of the culture of western Europe (and America).
I would suggest another judgement you could make on a national basis is to measure cultural success by noting whether a country is one of mass emigration or mass immigration. I mean how many immigration officers do they have to employ in the Sudan to keep out illegal immigrants, or Somaliland or Rwanda or many parts of Asia.
I think most of us do not realise the enormous magitude of the step change brought about by western European cultural development starting from about the mid seventeenth century. Prior to that virtually the whole of humanity lived like pigs except for a small elite. They still do in those parts of the world that have not absorbed a good deal of that culture.
Posted by John Rippengal at May 8, 2005 05:37 PM
John Rippengal, if you read the Dawkins book - and I heartily recommend it - he is attacking the notion that there is no such thing as objective truth, that all points of view, all cultures, are equally valid. He is saying this is bullshit; he is defending the claims of science from the likes of creationists, post-modernist charlatans, astrologists, and the rest.
Dawkins may be a bit silly on political issues, but on his core field of science, he is probably the greatest defendier of science in our age since the late Richard Feynman. He annoys Bible thumping Republicans just as much as bean-eating Greenies. One of the good guys.
Posted by Johnathan Pearce at May 8, 2005 05:43 PM
Yes Jonathan I know where Richard Dawkins is coming from scientifically. But he is also saying you can make objective judgements about cultures too and so am I.
They are not all equal; some are much superior. The danger from cultural relativists is that they encourage large blocks of alien culture to flourish. The people who fled their land because of the misery of their existence there are being encouraged to set up the same cultural disaster that caused their problem in the first place.
Posted by John Rippengal at May 8, 2005 06:09 PM
John, fair enough. I think we were talking at cross purposes.
Posted by Johnathan at May 8, 2005 06:21 PM
Of course they might have had trouble doing those sums if they hadn't been introduced to the concept of zero by non "Western" scholars. :-)
Posted by Ken Hagler at May 8, 2005 08:01 PM
A just point, Mr Hagler. The world should be grateful to the Hindus who invented the zero and the Arabs who transmitted it to us.
But all that was a very long time ago.
Posted by Natalie Solent at May 8, 2005 08:09 PM
Well not much of a point really. Having invented the zero they didn't do much with it did they?
Posted by John Rippengal at May 8, 2005 08:27 PM
It’s no secret that George Lucas modeled much of Star Wars off of the decline of our republican virtues due to the Civil War
It is the same story as the decline of the Roman republic and its transition to principate and empire. Nothing new under the sun, after all - and history did not start in 1776.
EG
Posted by Euan Gray at May 8, 2005 09:49 PM
I think the alleged connection to the War Between the States is based on Palpatine's speech at the end of episode 2. It could have been lifted directly from a speech by Abraham Lincoln.
Posted by Ken Hagler at May 9, 2005 05:56 AM
I thought that the Imperial Senate's vote to elevate Palpatine to that supreme leader position was lifted straight from 1933 Germany.
Posted by Alan K. Henderson at May 9, 2005 08:16 AM
Not so much 1933 Germany since Hitler was, after all, actually voted into office. That would appear to be closer, as EG says, to Julius Caesar's appointment as "Dictator for Life" after having ensured that the Senate was replaced with members more sympathetic to his cause.
Posted by Julian Taylor at May 10, 2005 12:07 PM
