Differentiate
I've just come back from a 2-week holiday in the USA. I'd never been there before and was looking forward to it.
I went to Nashville, Miami and the Florida Keys. America is a very nice place, with loads of space for people to be people. There is a lot of wealth and the people are nice.
However they are nice but dumb! What I mean is they aren't stupid (well obviously some are very stupid) but narrow-minded.
London has just been bombed so as a token Brit I was frequently asked about what I thought about those terrorists. I said that they should be stopped, obviously, and that a few nutters shouldn't ruin life for everyone. And if that meant that some were shot by the police because they ran or resisted when being arrested then tough luck!
I was shocked then by the views of normal intelligent people (teachers, businessmen, students and pensioners) in response.
"Damn right! We should kill or lock-up all those Muslims!" seemed to be a common response. When I pointed out that not all Muslims were terrorists heated arguments ensued.
In the end I gave up because the crux of problem was that they didn't seem to understand the difference between the two statements:
"All Muslims are Al Quaida terrorists" and "All Al Quaida terrorists are Muslims"!
I pointed out that the argument was ridiculous and if you believed that argument then it would be the same as "All IRA terrorists are Catholics Christians therefore all Catholic Christians are terrorists" and therefore "All Catholics are Christians therefore all Christians are Catholic and as all Catholic Christians are terrorists, as prooved earlier then all Christians are terrorists!". My argument brought slurs that I was being anti-religious!
The failing to differentiate the meaning between sentences that contain the same words but in crucially different order seemed to be endemic. For instance, Nashville is in the "Bible Belt" and to use expletives (cuss words) like "Jesus Christ!" or worse "God Damn!" brings reprimands from strangers who overhear you. It seems that they don't understand the difference between "God Damn!" (a request that God damns something) and "Damn God" (an ecclesiastical conundrum)
Weirder still is that is OK to substitute "G.D." for "God Damn" as in, "I think we should shoot all those G.D. Muslims!" So either the person who'd say that is stupid or a hypocrite, or that person's god is illiterate and too stupid to spot the substitution.
In the Beginning was the Word!
I went to Nashville, Miami and the Florida Keys. America is a very nice place, with loads of space for people to be people. There is a lot of wealth and the people are nice.
However they are nice but dumb! What I mean is they aren't stupid (well obviously some are very stupid) but narrow-minded.
London has just been bombed so as a token Brit I was frequently asked about what I thought about those terrorists. I said that they should be stopped, obviously, and that a few nutters shouldn't ruin life for everyone. And if that meant that some were shot by the police because they ran or resisted when being arrested then tough luck!
I was shocked then by the views of normal intelligent people (teachers, businessmen, students and pensioners) in response.
"Damn right! We should kill or lock-up all those Muslims!" seemed to be a common response. When I pointed out that not all Muslims were terrorists heated arguments ensued.
In the end I gave up because the crux of problem was that they didn't seem to understand the difference between the two statements:
"All Muslims are Al Quaida terrorists" and "All Al Quaida terrorists are Muslims"!
I pointed out that the argument was ridiculous and if you believed that argument then it would be the same as "All IRA terrorists are Catholics Christians therefore all Catholic Christians are terrorists" and therefore "All Catholics are Christians therefore all Christians are Catholic and as all Catholic Christians are terrorists, as prooved earlier then all Christians are terrorists!". My argument brought slurs that I was being anti-religious!
The failing to differentiate the meaning between sentences that contain the same words but in crucially different order seemed to be endemic. For instance, Nashville is in the "Bible Belt" and to use expletives (cuss words) like "Jesus Christ!" or worse "God Damn!" brings reprimands from strangers who overhear you. It seems that they don't understand the difference between "God Damn!" (a request that God damns something) and "Damn God" (an ecclesiastical conundrum)
Weirder still is that is OK to substitute "G.D." for "God Damn" as in, "I think we should shoot all those G.D. Muslims!" So either the person who'd say that is stupid or a hypocrite, or that person's god is illiterate and too stupid to spot the substitution.
In the Beginning was the Word!
posted by Karl at
8:30 PM
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