Designer babies are here.

[Agathon]

And when those cultures begin to engage in abstract conceptual thinking, they often create words to suit their purposes. English didn't quite have it way back then, so they borrowed Greek and Latin roots and stiched them together. Had they been closer to the Sinosphere, they may well have borrowed Chinese terms; had the Arabic Empire not fallen, they might have used Arabic roots instead.

The Chinese did not have that kind of language because they didn't think that way. You could ask my brother. He's a scholar of Classical Chinese. He'll tell you. Chinese philosophy is interesting and deep in its own way, but it isn't really the same thing. I think that a different name should be found for it.

If the English had wished to borrow that vocabulary from the Chinese, they would have found the cupboard bare.

Western culture already has a heavy Arabic influence. I take it you are familiar with algebra.

There's nothing racial about this. It just so happens that a particularly useful mode of thinking originated at one place on the planet, and we can gain a deeper understanding of it by studying the languages in which it was originally formulated.

Do you know that someone once said to me that "The Milky Way" was a stupid name and that we should use precise terminology like "Galaxy" instead?

/facepalm

But in any case, the way you're phrasing language is akin to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is that a language shapes and is shaped by thought; that level of linguistic determinism isn't quite accurate, since it seems to be a lot more wobbly than that.

Nonsense. I said no such thing. How dare you make such an insinuation!

I said language and thought are shaped by a way of living. That has nothing to do with Sapir Whorf, which is about the relation between thinking and language.

So, in other words, you're in favor of one kind of compulsory indoctrination. Which is fine. I simply disagree with your notion of what the "correct" ideology is.

To be perfectly honest, I've never been a complete democrat in the sense of the word that everyone should have the rights and responsibilities of ruling. I've always been in favor of complete liberty, but those are two separate things.

As far as modern education being troubled, yes, we agree.

Yeah. Democracy sucks alright. But liberty is worse.

[Q Classic]

Come back when you have tried to parse a long sentence from the Timaeus.

That does nothing to disprove my point, you know.

Try parsing a sentence of Palin's or Bush's and try making sense of it.

And it borrows its entire technical and scientific vocabulary from Greek and Latin. The Greeks didn't borrow it from anyone. They invented it.

Yes, because they didn't have any neighbors who had come up with those concepts yet.

They had to invent it. Much as how most other languages have done or would have done.

[Q Classic]

The Chinese did not have that kind of language because they didn't think that way. You could ask my brother. He's a scholar of Classical Chinese. He'll tell you. Chinese philosophy is interesting and deep in its own way, but it isn't really the same thing. I think that a different name should be found for it.

If the English had wished to borrow that vocabulary from the Chinese, they would have found the cupboard bare.

Eastern philosophy isn't quite philosophy, and Eastern religion isn't quite religion.

Western culture already has a heavy Arabic influence. I take it you are familiar with algebra.

Yes, quite familiar. Many of our traditional star names are Arabic in origin.

Do you know that someone once said to me that "The Milky Way" was a stupid name and that we should use precise terminology like "Galaxy" instead?

Yes, and I know it's stupid. That said, I didn't need to study Ancient Greek or Latin to know why it's stupid, seeing as (ga)lact- is generally used for milk (lactating, for example).

Nonsense. I said no such thing. How dare you make such an insinuation!

I said language and thought are shaped by a way of living. That has nothing to do with Sapir Whorf, which is about the relation between thinking and language.

Aren't living and thinking somewhat critically interrelated?

Yeah. Democracy sucks alright. But liberty is worse.

I disagree. Liberty's better, democracy's just the only form that has given us as much of it as possible while still barely functioning.

[Jon Miller]

By the way, I disagree with Kuci and think that this subject is very interesting (Agathon's and Q3ed), but don't have the little bit of reading I did 4+ years ago clear enough to be able to recall and add to it.

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

Except there's a comparative paucity of English lit from before the 1700s.

And as far as "cursory understanding of Classics", knowing Attic Greek and Latin wouldn't be necessary now, would it?

You raise the point about forcing people to learn Latin. One of the reasons why they are so deathly bored is because of the books they do read, "Catcher in the Rye" are so dull.

Give them some meat and you'll see interest in the subject.

[Ben Kenobi]

The original topic is way more interesting than this.

This is the best thread in some time. Way more interesting to discuss these issues.

[Q Classic]

You raise the point about forcing people to learn Latin. One of the reasons why they are so deathly bored is because of the books they do read, "Catcher in the Rye" are so dull.

Give them some meat and you'll see interest in the subject.

I assure you, swapping out the current canon for the Classical literature you favor will not change things at all. You will still find the majority of students "deathly bored" with those works as they are with these modern ones.

(Conversely, you'll see a different set interested. There are students who love Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace, my antipathy to those books notwithstanding. Actually, one could consider my utter hatred of them to be of a different nature than "deathly bored".)

Besides, reading shouldn't be as crass as a dog stuffing its face into a steak.

[Lorizael]

By the way, I disagree with Kuci and think that this subject is very interesting (Agathon's and Q3ed)...

I agree. I should troll obiwan18 more often.

[Ben Kenobi]

I assure you, swapping out the current canon for the Classical literature you favor will not change things at all. You will still find the majority of students "deathly bored" with those works as they are with these modern ones.

The classics have not forgotten the good things in life. Hope, joy and love abound.

You assign books like that, rather then our old drudgery, you will see students read the books.

Besides, reading shouldn't be as crass as a dog stuffing its face into a steak.

It should be an adventure not social commentary after social commentary.

How about a list like this:

1. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
2. Morte D'Arthur, Thomas Malory
3. Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
4. The Tales of Marco Polo,
5. The Decameron, Boccaccio
6. Utopia, Sir Thomas More
7. Henry V, Shakespeare
8. Arabian Nights, William Lane
9. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
10. Paradise Lost, John Milton
11. Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan
12. Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
13. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
14. War and Peace, Tolstoy
15. From the Earth to the Moon, Verne
16. Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain
17. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
18. The War of the Worlds, HG Wells
19. The Idylls of the King, Tennyson
20. Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky
21. Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
22. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
23. Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs
24. All Quiet on the Western Front
25. The Maltese Falcon
26. Lord of the Rings Trilogy
27. One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

[Q Classic]

I don't know if you know this, a lot of those books, when placed in the context of when they were written, are social commentary.

[Kuciwalker]

And it borrows its entire technical and scientific vocabulary from Greek and Latin. The Greeks didn't borrow it from anyone. They invented it.

Actually, do you know that to be true?

[Kuciwalker]

It should be an adventure not social commentary after social commentary.

1. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes

[Kuciwalker]

****, it'd be easier to point out the ones on that list that aren't social commentary.

[Theben]

#6 would be in the definitely social commentary.

[Lorizael]

Tsk tsk tsk. Someone's not using his ignore list.