When I first learned that electricity is carried only on the outside of the wire and nothing travels through the center, I thought it was total nonsense. I was then shown the differential equations that proved it and I still thought it was madness. In any case, it's been proven true over and over again.
In the middle of our current cultural insanity, it's dawning on me that the lunatic ideas we hear all around us have only a single thing going for them - they're popular. Imagine how you'd react if the idea wasn't part of a common topic of conversation, but something you didn't think about very often.
Let's start with an illustrative example.
"The world is perched on the back of a turtle."
"What?"
"The world is perched on the back of a turtle."
"You're a nut."
You would naturally categorize the turtle-perch theorist as a crackpot and all further missives from him would be viewed with great skepticism, particularly if he told you that electricity only flows on the outside of the wire.
Now let's try a recent example.
"This Dr. Seuss book should be banned."
"What? Why?"
"It mentions a Chinese man who eats with sticks and has a drawing of him."
"So?"
"That's racist!"
"Why? Chinese men eat with sticks. The book was written for 4-year-olds. If they've never seen someone eat with chopsticks, they'd think it was funny."
"It's still racist!"
"No, you're a nut."
Again, stickophobe would be categorized as a loon and you'd disregard them from there on out.
The moral of the story is that we're only listening to the crackpots because there are so many of them. The moral of the electrical wire story is that true is true even if only one person says it.
The number of people holding a belief is irrelevant.
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| This is Cardi B doing a pole dance at the recent Grammys. No matter how many people repeat it, she is not a strong, black woman. She's a degenerate and so are all the people involved with this. |
"This Dr. Seuss book should be banned."
ReplyDeleteNo Dr. Seuss books have been banned. Zero. None.
Why? Chinese men eat with sticks. The book was written for 4-year-olds. If they've never seen someone eat with chopsticks, they'd think it was funny.
Which is *why* it is racist, much in the same way as the religious types think that it is anti-religious when atheists make fun of people praying.
The first principle is that nobody should be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is foreign; the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong because it is funny. The reaction of his senses and superficial habits of mind against something new, and to him abnormal, is a perfectly healthy reaction. But the mind which imagines that mere unfamiliarity can possibly prove anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. It is inadequate even in criticising things that may really be inferior to the things involved[Pg 3] here. It is far better to laugh at a negro for having a black face than to sneer at him for having a sloping skull. It is proportionally even more preferable to laugh rather than judge in dealing with highly civilised peoples. Therefore I put at the beginning two working examples of what I felt about America before I saw it; the sort of thing that a man has a right to enjoy as a joke, and the sort of thing he has a duty to understand and respect, because it is the explanation of the joke.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/27250/27250-h/27250-h.htm
Foxfier,
ReplyDeleteThank you for clarifying that your standard, along with Chesterton's, is "I could be a lot worse".
It is far better to laugh at a negro for having a black face than to sneer at him for having a sloping skull. It is proportionally even more preferable to laugh rather than judge in dealing with highly civilised peoples.
Would it not be even better to appreciate the black face without the need for laughter, proportionately even more preferable to understand as opposed to laughing?
One Brow-
ReplyDeleteThat is because you are unable to imagine the idea of laughing in delight at something incongruous, rather than laughter as an attack.
A child, on the other hand, can still find joy in that which is different enough to delight.
Foxfier,
ReplyDeletePlease describe what is incongruous about a person using chopsticks.
Were you aware that laughter is based on a interrupted fear reaction?
When children see someone doing something unusual for the first time, like eating with chopsticks, the reactions I usually see indicate interest and curiosity, not amusement. It takes an adult (or at least, an adolescent) to laugh at other people for being who they are.
OneBrow-
ReplyDeleteeven if I were ignorant of the fact that you do not function in good faith, there is no way I can explain a thing to someone who cannot figure out what the word incongruous means.
Your nonsense idea that someone is expressing an "interrupted fear reaction" when they giggle because someone asked: What do you get if you cross an elephant and a rhino? Elif-I-no! is just eye-rollingly foolish, even for you. And that is saying something.
What if one person says it? I'll I am not the only or first person to say "OneBrow is intentionally dense and a troll."
ReplyDeleteodd. I lost a bet, literally
ReplyDeleteIt should say 'I'll bet I am . . .'
First: It's interesting (but not amusing) to encounter someone who views amusement as mockery only. Probably says something about what they find funny.
ReplyDeleteSecond: Banning can be de facto as well as de jure. Just because something is not censored or banned by government through legal means, doesn't mean it hasn't been censored or banned.
Third: Why complain about a picture of a Chinese man with sticks placed on a page right next to a hillbilly and across from a weird enormous Russian? Not that anyone should complain about those either, but there you go.
F
Foxfier,
ReplyDeleteOdd that you complain about my using the word in the context you did. Your acknowledgement that it did not apply was self-defeating.
The relationship between fear and laughter has been studied for decades. Yes, it's precise the surprise aspect of that joke, when you don't know what will happen, that engages your fear response to a mild degree, when the fear response is released, you laugh. That's why jokes lose their power with repetition; there is no more surprise, hence no more fear reaction.
Of course, you are more than welcome to casually dismiss this and not to actually learn this for yourself.
JP,
ReplyDeleteLife is a dense subject. You have to work hard to understand things. If you feel I'm missing something, feel free to expand upon it. If all you have are empty insults, I'll feel free to think you have nothing of substance to offer.
Synova,
ReplyDeleteI agree that humor should be better than mockery. Nice to know I'm not alone there.
Normally, when people choose not to buy something, and we encourage others to not buy it, we call that capitalism. I don't go around moaning that Lemon Zone bars were "cancelled", not enough people were buying them. Here, even that pressure doesn't apply. The people that own the books chose to not publish them anymore. They could have kept on selling them, and there was no large push to ban them. A decision to cease publication happens to books every day. If the owners of the Dr. Seuss library hadn't been trying to cash in on good will by making this announcement, no one would have noticed.
You have a unwittingly good point about the hillbilly.