The origins of Man

[alextemplet]

Let me just ask you this, and I'll try to be civil. What's wrong with being Cajun? I'm honestly curious about this.

[charles brough]

Let me just ask you this, and I'll try to be civil. What's wrong with being Cajun? I'm honestly curious about this.

I am a classicist. I see a "high culture" developing in every civilization at a certain stage of its cycle---that is, the early maturity. It personally appeals to me as well as being a sort of benchmark in each civilization. I am proud of our Western classical culture. I love opera, ballet, etc. I appreciate classical art and poetry.

I have lived among poor people and understand them from long exposure. I am not judgemental towards them and we have helped each other through crisis. I have lived in old RV parks for 2.5 years with them and know their problems. I have listened to Cajun music and, as well, Mexican Rancheros for months without complaint. I have lived among people with long beards and in the "red neck culture" but even they do not claim that their ways are elegant, classical, the best in taste!

I am proud of you! You asked a very difficult question and I have done my best to answer it . . .

[alextemplet]

How can you claim a culture to be the "best in taste"? That seems to be extremely arrogant to me.

[charles brough]

How can you claim a culture to be the "best in taste"? That seems to be extremely arrogant to me.

Considering your own FAITH to be "the Truth" seems to me to make it "the best" in one's mind . . .which is also arrogance. I am just satisfied to believe natural cause and effect gives us merely a more acturate picture of ourselves and the universe around us. I don't claim to have "absolute knowledge."

[alextemplet]

That doesn't answer my question. "Truth" can be established based on evidence and investigation. I doubt anyone's going to claim that to be arrogance, and if you can show where I am wrong, I'll reconsider.

My question was about culture. Culture is the practices and customs of a group of people. How can you claim any one culture to be "best in taste" over others? Are Italian operas really better than zydeco music?

[charles brough]

That doesn't answer my question. "Truth" can be established based on evidence and investigation. I doubt anyone's going to claim that to be arrogance, and if you can show where I am wrong, I'll reconsider.

My question was about culture. Culture is the practices and customs of a group of people. How can you claim any one culture to be "best in taste" over others? Are Italian operas really better than zydeco music?

A) but what you have been preaching here is 2,000 year old doctrine that has nothing to do with "evidence and investigation." It has to do with your FAITH that it is THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Most scientists do not recognize that such a thing exists.

B) I am unaware that I ever said classical music was the "best". I just mentioned that I like it best. Every civilization goes through changes that are like a life cycle. Educated Muslims, for example, look back on the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries when Islam was the strongest and when its culture had become idealistic. This they view with pride. I feel the same with my (our) civilization. (On my 2nd visit to the Vatican in Rome, I recall seeing Japanese tourists placing souveneer-bought prayer beeds around their necks. I felt an immense pride in seeing them look at the high culture of our civilization at its best. I was disappointed when I saw that the Vatican was not even among the proposals advanced for the popular election of the words greatest monuments. One that WAS selected was that immense and ugly statue of Christ in Buenos Aires!))

By the way, no two things are exactly equal. Everything is different in every way. If we cannot be equal, some have to be better. You consider yourself better. That is the reason you got educated. Everyone else does also and for the same reasons. It is just that our secular doctrines encourage us to deny it. So, everyone lies to themselves!

[alextemplet]

My apologies, then; I misunderstood what you meant by "best in taste." There is of course nothing wrong with stating that you like one sort of culture more than another. We all have our favorites. And you're right, most people are lying to themselves.

[charles brough]

My apologies, then; I misunderstood what you meant by "best in taste." There is of course nothing wrong with stating that you like one sort of culture more than another. We all have our favorites. And you're right, most people are lying to themselves.

My apologies also as several times a made jabs that were meaner than they looked!

[AstusAleator]

HUGS ALL AROUND!