He's 19. He wants to F with people, like all 19-year-olds.Originally Posted by Pedal2Metal
He's 19. He wants to F with people, like all 19-year-olds.
yeah.. i guess support his right to do it at least in this sense. I however dont think it is much of a beacon of hope to have that sort of attitude towards a flag at all, flags are just flags. The support comes from the fact think it is equally dumb to be offended by a flag (in itself).
Seems complicated. When I went to Grand Rapids Community College I was similarly told not to wear a burned up American flag as a cape, but once I contacted the ACLU the university backed away from the issue. There was a student who tore it off my jacket and ran off with it, but I replaced it with another. Also, when I was at MSU I put up a Nazi flag which my roommate didn't like too much. We compromised by covering most of it with fabric, but it was still clear to most what it was. Also, while in Grand Rapids I shaved my head bald and drew a Nazi symbol on my forehead. And in Nashville I wore a Confederate hat from time to time---sometimes while wearing pretty dresses.
In each case I had different reasons. I suppose intentions do matter. The young man in the article seemed more articulate than most kids his age, and thus what he is doing seems smarter and more informed than 95% of kids who wear name brands for the most superficial of reasons: mass conformity. If anything, the majority of these kids more closely resemble racist, narrow-minded behavior than the guy in the article. I'm not saying his reasons were perfect, but he certainly seems more thoughtful about his life than the vast majority. And given an opportunity to have conversation either with him or most bourgeois, apathetic, one-dimensional kids which populate this country of ours, I'd much rather spend my time with him.
Zef wore a cape. Ha ha!
If I'd been your roommate and you hung up a swastika, I would have assumed it was your way of asking to have your face smashed in. We had neo-nazis around my school - not attending, just looking for weirdos to beat up. Some of my friends got hurt pretty badly.
haha, this is so supporting my cliche view of a philosophy professor and at the same time very, very troubled youth.
isn't he just someone looking for attention and trying to provoke as thrasher says? he doesn't necessarily seem above-average intelligent to me. if that kind of behavior is enough to be acceptable to you you'll be glad to hear that it's quite normal behavior at that age. conformity is a very strong psychological force and an important one as well. if people choose to play the consumerist game i wouldn't give up on them. it's also natural. your view of your fellow humans sometimes seems bitter and unrealistic to me. have you ever tried travelling?In each case I had different reasons. I suppose intentions do matter. The young man in the article seemed more articulate than most kids his age, and thus what he is doing seems smarter and more informed than 95% of kids who wear name brands for the most superficial of reasons: mass conformity. If anything, the majority of these kids more closely resemble racist, narrow-minded behavior than the guy in the article. I'm not saying his reasons were perfect, but he certainly seems more thoughtful about his life than the vast majority. And given an opportunity to have conversation either with him or most bourgeois, apathetic, one-dimensional kids which populate this country of ours, I'd much rather spend my time with him.
Is the media around the world speaks a bit about the action of Canada at Durban? Or nobody cares about Canada anyway?
interesting the other philosophy professor I know online also had a pretty troubled youth.
not sure this invalidates my suport for him (such as it is) because we need people to provoke so that bad ideas get challenged. Even if he was provoking a bit randomly, in this case he has stumbled across a point with some validity.
you mean you kiled kyoto? meh it was on life support anyway... someone needed to pull the trigger...
It has become boring watching china and the usa argue about what sort of non binding policies they can agree to and then not enact.
Yeah that part
I don't really consider myself canadian, even if it's what written on my passport. I'm from Qubec, I'm speaking french which is the official language of my province, we have code civil here (as in France), we have a very distinct culture and a very distinct society (at least, that's what we like to think...).
We are respecting Kyoto here! The only province in Canada that is, even if there is good effort in British Columbia and to a lesser measure in Ontario.
i'm not saying it's bad to provoke. just saying that it's not unusual but quite normal.
Yeah, there were violent types who started fights with me quite a bit back then. Especially when I wore dresses, combat boots, the hawk, and lots of make-up all over my face. Nearly every other day of my life from 17-23 random strangers in restaurants or driving by on streets would yell at me, curse me out, or make some kind of inane comment. Whether it was for wearing the American flag as a cape, shaving my head like a racist skinhead, or plastering my face with mud, people drew all sorts of conclusions about my personality which had no basis in reality. Which of course was part of my point back then: Judging others based upon appearances is prone to error. Of course now I believe that appearances do tend to say something about who we are internally, but nevertheless there are always exceptions.
A counter-argument would of course be that certain symbols, such as the American or Nazi flags, have historically determined meanings, and thus it's irrational to expect others not to make judgements based on those socially recognized meanings. To some extent that's true, but even socially accepted markers of meaning are prone to artistic reinvention. Hence I always thought it ironic that the very people who judged me to be racist were themselves formulating knee-jerk responses akin to racism.
He could be looking for attention: I don't know. People used to always say the exact same thing about me, as if anyone who had different tastes, or was unusual, must not really like or believe in what they're doing. But it's totally plausible that this kid is simply acting on what he believes to be true to himself. I could also flip the ad hominem around: people who dress and think like everyone else, getting married and pursuing college degrees like all their bourgeois friends, are hiding from their inner lonliness and anxiety. I suppose in both cases, for the conformist and the non-conformist alike, there are potential psychological traps---but these traps can be avoided in both cases when the individuals honestly reflect on the reasons for their behavior. Hence in neither case can we presume that that kind of self-honesty isn't possible.
As for non-conformist behavior being "normal" at his age, that's somewhat true: kids tend to take more risks than their elders. But at the same time there is non-conformity which is really just another layer of mindless trend-following, and then there is non-conformity which takes genuine risks with the ritualized barriers of self-identity.
I agree that it's normal to a certain extent. A black student with a Confederate flag, however, is a bit more atypical than most of his fellow students. Even at my age I find that so many of my students, which should be more experimental and creative than I, act surprised when I ask various questions---for example, whether it's acceptable to have more than one sex partner at a time. They simply accept monogamy as the only viable norm. Likewise they all celebrate Christmas and the holidays without challenging whether these celebrations are necessary. They just don't think of creating lives for themselves in any other way than what has been deemed normal by society. Even an old sell out such as myself, someone who is jaded and plays Xbox, has more imagination than 20 year old kids who should be living more passionately.
I wonder if I can scan one of my old pics from back in the day and put it up as my avatar? That would be funny...
i didn't mean to say that looking for attention excludes the possibility of believing in whatever it is you're showcasing. quite the contrary, both phenomena probably appear quite often together. i remember walking around in clothes signalling all kinds of antagonisms (primarily right-wing movements) to my school culture which i perceived as conformistically leftist. this was both because i wanted to provoke and draw attention to myself and because i believed in both anti-conformity and many right-wing positions. what you signaled by dressing very weirdly was very likely also anti-conformity--because you believed in it and because you wanted to provoke. the same goes for that college student.
i agree.I suppose in both cases, for the conformist and the non-conformist alike, there are potential psychological traps---but these traps can be avoided in both cases when the individuals honestly reflect on the reasons for their behavior. Hence in neither case can we presume that that kind of self-honesty isn't possible.
perhaps that's just because not everyone is an abstract person such as you and me and those questions simply don't matter to them. they feel safe in a prefixed world and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. they might be very practical people, be intelligent, and become very talented engineers, craftsmen, or researchers in the natural sciences, all of which i couldn't, at least not when my goal is happiness. all these areas might require a certain degree of existential security. questioning the very foundations of accepted life already belongs to philosophy in my opinion and as you yourself once stated we can't expect everyone to be interested in it.
I don't think that changes my response... which is that we just don't know. You may or may not be excluding other possibilities, but we just don't know if one of his motives was to grab attention. And if we did I'm not sure what it would prove. The way you phrased your view earlier seemed dismissive ("isn't he just someone looking for attention?"), but I'm not sure how an ad hominem argument is relevant here. If you're now saying that you're not excluding the possibility that he is expressing his genuine beliefs, how is your comment about his attention-seekng relevant? I'm not quite following. Obviously ad hominem arguments don't prove anything about the validity of his beliefs, so are you throwing it out there for some other reason? What would that reason be?
I think I agree with this, although perhaps from a different angle. When I was in my 20s I was contimually disappointed by other individuals' lack of authenticity, experimentation, and passion. In the last 10 years of my life, perhaps like you, I've come to accept that most people will never be like us. Also like you I've come to realize that it's basically fine: I don't judge most animals for lacking various tools and abilities which humans have, so why should I judge other humans for acting in an unconscious way similar to those animals? Where we seem to differ is that I therefore find it equally acceptable to take up an elitist view, which stipulates that I will align myself more closely to people who are self-aware as opposed to those who are not. I don't judge the others in an absolute sense of wrong-doing, but only as a practical and natural result of being drawn to what heightens the experience of life versus those cultural habits which deaden it.
I certainly feel that symbols have meaning. Would you burn a cross on the lawn of the only African-American family in your neighborhood just to show that symbols are meaningless? I hope (and expect) not because that would be a seriously F'd up thing to do and it wouldn't be meaningless at all.
But I totally get what you were trying to say in your youth. I think it's pretty similar to what the kid with the Confederate flag is doing in a way. He just doesn't want to be pigeonholed which is totally understandable.
so, your point was that we don't know what his motivations are? i agree.
the ad hominem "he is just looking for attention" is here appropriate because it was directed at a comment of yours which indicated that the guy is somehow doing something noteworthy and laudable that distinguished him from his contemporaries while my point was that this is normal behavior.
if by "elitist" you only mean that you will socialize with people who are abstract in nature like yourself i understand even though i personally feel that interaction with people with very different worldviews is a wonderful experience. if by "elitist" you mean that your kind of people is the better kind i don't understand and this view seems to resonate in your comment when you liken less abstract humans to the unconscious being of other animals. it would probably be easy to flip this around and postulate that people in the natural sciences are more worthy than you because they contribute more practically to society. and i've often heard craftsmen say that they dislike that we college graduates can't even "do anything with out hands anymore" nowadays which to me seems like a valid reflection of some of the estrangement of our society.
it's settled, i am going to emigrate to america.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA
Can we avoid judgements like those you listed? If we have values then these values must express some kind of discernment in the world in terms of what is preferable or not preferable. Hence we can't avoid cultural hierarchies.
That's not to say that some of these groups won't be able to work together for a common cause. None of us can survive without others. Nevertheless we can't help but judge the world according to our lived values. Multiculturalism pretends to respect all diverse cultural values, but ultimately it's an attempt to weaken society by supressing our natural hostilities toward one another.
Totally, completely agreed. I simply stated that those meanings are susceptible to reinvention or what some call reappropriation. There are plenty of artists, poets, and creative types who do this in their art; they take a symbol which has a specific meaning and recontextualize it to provoke us to dig deeper. And insofar as there are no srtict dichotomies between life and art -- as the former can be viewed as a kind of performance art --I believe that thoughtful people will refrain from making dogmatic assertions about the motives of others based upon external appearances (such as attire). For example, many people used to think I was gay when I wore lots of make-up and long flowing dresses. But that was an error. Likewise we can never be sure of why someone wears a Confederate flag hat until we get to know them and learn about their personalities. We can make temporary judgements, but these should be open to revision.
that would be tresspassing followed by starting of a fire without a permit in a resiential area... Hopefully you'd get a big fine and a protection order for that.
But I think a confederate flag or a nazi flag dont exactly say "i'm going to kill you" quite like burning a cross in your yard does.
I'm inclined to draw a fine line where I ban gang patches (for gangs which you make illegal, which can be done quite liberally) but allow nazi flags...
I'm sure you're aware that the nazis killed millions of people, many more than the KKK, so a nazi flag can certainly mean "I'm going to kill you." I wasn't talking about whether or not something should be legal. I was talking about whether or not a symbol has meaning.
If it means "Im going to kill you" (in the strong sense) it should definitely be illegal - since telling you I'm going to kill you is illegal.
Maybe I look at it a bit differently but that the NAZI killed lots of people doesnt directly lead to their flag meaning "I'm going to kill you" in all context. Afterall the US flag doesn't generally mean "I'm going to kill you", nor does the Chinese one.
Ok, but why point out something that was obvious & intentional? Just making conversation?
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Wow! Fantastic exchange on the 19 yr old kid. Glad I posted that one.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Was it intentional? Are you being deliberately myopic? Are you being myopic because your perception is that humans are myopic and you want to be human? Now that would be ironic.
I said it can mean that, but again I'm talking about whether symbols have meaning, not whether something should be illegal. Obviously the attraction of symbols is that one can say something without overtly saying it. That's why we identify hate crimes. Because if I throw trash in my neighbor's yard, that's just an obnoxious nuisance but if I put some symbol of hate in his yard which implies a threat, that's more serious.
Those flags could well mean that in a certain context. If I were some kind of crazed nationalist and an immigrant moved to my neighborhood, I could use the stars and stripes to communicate some hateful message with implied violence.
http://noticias.univision.com/docume...#axzz1g5aE2iso
This aired on UniVision just last week. It means "The Iranian Threat". It's a major expose on Iran (along w/Venezuela, Cuba) & if you can speak Spanish, you will likely find it eye-opening as you've heard nothing of this in Western media. It's quite interesting that no Western news source has carried this story yet as it's a major journalistic investigation on the order of 60 minutes, Nightline, etc... with significant relevance to the international scene right now. For those that think Iran isn't active internationally in terrorist planning, using high ranking government officials, etc... this coverage puts that misguided belief completely to shame. Iran is also seeking to be in bed with the drug cartels for funding to counteract the international channels while the drug cartels get cheap, motivated, & plentiful muscle. It's a win-win for both groups. We ourselves have on-the-ground contacts in Colombia that confirm this. The results are absolutely frightening & devastating for poor people trying to live a simple & righteous life as murder/mayhem/forced desertion is commonplace, especially of church members/leaders, government officials, etc....
It's just insane something of this enormity is being ignored in the Western media due to "walking on eggshells" phenomenon (imo) as relating to Islamists & Palestinian agenda as well as Venezuela & Cuba involvement. Oh well, stupid is as stupid does.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
I completly believe this could be absolutly true and they could do way worst than that and I wouldn't be surprised. I think that USA must be doing things similar in Iran and middle east. There is no surprise there. Trying to win by any means possible.
Well, if the USA is sending people to run around & murder people in broad daylight, shouting "Free USA", etc... then honestly, that would be incredibly blatantly stupid.
That's what's happening on the ground in Colombia. Small towns have virtually no government protection & the cartels + Islamists can come in & simply murder/intimidate/etc... to their heart's content. It's incredibly terrifying & it's personally affecting as we know many people there.
I doubt the USA is doing that specifically, although I could agree it would engage in spying & destabilization activities as any normal adversarial government does.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
I know. It has more ressources, experience and subtility. It also has an image that has to be protected internationnaly.
To think what is happening is worse then what was done by US or most government calls for a review of historical data.
Thinking that one is good and the other is bad only feeds more hatred between people.
from what i can understand on the basis of a google chrome translation, this sounds like quite typical behavior of a state. you know, trying to interfere and sabotage. it might also just be a conspiracy theory which wouldn't surprise me as the authors of the article take the alleged iranian terror attack in the US for granted even though the evidence was never presented by the US government and most experts highly doubt that the inculpated iranian terror organization would have acted so amateurishly and that the incidence could have happened as described by US officials. i can't really meaningfully digest the evidence because of the bad translation so i can't properly judge that. anyway, ever thought that this might be the reason why it's not reported in the west? just saying. and it's also an open secret that israel is executing iranian nuclear scientists with the help of the US so i don't think you guys act very differently. and even if it was all true that mexicans, cubans, and iranians are evil bastards that only try to destroy the perfectly moral and free west by committing terror as described in the article, it still wouldn't be a justification for attacking iran. also just saying.
anyway, you're acting on the assumption that the US government generally tells the truth and is morally intact while i'm not which is why our opinions on such matters will naturally deviate rather harshly.
Last edited by ShowtekGER; 12-12-2011 at 12:41 PM.
what judgments?
you express this argument quite often but i'm not sure if i understand it. assuming that it is true that hostilities between groups are natural, what is your proposal on how to live side by side?That's not to say that some of these groups won't be able to work together for a common cause. None of us can survive without others. Nevertheless we can't help but judge the world according to our lived values. Multiculturalism pretends to respect all diverse cultural values, but ultimately it's an attempt to weaken society by supressing our natural hostilities toward one another.
anyway, the basis for such a claim isn't that strong either. i know some theories about in- and out-groups which convincingly make the same statement as you but i also know equally convincing social constructionist theories which posit the opposite. more importantly, my personal life experience pressingly tells me that you're wrong because i know that hostilities only exist as long as we accept them as such. and lack of such acceptance can be reached by proper education, upbringing, individual reflection, etc. i too believe that the purpose of existence somewhat implies antagonisms between and in humans as well as other conflicts but they're there to be overcome.
I think the bold/underline sums up your response. If that's all you had said, it would have been a rational & reasoned response.
Instead you decided to go the nonsense route. Basically, you're pontificating w/o any actual data to draw from. Might I add the US Government had nothing to do with this investigation so your statement of a non-existent assumption is nothing more than an illusion conjured up at will to disguise the intellectual void of your position which is based on on nothing more than conjecture, specious arguments, presumed psychic powers, & prejudice since by your own admission, you really don't have a clue about the story content itself. Amazing, you even wrote a response (well not really, expected & devoid of content as expected as well). I guess data is simply irrelevant, huh? At least you're consistent.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Now for something really important... Football & Tebow!
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slu...k_bears_121111
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
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