I have to say that’s fairly stupid (I’m talking about the claim which the quote is making and generalizing over a whole population; I am not doing argumentum ad hominem here).
I’ve seen many sorts of (fascinated) mythical claims on how the Japanese think/communicate/have sex/you name it differently and they’re all … well, purely mythical. Even if I, for the purposes of this argument, assume that beoShaffer is right about his/her Japanese teacher (and not just imagining or bending traits into supporting his/her pre-defined belief), it’s meaningless and does not validate the above claim. Just for the sake of illustration, the simplest explanation for such usages is some linguistic convention (which actually makes sense, since the page from which the quote is sourced is substantially talking about the Japanese Language).
Unless someone has some solid proof that it’s actually related to thinking rather than some other social/linguistic convention, this is meaningless (and stupid).
Well, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the idea that language shapes thought and/or culture, and Whorfianism is any school of thought based on this hypothesis. I assume pop-Whorfianism is just Whorfian speculation by people who aren’t qualified in the field (and who tend to assume that the language/culture relationship is far more deterministic than it actually is).
Just-so stories about the relationships between language and culture. (The worst thing is that, while just-so stories about evolutionary psychology are generally immediately identified as sexist/classist/*ist drivel, just-so stories about language tend to be taken seriously no matter how ludicrous they are.)
With all respect that I’m generically required to give, I don’t care whether you care or not. The argument I made was handling what you posted/quoted, neither you as a person nor your motives to posting.
That is a hugely unfair assessment of my motives (unlike abody97′s comment which claims not to be about my motives, which I also doubt). People say untrue things all the time, e.g. when storytelling. The goal of storytelling is not to directly relate the truth of some particular experience, and I didn’t think the goal of posting rationality quotes was either, considering how many quotes these posts get from various works of fiction. I posted this quote for no reason other than to suggest an interesting rationality lesson, and calling that “bullshit” sneaks in unnecessary connotations.
Yes, but that quote is written in such a way that most readers¹ would assume it’s true (or at least that the writer believes it’s true); so it’s not like storytelling. And most readers¹ would find it interesting because they’d think it’s true; if I pulled some claim about $natural_language having $weird_feature directly out of my ass and concluded with “… Just kidding.”, I doubt many people¹ would find it that interesting.
OK, I admit I’m mostly Generalizing From One Example.
Would you be satisfied if I edited the original post to read something like “note: I have no particular reason to believe that this is literally true, but I think it holds an interesting rationality lesson either way. Feel free to substitute ‘Zorblaxians’ for ‘Japanese’”?
I have to say that’s fairly stupid (I’m talking about the claim which the quote is making and generalizing over a whole population; I am not doing argumentum ad hominem here).
I’ve seen many sorts of (fascinated) mythical claims on how the Japanese think/communicate/have sex/you name it differently and they’re all … well, purely mythical. Even if I, for the purposes of this argument, assume that beoShaffer is right about his/her Japanese teacher (and not just imagining or bending traits into supporting his/her pre-defined belief), it’s meaningless and does not validate the above claim. Just for the sake of illustration, the simplest explanation for such usages is some linguistic convention (which actually makes sense, since the page from which the quote is sourced is substantially talking about the Japanese Language).
Unless someone has some solid proof that it’s actually related to thinking rather than some other social/linguistic convention, this is meaningless (and stupid).
Agreed. Pop-whorfianism is usually silly.
I’m not familiar with this term and your link did not clarify as much as I had hoped. Could you give a clearer definition?
Well, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the idea that language shapes thought and/or culture, and Whorfianism is any school of thought based on this hypothesis. I assume pop-Whorfianism is just Whorfian speculation by people who aren’t qualified in the field (and who tend to assume that the language/culture relationship is far more deterministic than it actually is).
Thanks.
Just-so stories about the relationships between language and culture. (The worst thing is that, while just-so stories about evolutionary psychology are generally immediately identified as sexist/classist/*ist drivel, just-so stories about language tend to be taken seriously no matter how ludicrous they are.)
I don’t care whether it’s actually true or not; either way it still holds an interesting rationality lesson and that’s why I posted it.
With all respect that I’m generically required to give, I don’t care whether you care or not. The argument I made was handling what you posted/quoted, neither you as a person nor your motives to posting.
I think the technical term for that is “bullshit”.
That is a hugely unfair assessment of my motives (unlike abody97′s comment which claims not to be about my motives, which I also doubt). People say untrue things all the time, e.g. when storytelling. The goal of storytelling is not to directly relate the truth of some particular experience, and I didn’t think the goal of posting rationality quotes was either, considering how many quotes these posts get from various works of fiction. I posted this quote for no reason other than to suggest an interesting rationality lesson, and calling that “bullshit” sneaks in unnecessary connotations.
Yes, but that quote is written in such a way that most readers¹ would assume it’s true (or at least that the writer believes it’s true); so it’s not like storytelling. And most readers¹ would find it interesting because they’d think it’s true; if I pulled some claim about $natural_language having $weird_feature directly out of my ass and concluded with “… Just kidding.”, I doubt many people¹ would find it that interesting.
OK, I admit I’m mostly Generalizing From One Example.
Would you be satisfied if I edited the original post to read something like “note: I have no particular reason to believe that this is literally true, but I think it holds an interesting rationality lesson either way. Feel free to substitute ‘Zorblaxians’ for ‘Japanese’”?
Yes.