[lbo-talk] prescription

Tayssir John Gabbour tjg at pentaside.org
Thu Oct 5 03:00:26 PDT 2006


Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:

> On 5 oct. 06, at 17:40, Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:

>> Something Bertrand Russell wrote made me notice that often, such

>> dress codes are an attempt at cultural regression: "formal

>> manners are most fully developed among barbarians, and diminish

>> with every advance in culture."

>> http://www.zona-pellucida.com/essay-russel.html

>

> Which would tend to hint that Japan is one of the most barbarian

> nation on earth...

Interesting; when I learned basic Japanese, I wondered about their seemingly ritualized manners and acceptance of authority; it appeared they even encoded relations of authority within their language. (Though I've never visited Japan, so I don't know. It could be that I just hear exaggerations, and what I learned was old-fashioned.)

Working in the western tech world, I also sometimes wonder whether tech fetishism correlates with "barbarism", whatever that means; particularly since in the US we fund tech through military subsidy... the drive for new weaponry. Maybe I should read more from David Noble on tech fetishism.

Tayssir



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list