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We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

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Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#21

Post by rogeryu »

rogeryu wrote: post #10

Marshall McLuhan once said that the last thing a fish would ever notice in it’s habitat is the water. Likewise, the most obvious and powerful realities of our human culture seem to also be the most unrecognised. http://stoweboyd.com/2013/07/12/marshall-mcluhan-once-said-t...

It's like I have glasses, and most of the time I don't see them and I forget about them. That's a good thing I guess. Sometimes I wonder if I haven't forgot my glasses, while I am wearing them. Then I have to look for them, really look for the frame until I'm assured they are there. Stupid, but this is how it works over here! ;-)

Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#22

Post by vlehto »

Some of my friends report how eating certain mushrooms made the super creative. I have asked what they created? Nothing. The reason why they think they we're creative is because they felt creative.

This article made similar thing for me with respect to learning. I feel like I learned something. But I really don't remember what.

Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#23

Post by coderdude »

nness wrote: post #4
bonobo3000 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With sufficient advances in NLP & ML, i dream that one day you will be replaced by a bot able to generate snarky comments about slow/mobile-unfriendly/ad-riddled webpages automatically.

Or better yet, Medium could place a warning that the user has uploaded files with a hefty file-size and how it could cause performance or data issues for their readers. What a bot would be better for is people complaining about people complaining. That'd knock out a good 50% of all HN comments.

Speaking of culture, this comment reminds me of how other communities see HN. We seem to be unaware of our own culture while outsiders can see it quite well.

- "Ad hominem"

- Causation/correlation

- Complaining about ads

- Complaining about font color and size

- Complaining

- "This." (We pinched the laziest one-liner Reddit has to offer)

- Anything regarding logical fallacies

Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#24

Post by igravious »

orthoganol wrote: post #14
carapat_virulat wrote: post #12

"I already am eating from the trashcan all the time. The name of this trashcan is ideology. The material force of ideology makes me not see what I am effectively eating. It’s not only our reality which enslaves us. The tragedy of our predicament when we are within ideology is that when we think that we escape it into our dreams, at that point we are within ideology."[1] This is a really nice documentary about all the…

I thoroughly enjoy Zizek, and to actually understand him I would recommend reading his work, because the Zizek of cinema or Youtube really is a confusing, tiny glimpse of his thought. I'll also note that he's pretty unpopular in this forum. He can be pretty brutal to thinkers popular here, such as Steven Pinker. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kugiufHh800&feature=youtu.be...

I both agree and disagree with both of your points. Heh : )

a) I think that The Pervert's Guide to Ideology is quite self-contained and digestible without the need to read his (entire) work. There are YouTube clips of some of his talks/lectures that are pretty standalone as well.

b) I like Zizek. So he's popular with me for what it's worth. I like Pinker too though. Hmm. Can we not just all get along?

Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#25

Post by thecatspaw »

bonobo3000 wrote: post #3
nness wrote: post #2

Noting before reading that 15mb of animated GIF's is not a great way for an article to make a first impression.

With sufficient advances in NLP & ML, i dream that one day you will be replaced by a bot able to generate snarky comments about slow/mobile-unfriendly/ad-riddled webpages automatically.

its not like those gifs add anything of value which a still frame couldnt.

Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#26

Post by s_dev »

rogeryu wrote: post #10

Marshall McLuhan once said that the last thing a fish would ever notice in it’s habitat is the water. Likewise, the most obvious and powerful realities of our human culture seem to also be the most unrecognised. http://stoweboyd.com/2013/07/12/marshall-mcluhan-once-said-t...

Reminds me of David Foster Wallace's piece "This is Water", powerful stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#27

Post by paulojreis »

vacri wrote: post #16
rogeryu wrote: post #10

Marshall McLuhan once said that the last thing a fish would ever notice in it’s habitat is the water. Likewise, the most obvious and powerful realities of our human culture seem to also be the most unrecognised. http://stoweboyd.com/2013/07/12/marshall-mcluhan-once-said-t...

My pet peeve is people who see or read about a single festival in another culture, then talk about how "we have no culture, not like those people over there and their rich one". Yet we still go and see movies, wear certain kinds of fashion, go to sportsball events, celebrate the birth days of those near and dear, participate in office kris kringles, learn to play a particular set of musical instruments, eat out at re…

The academic definition of culture isn't the one implied when most people say "culture". The common and daily usage of "culture" is more linked to explicit "expressions" of culture.

Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#28

Post by e12e »

p4bl0 wrote: post #8

> We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it Sounds like a theorem of incompleteness :).

I wouldn't read too much into that. In that vein, I think it makes more sense to look at culture as the lossy compression we use to store value judgements of our experience -- accepting that we can only store a fraction of the "raw" data.

The best way to combat the natural narrow-mindedness that any culture forces on you, is to travel -- and if possible live for a long time (6-12 months) submerged in a different culture. The best time to do this, is probably before you fully become an adult -- living with a host-family as the "child" of a foreign culture allows/requires a degree of acceptance that is very valuable if the goal is to widen the idea of culture. Having two cultures that are sometimes contrasting, but also accepted as "real" allows one to introspect -- and realize that one really have to question everything -- there are very few universal truths.

For those that are, or have, teenagers in the house, and have the means -- I strongly advice to look into international volunteer inter-cultural programs, like:

https://www.afs.org

https://www.yfu.org

Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it

#30

Post by [deleted] »

paulojreis wrote: post #27
vacri wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet peeve is people who see or read about a single festival in another culture, then talk about how "we have no culture, not like those people over there and their rich one". Yet we still go and see movies, wear certain kinds of fashion, go to sportsball events, celebrate the birth days of those near and dear, participate in office kris kringles, learn to play a particular set of musical instruments, eat out at re…

The academic definition of culture isn't the one implied when most people say "culture". The common and daily usage of "culture" is more linked to explicit "expressions" of culture.

[deleted]
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