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How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

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Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#151

Post by girvo »

yesenadam wrote: post #130
cambalache wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend, this was something that surprised me 15-20 years ago when thanks to the Internet I started to interact with Americans. At the end Western is a code word for White dominated places or sometimes just Anglo. This came from Huntington's Clash of Civilizations a profoundly ignorant work. As you wrote you can live in Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo or Mexico City, huge cosmopolitan places, maybe you have some recent rel…

That's one of the greatest comments I've read on here. 100% gringo here, UK-born Australian. About 10 years ago I started meeting latin americans online (also filipinos), I liked them so much I learnt spanish and was soon chatting online 95% with latin american friends. Played Clash of Clans in a colombian clan hehe, love watching online chess tournament commentary in spanish etc. Am starting to love Portuguese too.…

Man, go spend a couple months in Cuba. Prejudice and bigotry doesn’t really discriminate based on colour! They’re on the whole the loveliest people I’ve met, but go out rural and they’re basically the Cuban version of your racists white redneck

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#152

Post by daveslash »

jordigh wrote: post #27

I know this is a bit petty, but I've stared to resent a little that even though I'm Mexican, I'm not considered Western. What am I, then? Eastern? Central? Southern? I'm not just arguing about the geography, but about the culture. I feel much more like a Canadian or a USian (or a Guatemalan) than I feel like an African, Middle Easter, East Asian, or South Asian. I speak the same languages as Europe, have been mostly…

Keep in mind that this article was written in response to a book that an anthropologist recently wrote. At the risk of sounding distrustful of academics, I do sometimes wonder if some anthropologists view the world through an "us vs. them" lens - trying to understand the differences in cultures. FWIW, as a person of 100% European decent who grew up in New England, I consider all of Latin America to be Western for the reasons you pointed out (with the exception of the un-contacted Amazonian tribes).

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#153

Post by fjsolwmv »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #64
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poorer cultures wind up naturally more people centered than richer cultures, which wind up more thing centered Source? Comparing Switzerland to the United States, and even within the United States, wealthy versus lower-income regions, I found lower to mid-middle class households to possess a more-pronounced attachment to possessions than households higher up. (Partly because attaining those things may have involved…

I was not thinking of deprived families within a wealthy country. I was thinking of indigenous cultures and less developed countries. I have taken formal study in things like social psychology, I have read a lot and I have traveled and had friends in various countries or regions. I can't cite a specific source that says that. Some of it is personal observation. In the US, the Deep South where I grew up has historical…

The way you felt taken advantage of seems extremely similar to the way Americans feel about "big corporations". Maybe it is less face to face, it it's the same concept.

And of court in a country with such a huge legacy of slavery, taking advantage of people is very American.

And there's the classic American activity of the "confidence scam", used car sales, MLM, crack/heroin/meth dealers, fake rehab clinics and fake debt counselors... Anywhere there are more clever people than accessible valuable problems to solve , taking advantage pops up.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#154

Post by fjsolwmv »

PebblesRox wrote: post #128
jacobolus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have different ideas of “responsible”, and different levels of risk they are comfortable with. I read an article a year ago about an anthropologist doing field work somewhere in a hunter-gatherer village in Africa marveling that a 9-month-old baby was playing with a machete. The anthropologist asked the mother if she was afraid the kid would get hurt. The mother said “he’ll figure out soon that the machete is…

I love Teacher Tom's mindset. He views risky activities as essential for kids to learn how to be safe. While supervision is important, meddling is unhelpful. They can do a lot when we step back and let them explore their own physical capabilities. I've adopted his phrase: "I won't help you, but I won't let you get hurt." http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-process-of-r... I love how he makes ridiculous su…

I don't understand. Obviously the kids learned that by their parental authoritu drilling a false myth into their heads, not by direct experience and critical thinking.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#155

Post by fjsolwmv »

dkarl wrote: post #146
rossdavidh wrote: post #12

Reminds me of something I read from Jared Diamond, wherein he said that in traditional societies that he had investigated, the kids play is just small versions of the adults life, that gets more and more realistic until it's the real thing. So, a child gets a piglet to look after, if the adults raise pigs. This would make sense from a biological point of view; the young watch the adults and imitate what they're doing…

Yes, kids have a great appetite to become more adult and take great pride in it. I suspect what the psychologist was observing was that children were eager to start doing the things that earn appreciation among adults. This doesn't translate at all to the affluent west where housework is taken for granted and doesn't earn anybody respect. I think kids are sensitive enough to intuit that it's because there's no social…

I think all humans deserve respect and a decent wage, but treating housework (and its ilk) with contempt is the source of the great progress of recent centuries, automating work to increase productivity and wealth and leisure time for those who want it.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#156

Post by johnchristopher »

Bakary wrote: post #137
johnchristopher wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a quote about culture in star trek: somehow, in this utopy, they only know of Shakespeare,an edgy hard boiled detective character, Captain Proton and baseball. The vision americans had for the ST utopia was very los angeles centered.

Are there any notable SF works where it's more or less impossible to estimate the culture and era of the author?

It's an SF precursor but it seems to me few people know that Frankenstein comes from a book written by a woman 200 years ago (I just realized it's that old. Surprised no one produced a 200th anniversary movie).

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#157

Post by acjacobson »

colanderman wrote: post #125
acheron wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please let me know which countries have "America" in their name and I will be happy to refer to people from any of them as "Americans".

You must never call anyone "European" and "Asian" then, owing to the lack of countries incorporating those terms in their names.

I think a reason this is less noticeable to people from the United States is because our continental model is different from the model taught in Latin America (7-Continent vs 6-Continent). In Argentina, for instance, you're more likely to learn there is one continent called 'America' that encompasses what people from the US consider two continents - North and South America. So for a person from the United States there is no conflict in referring to people from a continent vs. their own country because they are all distinct. A person could be 'North American', 'South American', 'American' or even 'Latin American' and the terms are completely clear and distinct to someone from the United States. There is no term that groups people from both North & South America together in English (that I am aware of). This naturally causes problems for people that don't think about continents that way and feel that 'American' referring solely to people from the US is condescending because it uses the continental term they are accustomed to and also excludes them from it. While I agree it is condescending, I think it is unintentionally so, and it is rooted more in language and geographic convention. While I try to be aware of it and avoid using the term 'American' where it might cause offense there isn't a widely adopted alternative in English. The opposite is the case in Spanish, where it would be quite rude to refer to oneself as American when one means Estadounidense because thats the term that matches the culture, language, and convention.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#158

Post by [deleted] »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #153
DoreenMichele wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not thinking of deprived families within a wealthy country. I was thinking of indigenous cultures and less developed countries. I have taken formal study in things like social psychology, I have read a lot and I have traveled and had friends in various countries or regions. I can't cite a specific source that says that. Some of it is personal observation. In the US, the Deep South where I grew up has historical…

The way you felt taken advantage of seems extremely similar to the way Americans feel about "big corporations". Maybe it is less face to face, it it's the same concept. And of court in a country with such a huge legacy of slavery, taking advantage of people is very American. And there's the classic American activity of the "confidence scam", used car sales, MLM, crack/heroin/meth dealers, fake rehab clinics and fake…

[deleted]

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#159

Post by maw »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71
rangibaby wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I mostly see "Western" used as a synonym for "NATO". In addition to Mexico, there are countries in Europe (Russia) or democracies with huge economies (Japan, ROK, India, Brazil) that aren't described as Western.

> I mostly see "Western" used as a synonym for "NATO" I think of it as the corpus of cultures drawing heritage from the Ancient Greeks and Romans. If the Homeric epics have a home in your culture, it's Western. That said, the term is muddied enough to be somewhat useless for general discussion. Particularly given how it's been co-opted by racist elements in American politics.

Except that Islamic culture drew heavily on them too, especially the Greeks.

Those of us who consider ourselves Western are right to consider the Greeks and Romans among our cultural forebears, but we're not the only ones who can or should do so.

Re: How Children in a Maya Village Do Chores

#160

Post by badosu »

ramblerman wrote: post #148
yesenadam wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the greatest comments I've read on here. 100% gringo here, UK-born Australian. About 10 years ago I started meeting latin americans online (also filipinos), I liked them so much I learnt spanish and was soon chatting online 95% with latin american friends. Played Clash of Clans in a colombian clan hehe, love watching online chess tournament commentary in spanish etc. Am starting to love Portuguese too.…

> EDIT: Would the downvoters care to explain why? It might be that you are trying argue away one prejudice with another.

Exactly, I too agree with the grandparent, but I think parent has pushed too far on the other side of the spectrum.

Saying that as a Brazilian that is astounded every time Latin America is implied to not be 'western'. I would feel offended, but I understand that is useless to me, the same thing with the term 'American'.

Let them live in their happy bubbles, it's a disadvantage of their own creation.

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