Re: Incest taboos
Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.iinet.net.au)
Tue, 16 May 1995 01:29:04 GMT
In article <jbask1.315.2FB5A244@MFS06.cc.monash.edu.au>, Joseph Askew (jbask1@MFS06.cc.monash.edu.au) writes:
>Without the existance of pyschic powers no doubt. We have no
>proper studies of bone pointing, I would not call the evidence
>you refer to either documented or evidence as such. No proper
>scientific studies done with control groups. So someone claimed
>to have pointed a bone at some guy who died - you see no problem
>in this claim? But no matter let's assume that there are some
>Aboriginals who are so accepting of the claims of bone pointing
>that they somehow die. This is no evidence of psychic powers at
>all but of suggestion and strong belief.
I don't really care what you want to define as admissable evidence,
Joseph. I'm neither lawyer nor judge, and at no time take on board
the right to decide what observations of theirs are to be admitted or
not. They are not on trial in my court, nor witness at any such
event.
No, I don't see any problem with people recording their observations,
Joseph. Why would I go about life presupposing problems, rather than
simply accepting a curious enough documentation at face value. Later
as I choose I can go back out there and subject the observation to
rigorous testing, but as I choose not to does not make it problematic.
It is simply "research yet to be completed", yes?
In the meantime, you might like to clarify what it is you are driving
at. You continue to post to the Incest Taboos thread, yet it appears
that what you are wanting to be discussing is psychic phenomena.
Do you wonder that your point is lost? Perhaps you will start over
again and introduce your topic.
>Which was the direct result of the dropping of the bombs.
Why do you want to single out this particular event from the general
defeat? Is it because that is what the US propaganda justifying the
building and delivery of these types of weapon informs you, or have
you been doing some historiography of your own?
>Not at all. So some fraction of the Japanese population was,
>for some unknown reason, willing to accept the myth of the
>Divine Emperor. After the bomb dropped the Emperor said he
>was not. Some fraction of that fraction can only have felt
>disillusionment and hence the Emperor was less Divine.
Did they or did they not, Joseph? Have you been there to study the
phenomenon, or are you merely supposing that this may have been the
case?
>I know that in 1937 the Asians viewed the Japanese as intruders
>and that in China they were. Are you claiming that because the
>Japanese were Asians when they "advanced" into China they were
>not intruders?
I have claimed no such thing, that you were you to care to get your
brain into gear for a moment might begin to appreciate.
>And any Korean will tell you the same about the Japanese. Just
>as most Vietnamese have words to say about the Chinese. Just
>who are you accusing of what here?
Nobody is accusing anybody of anything at all. Why would you suppose
that accusations are being directed at anybody?
That Japanese intruded upon the sovereignty of China and Korea, or
that Chinese intrude upon the sovereignty of Viet Nam, and I would
add Tibet and other places, does not show that the Europeans did not
intrude upon Asia as such.
Your arguing that Japanese intruded upon China does not refute the
further argument that various European nations had also intruded.
The post-war situation was one in which EVERYONE ELSE was being told
in no uncertain terms to just piss off. China in particular closed
their doors very firmly indeed until their own internal politics had
stablised and NEW relationships could be formed with their neighbours
in a now rebuilt Asia.
In the meantime throughout the same period it was the Europeans again;
the British in Malaya and India, Dutch in Indonesia, Americans in the
Philippines, French in Viet Nam, who had been the disruptive agents
acting to destablise the region all over again. Culminating in the
now classic humiliation of the US war machine by the peasants of Viet
Nam, in fact.
It is ONLY SINCE THEN that the region has settled down, and begun to
rebuild their economies this time of their own volition.
That's all recent history, Joseph, and I'm damned if I know how it can
be refuted unless of course you decide that you want to pull another
of your "admissability of evidence" stunts.
>Obviously the Emperor lacked all influence, Divine, Psychic
>or otherwise, not only on the foreigners who were to bomb
>his country into the ground but among his fellow Japanese
>theoretically under his command who did worse in China. What
>signs are there for psychic powers here? None I'ld think.
Where did you get this argument about psychic powers from? Perhaps
you had paid far too much attention to Dr Roosen's post on Hawaiian
kings, is that so?
Or maybe far too much attention to my rejoinder that kings had not
held sway through their "psychic powers", but through violence and
brutality against other people; that they had no special powers not
already common to all people.
Were the point to be applied to Japan, I do suggest that you would
rather benefit in your enquiries from a close historical scrutiny of
the Shogunate, and of the Sumarai classes. The Emperor himself was
always something of a marginal figure, I suggest granted his "divine
powers" is a means of indicating his "other worldly" status; that
is, the caveat against his intervening in "this worldly" political
affairs.
The British Royal family are in the same boat, yes?
Most frustrating for them all, I have no doubt.
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