Re: Incest taboos
Joseph Askew (jbask1@MFS06.cc.monash.edu.au)
Thu, 18 May 1995 06:27:25 GMT
In article <811@landmark.iinet.net.au> gil@landmark.iinet.net.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>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.
There is a certain level of proof every rational person must
demand. Especially those with claims to be doing science.
This does not exclude Anthropologists. Obviously in a claim
like this the question of proof is going to come up.
>No, I don't see any problem with people recording their observations,
>Joseph.
Nor do I. But I do not see that it follows from the observation
of Charles Manson that he has psychic powers that he does have
psychic powers. Proof is required before any rational person
accepts the claim.
>Why would I go about life presupposing problems, rather than
>simply accepting a curious enough documentation at face value.
Because noone is that gullible. Nor is it a question of
presupposing problems but a healthy degree of skepticism.
>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.
Yes it does actually. Any claim is just a claim.
>It is simply "research yet to be completed", yes?
That I agree with.
>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.
I am perfectly aware of what I am posting about. The problem
does not lie with me. The psychic phenomena was brought up
by someone who claimed that stone age people had it, which I
doubted, and which you have been going on about ever since.
>Do you wonder that your point is lost? Perhaps you will start over
>again and introduce your topic.
Not at all. I think that you are the only confused person
here. Perhaps it is over work. I certainly am not.
>>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?
Because it is something that most people would suspect
the Japanese wanted to avoid. If they failed to foresee
it it brings into question any claims they might make to
special psychic powers.
>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?
I have no general USphobia that causes me to bring it into
the conversation.
>>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 don't like to presuppose things. Let's just call it research
to be done.
>>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.
Then when I described the Japanese as intruders your objections
were simply irrelevant and their out of confusion or deliberate
malice? Why did you bother to bring the Europeans into it then?
>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.
I never claimed otherwise, it is a red herring of your own
imagination.
>Your arguing that Japanese intruded upon China does not refute the
>further argument that various European nations had also intruded.
Which is simply irrelevant and clearly if you had a point at
the time you brought the Europeans into it you have forgotten
by now. I suggest we keep them out of it.
>The post-war situation was one in which EVERYONE ELSE was being told
>in no uncertain terms to just piss off.
So it was. Odd that the Japanese Emperor, for a man with
Divine abilities it has been claimed, did not forsee any
of this. Or perhaps any rational person would stick to
the original claim I made which is that such powers have
no proven existence.
>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.
Arguable.
>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.
The relevance of this escapes me but no doubt you will come
up with something. What is this obsession with Europeans?
>Culminating in the
>now classic humiliation of the US war machine by the peasants of Viet
>Nam, in fact.
Really?
>It is ONLY SINCE THEN that the region has settled down, and begun to
>rebuild their economies this time of their own volition.
Really?
>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.
I am not going to refute any of that simply because it is
neither here nor there and bears no relation to anything
I have said. If you want to play by yourself don't let me
stop you. Usually though a dialogue has two participants.
>>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?
Nice to see you have been bothering to read any of this
thread at all. Comforting somehow. That was what I was
replying to originally and what I have been discussing
since. Why have you been following up my posts if you
are not interested in the discussion?
>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.
Nice to see we are in agreement.
>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.
I suspect that I am one of the few people here in remotely
competant to do so but I won't take your comments as the
patronising crud many people might.
>The Emperor himself was
>always something of a marginal figure,
Which is just not true actually. He usually was a marginal
figure.
>I suggest granted his "divine
>powers" is a means of indicating his "other worldly" status;
I imagine that I do not disagree.
>that
>is, the caveat against his intervening in "this worldly" political
>affairs.
The Japanese Emperors have interfered in this worldly affairs
for sizable chunks of Japanese history.
>The British Royal family are in the same boat, yes?
Only after little Vicky.
Joseph
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