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Month: September 2016
What makes diaspora groups such as the Armenians, Jews, etc. so successful? Did the diaspora itself have some marked impact on the culture and trajectories of these groups or is it something else entirely?
A socially marginalised group will not have access to the normal institutional advantages of members of the host society—connections, class privilege, leisure time, cultural familiarity etc. etc. Members of that group will be more highly driven to succeed, to redress those disadvantages. They will be more strongly motivated to succeed, if they see exemplars of […]
What made up Greek term could be used for this pretend medical speciality; “The study and exploration of careers for doctors.”?
I’m going to continue with James Cottam’s coinage, done in comments to James Cottam’s answer to Does this made up Latin/Greek word, Vitaemedology, make sense for the following phrase “The study of careers for doctors.” iatrurgology ἰατρουργολογία. Doctor work-ology. But let’s see what others have to say… Answered 2016-09-14 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/What-made-up-Greek-term-could-be-used-for-this-pretend-medical-speciality-The-study-and-exploration-of-careers-for-doctors/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Why do English-speaking people often have strange first names?
The respondents so far have not given a satisfactory answer. How’s it feel when your culture is exoticised, eh? I share Anon’s attitude towards Anglo nomenclature. Let’s try to unpack it. Traditional societies have traditional approaches to naming people. If you’re a Roman, there’s only a dozen praenomina, some clan names, and a nickname cognomen […]
Why are Australians hostile towards anything American?
Fear. An entirely intelligible response to a hegemonic culture with substantial overlap with your own: fear that your culture will be assimilated into the hegemon, that the country will become unrecognisable to you, that the virtues you are familiar with and have come to cherish will be eroded. That you will cease being you, and […]
What is the first image when you Google your name?
Nick Nicholas. You wouldn’t think it’d be that popular a name, right? And yet, I’m the SIXTH Nick Nicholas here: Nick Nicholas’ answer to Are you the first to have registered with your name or did a homonym or namealike register before you? The Nick Nicholas’s that do show up change; there was a jazz […]
What are the best things about Islam even non-Muslims admire?
Can’t find a clip, annoyingly. Bob Maguire: as Reddit r/atheism has put it, Father Bob Maguire a Catholic priest that an atheist could admire. Social campaigner, cantankerous and way cool old timer, beloved of notoriously irreligious Australians, does a lot of TV and radio sparring with atheist comedian John Safran. Recently, he was on TV, […]
Is Mahler’s music hard to get into?
Mahler is not Schoenberg, and Mahler is not Webern, and Mahler is not Pierre fricking Boulez. He’s still solidly in the Common practice period, and his music is full of “vernacular music” catches, which make his music quite approachable. The marches, the dirges, the ländler, the lieder. But Mahler isn’t Johann Strauss either (despite his […]
Why do dogs roll over?
Sierra Spaulding, I’m taking it from here: On smelly things: the evolutionary account I’ve seen is, to transmit smells of interest back to the den, to keep the other canines informed. All interpretations of dogs as wolves in dens, of course, you should read with caution. And the answers to Why do dogs sniff the […]
Will lesbians and gay men go extinct/ become even more rare as they become more accepted?
Will Lesbians and Gays go extinct/ become even more rare as they become more accepted? No. As other, non-straight respondents have explained. What is at some risk of going extinct is queerness as sexual dissidence. Hard to be a dissident when noone cares about your sexuality. Answered 2016-09-09 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/Will-lesbians-and-gay-men-go-extinct-become-even-more-rare-as-they-become-more-accepted/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Why did you or your ancestors immigrate to your current country?
You know, I don’t exactly know why my uncle George migrated from a village in Cyprus to Sale, Victoria in 1947, to work as a carpenter in the post-war boom. I can pretty much guess though: family with seven kids, of which he was the eldest; in economic hardship; limited opportunities for work; and the […]