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Category: Culture
What is the difference between drawing a limit to what can be said, and simply disallowing certain kinds of talk?
I’m in more sympathy with Yonatan Gershon’s answer and its free speech absolutism than with Ted Wrigley’s answer which relies on intent. Intent is a very hard thing to diagnose, and I’m not sure I trust a judiciary allied to power to judge it fairly; and of course, any dissidence can be regarded as disruptive […]
Why has there been so much political resistance to legalizing gay marriage in Australia?
Ah, recentism. As Ben Kelley’s answer reflects, but not enough answers have acknowledged, dragging one’s feet about gay marriage has become a bipartisan thing. Gay marriage has become a flashpoint for the current culture war in Australia; the ex-PM and leader of the conservative faction of the Liberals, Tony Abbott, announced that if you’re sick […]
Why is “cunt” considered very offensive in the US but not in Australia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunt Originally Answered: Why is the word ‘cunt’ so offensive in America? Because in America, as distinct from the Commonwealth, cunt is a reductive description of women, when used as an epithet. In the Commonwealth, the epithet mainly refers to men. It is certainly strong, but it can and is used jocularly, and even as […]
What day of the week are sad songs associated with in your culture, and why?
I’m OP, and this question comes from a discussion I had with Evangelos Lolos at https://www.quora.com/What-are-t… For Greek, it seems to be Sunday. Cloudy Sunday (Συννεφιασμένη Κυριακή), the #1 sad song for the postwar generation. I want it to be a Sunday (on the day I die) (Θέλω να είναι Κυριακή). Hammer and Anvil (Σφυρί […]
If you had to pray to any saint right now, to which would you pray?
Normally I wouldn’t wade in to such a question, but there are eight answers here, and none of them are by people who accept the premiss of the question, the Intercession of saints. Thank you for volunteering the opinion that all Catholic and Orthodox Christians are idolaters, Protestant and Muslim respondents, but clearly that’s not […]
Translation of the Greek New Testament began early on in the history of Christianity. Apparently no translations were made into Hebrew. Why?
To expand on Kenneth Bakke’s answer: the Jewish Christians who were the original Christian movement appear to have survived into the 5th century. We don’t know that much about them, but we do know that they had their own Gospels (Jewish–Christian gospels). They certainly would not have had any time for the Gospel of John, […]
With which popular traditions, tales, and legends is the cuckoo related in your country’s folklore?
Cuckoo – Wikipedia In Europe, the cuckoo is associated with spring, and with cuckoldry, for example in Shakespeare‘s Love’s Labours Lost. In fact, cuckold is derived from cuckoo. In Greek, the cuckoldry association has not captured people’s imagination: that’s all about horns (presumably via deer). The proverbial expressions about cuckoos are quite unlike the associations […]
What is the most compelling, captivating, and impossible-to-put-down book you’ve ever read?
I started reading this book early in the evening: Bare-faced Messiah I did not put it down until 10 am the following morning. I did not sleep; I just kept reading and reading. The narrative it presented, of L Ron sinking into his own mythos on board a Sea Org cruise ship meandering through the […]
Is it true that Americans don’t learn Old Greek, Latin, or German?
Ugh to many of these answers. The traditional European language curriculum was oriented to an elite, and had to do with instilling the cultural values of the West, which privileged Latin and Greek. Latin was still the lingua franca for European intellectuals up until the 18th century, but that does not explain Greek. I’ve written […]
Did Da Vinci say something like, “If you ever tried flying, you will look at the sky when walking and think that is your home”?
Googling finds: “When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return” Refuted in Wikiquote Talk: Talk:Leonardo da Vinci So to summarize what we know, based largely on the research of KHirsch above, the quote […]