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Category: Culture
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 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, […]
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 […]
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]
I have two accounts on Quora. One is with my original identity and other fake. I feel more comfortable in the fake account. Why is it so?
People are very, very used to pseudonymity on the Internet. Pseudonymy is the norm on bulletin boards and blog comments, and it’s pretty common with blogs too. This is not just cowardice or trollery; this is actually a cultural norm. One I noticed in the blogs whose comment section I’d frequent—especially how people I developed […]
Can I get a Greek tattoo when I’m not Greek at all?
I live in Greektown, Melbourne. Which means I see a lot of Greek tats sported by Greeks. And I do plenty of looking down on the cookie cutter nationalism of biceps with inked Molon labe, and Maeanders that look a little too close to swastikas. But of course, I’m a cultural conservative, so I would […]
How will the easy access to Pornography change our culture?
It’s already changed the culture significantly, of course. It has had a change in what kinds of sex teenagers expect to have, since that’s become a primary source of information on sex for them; but I’m not sure that counts as a cultural change. It’s better addressed in a question like What Is the effect […]
If you were caught masturbating, what should you do?
The great Scots comedian Billy Connolly had a good strategy for this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=a0RqqF62Xac “THANK GOD YOU’RE HERE! AND NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON! YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!” And proceed to disarm them with the shaggy dog story that ensues… Answered 2016-08-29 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/If-you-were-caught-masturbating-what-should-you-do/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Why were Jews the money lenders in Christian Europe?
May or not be a comment; but to elaborate on Peter Flom’s answer. In Byzantium, there was no comparable ban on interest. So Jews were not the money lenders in Orthodox Christian Europe. Jews were driven to do different shit-work that Christians there wouldn’t touch. Literally shit-work. Jews were predominantly tanners in Byzantium. Before the […]
What are some examples of translations of literature that are better than the original?
Germans have long thought that the Schlegel & Tieck translations of Shakespeare are better than the original. The conceit of Shakespeare being a translation from the original Klingon is an echo of that. Not necessarily better, but certainly smoother is the best known translation of Cavafy, by Keeley & Sherrard. A lot of Cavafy is […]