Cosmos Chapters 5 and 6

Before I start off on my useless yammerings...is anybody even reading this? If you are, I'm not going to force you to reply or anything, but I love hearing from you all, and any opinion or encouragement, or even criticism would be appreciated!
And, of course, you don't have to read it all...

On the wiki it said we needed to answer these questions instead, so here I go...
1)What does "Shared horizons or meaning" mean to you here at UK?
2)How does race, gender or background(rural or urban) impact those shared values?

1) So, I''m guessing that "shared horizons of meaning" means a community's shared values. And, I'm assuming that most people here at UK value education since they are paying to come here. Judging by how much people seem to study and how my sorority seems to be very protective of study habits, I'd say that for the most part, I've found this to be a truth. I hope that this respect for education continues, because I will more than likely rely on this understanding to make good grades.
2) I'm not going to say that race or gender have as large an impact on studying as background. I think, depending on what you've been raised around, you may see something as more rare and valuable, or you may recognize a significance in it. Or, you may completely take it forgranted. Like education as a value:if you went to school in a poor neighborhood, you may realize the importance of getting a good education, whereas if you live in a rich one, you may think education is just something you are forced to take part in.

First off, I want to answer the questions that were given to us, and then I will pose my own.
1) Why do we bother having conversations?
Though many of us have the same values, we argue over their significance and application. For ex. Many of us value our human lives, but when does the life of an unborn fetus begin?
>>>Is abortion murder?
Feel free to post on this topic if you like, but please keep it short, and not the usual 'it's just killing.' Try to back up your answers.

We hole conversations to learn to "get along." (p.78)

2)Strangers:Who are the imaginary ones, and are there more types of strangers? What kind are they?
I think that the imaginary stranger is the person from another country that you haven't met, and another type is the type that's near you. Possibly, people that you have met but don't know everything about. (Because you can never know everything about any one person)
An encounter between strangers might lead to understanding as you compare likes(non-human universals) and therefore, become interested in the things that you may not share. ex. Punjabs worry about Punjabis in Canada, and therefore become interested in Canadian lifestyle and customs.

Now here are my comments and questions:
p.69-70
But when the issue is what to do, differences in what we think and feel can fall away. Indeed, our political coexistence, as subjects or citizens, depends on being able to agree about practices while disagreeing about their justification. This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that they will. An example of this is what happened between us and Japan during WW2. Japan's pride forced them to refuse to surrender, and thus, political conflict continued to rise.
p.69
Who but someone in the grip of a terrible theory would want to insist on an agreement on principles before discussing which movie to go to, what to have for dinner, when to go to bed?
Do we have time to worry about whether we're making the best decisions? Do we have the time not to?
p.70-71
If the government isn't allowed to have anything to do with religion, but our rules are based off of what we're used to and have seen before, then how is our Constitution truly free of the values of a predominately Christian society? Are values connected to religion? Are there some rules that other cultures with another predominant religion would disagree with? What about the forest societies that practice cannibalism?
p.70
I think the government's treatment of the first amendment is a combination of protecting the gov. from religion and religion from the gov., protecting the people from the civil discord brought on by forcing a certain religion, a commitment to the sovereignty of the human conscience and religious toleration as an end.
p.73
A large part of what we do we do because it is just what we do.
Think of it in this way. When we go on vacation, our schedule gets changed and we sleep later; sometimes we miss our favorite shows on television. When we take trips to anywhere, what we normally do gets thrown off. We each have our own unique style of living. But it can be changed when we go somewhere or choose to live somewhere else.

Rationalization of what we do usually comes after the intuitive reaction, but is this really a problem if many things turn out as unplanned anyway?

If we didn't have the right to protest traditional unwritten rules of society in a non-harmful way, how else would change occur?

Page 79
"You taught me language and my profit on't/ Is, I know how to curse."
Does anyone else hate it when someone teaches a foreigner curse words when they first get here? That totally bugs me!!

Page 83
Is it our fault if our commercial messages unintentionally persuade the attitudes of people in other places?

Second Life Cosmos

"In-world" on SL, I've talked to a couple of people who are interested in other cultures and languages, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they go out and look for random people from other places. One girl, however, added me as a friend and talked to me despite the language barrier, because I tried to start a conversation. I guess this makes her at least a partial cosmopolitan, because she tried to understand me. Another guy I talked to had learned English and was very interested in the U.S. and English people, despite being from another country. I guess he was a cosmopolitan, because of his immersion into our culture and his trying to understand it. I mostly seem to be finding people who are hanging out with others that they know or have met before, but I don't know when they met or how long they have been doing so. I really haven't talked much on SL so far. I'm not very good at the basics yet, and I need to figure out how to use the notecards so I can start interviewing people.

Why I Posted the Movie

The reasons I posted "Kiseki" or "Miracle" by Greeen (Not sure if it's three e's or four...)are as follows:
a) It's a video I really enjoy, and I wanted to share it with you all, it's not a typical pop vid with drugs, sex and violence
b)I think it pertains to this class somewhat, in that it deals with family, relationships and remotely, community

How is "Kiseki" by Greeeen an example of community?

In the beginning, everyone has their place in the community. Miki-san has her study group/group of friends from school. Dai-san has baseball practice. The husband has to work. And the wife and grandmother stay home to take care of the grandfather. (I'm guessing they're the grandparents.) This shows how important community is to everyone. Later on in the video, we see that being a part of this community is important because of the relationships everyone holds in their specific groups. Dai-san practices with a friend. Miki-san studies and hangs out with other students that she enjoys being with and that enjoy being with her.

In the beginning we see the grandmother and mother taking care of the grandfather, and we also hear that the father doesn't even get saturdays off. The news reporter suggests going out with family since it's a nice day. Later on we see the father cheering up his daughter after she's had a rough conversation with her mother about coming home late. This says that community is important, but family will always be there, and is just as important if not more. All of them are there for one another. In the end, the old man smiles because he is happy to be with his family.It says in thw lyrics that "thank you" and "Oh, I love your" aren't enough...but when he showed that he was happy by smiling, everyone else was happy too. I don't think that saying things is enough. Showing how you feel is very very important. Words can be taken as false, and don't have the kind of clarity actions do.But then, people can act contrary to how they feel, as well.
In both community and family, people are there for one another, and meeting these kinds of people is a miracle. Is it not a miracle that people often act as kind to one another as they do? "Just that we've met is a miracle."Whether our meeting was coincidence or fate just the fact that we've met is a miracle...family(fate)...friends(coincidence).

The importance of relationships: Even on days when nothing goes right just being together cheers me up. Even if we lose sight of tomorrow we walk close together. Because I'm with you I can continue to be alive.

Tomorrow, I'll smile more than today. Maybe this suggests that relationships have to develop or that as we grow older we will understand our relationships with family or others more clearly, and be able to see the bonds as more valuable. "The days you've given me add up."

Even though I'm already loving you this much I can't even put it into words. The importance of relationships can't be put into words...

First off, this isn't your typical pop song with dirty-minded lyrics. It's about a true love for all of the people around you. I know that sounds gushy, but I think it's endearing...and isn't the part at the end with the kids cute?

I think we shouldn't disturb them...
But I'm hungry...


~LandRe

Cosmopolitanism Chapters 1-4

I have found Cosmopolitanism to be a very intriguing book. It started out really rough with all of the facts about Sir Richard Francis Burton and his many accomplishments. At first, I didn't see how they could connect to the point of the book in so many ways until we discussed it in class--Sir Burton had his biases. To learn from other cultures, you don't have to be unbiased, but simply be able to hold back your own judgement. Burton was very educated on several cultures, but didn't learn as much from others, like the Irish, which he claims he and his group were "pleasantly surprised to find an utter absence of" (7) upon reaching the 'Thirty-two-mile creek.' Even after reading the first four chapters for the second time, I still didn't understand the level of thinking that was required of me until we had another discussion.
Since this book is so "thick," here are some of my questions and ideas.

In class we discussed the concept of biases and how they affect what we learn from other societies. If we do not sustain our judgements of another culture, we won't be able to learn about what separates it from our own. When picking our SL groups, we had to choose where to go, and what place to learn about, therefore giving up the opportunity to learn from other places while in class. In Bafa Bafa, while the culture-swap was going on, we immediately assumed that it would be difficult to be initiated into the other culture. This made it a lot harder to learn from them, because we were concerned with our own beliefs about "fitting in." We had assumptions (prejudgements) to start out with that shaped our beliefs and made it harder to communicate with each other. We have to learn to stand back and be patient and observant.

How can we have common unwritten rules of society? How can we not break those rules if we find them harmless? (Like dressing a certain way). I think, as mentioned in class, it has to do with the fact that we humans have power over each others' mentalities and can influence one another just by the power of words, as well as our similar values.

p.27 "But to understand how values work, you must see them not as guiding us as individuals on our own but as guiding people who are trying to share their lives."

-This kind of goes back to the value of "Family time" in the Kiseki video. Some members valued family time more than others, and therefore, the kids stayed out with their friends longer.

We humans, having created our own language system, can count on nothing but our own concepts to describe the physical world. There are no answers that we can find. We look back on our descriptive words, which are unique for many cultures, and try to understand each other and the world. But what we are understanding is our own behavior and not the truth of things.

I think it's likely to be impossible to grasp the entirety of another culture without being born into it. You may have the same basic feelings, but what about how the feelings of people in other cultures have been influenced by people in their own societies and how their perception of their own society been shaped? It would be very difficult to replicate the natural "feelings" of the people in certain unique areas.

How can we explain each others' individual personalities? Scientists have claimed that our likes and dislikes depend on what we see up until the age of twelve or thirteen. What do you guys think? Is it society or an inbred sense of self that defines a personality?

Not sure that had much to do with the book, but oh, well...

~LandRe

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is interactive socially, but the scenery doesn't really move although there is smoke, and being posted by the lightpoles comes at a price. Fortunately for you, there's a casino where you can earn Lindens. There are always people leaning against the light posts.
While there are public and private places, it seems that the place is ment for social interaction. There are several private places though. It is surrounded by water and has a port, with lots of places to pay to interact or to get money to do so. you can also buy boats.
In the Enterprise Area there are lots of bridges, cranes, and a windmill. I believe that the bridges are meant to show the link between the more interactive town-like part of Amsterdam and the separate land isles for the port and boat. Some of the buildings have very ornate architecture and some have fancy curtains. Maybe this is to show the richness of the port?Some of the buildings, however, look pretty poor from behind. A carelessness from the creator, or something more meaningful? Maybe ports like this in Downtown Amsterdam look rich but are actually poor.
There's also a mini-Japan kind of place. I think it's meant to show the diversity in a port.

About Group

Our group is as follows:

LandRe Mistwallow=Task Manager
Rupert Putzo=Recorder
Raito Genira=Observer
Rasay McMinnar=In-world walker/Observer

Our Team name is the International Backline. Go Backline!!

As task manager, my goal is to keep us up-to-date and to keep us from getting distracted from our project. I know I was very uptight during our first meeting, and I apologize, team! I think I'll get better about things once we get started and get into a regular routine. ~.~" At least, I hope so!

I hope I can fulfill my duties as planner without all of you hating me by the end of this...
hahah.

~LandRe

Home/Group Arrangements

This is late, but oh well. Even though I put our discovery seminar landmark as my home site, it's not the only site I feel comfortable enough on to maybe find a place to change clothes or makeup or whatever. I chose to list it in class along with several others, because I know the people there and know that I will be carefully watched (In the safe way, haha). I may end up just trying to find a dressing room somewhere when I want to change...but for now, I'm still trying to get used to changing my appearance.
My group for SL is International, and I chose this group because I like to learn about other cultures...especially Japan, and I would really like to talk to people from there while I'm on SL. Also, I like the people in my group. They're all friendly, and I think we'll get along pretty well. Go Team Backline!! Haha...
But as I've said...I think our whole class has a weird, awesomely congenial and cooperative connection, so don't think that I don't I like the rest of you guys in class, too!
Welp, signing off...
~LandRe