Re: bad poetry?

Yeah, I've been thinking about this a bit more and was trying to figure
out when generalities made sense and when they didn't. I think the
closest they come to making sense is in examples like the ones you
provide below -- statistical data about specific human behavior.
"General" here means, literally, "over 50%."

But even this gets a bit complicated. If you're just talking about food
preferences, that's fine. Yeah, most Puerto Ricans I know like arroz
con pollo. But when you start adding in more and more statistical
behaviors it starts to contradict itself, throw in attitudes and it
becomes even more difficult, and the more complex the composite becomes
(in other words, the more like a real person) the less likely is the
composite to match any particular real person -- at that point, it's not
very meaningful, is it?

Now when we talk about generalities concerning specific ideas, at that
point they almost always get ridiculous. When ideas between highly
disparate religious traditions are flattened out it's usually a sign
that the speaker either doesn't really know much about any of them, or
is interpreting them in the light of a separate belief system, or is
some silly worldpeacenik that thinks we really are all the same and why
can't we all just get along? It's usually a sign of, or requires, a
fundamental disrespect for the specific beliefs/ideas of each respective
religious tradition. Even genuinely common elements (such as
"compassion" in both Buddhism and Christianity) are so different in the
context of their respective traditions that it's a bit senseless to
categorize them together.

These are poor habits of mind, that's all.

Jim

Yocum Daniel GS 21 CES/CEOE wrote:
> Jim, generally true? or mundanely common? If I were a Pinto Bean farmer I
> would say that Mexicans, in general, eat lots of Pinto Bean so I have a
> market for my livelihood, but does every specific Mexican likes Pinto Beans?
> Of course not but the generality still serves.
> When speaking of specifics, generalities are little help, but they are not
> worthless. Jim, I generally enjoy your posts.
> Daniel

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Received on Mon Jul 7 11:32:44 2003