Words--"Profession"

 One thing I got from my reading of "The Light Ages" is the etymology of "profession".   The source at the link doesn't say, but I'm guessing that the progression was from a "profession of faith", meaning a solemn vow of belief, which would have been required of Catholics, particularly those entering monasteries and becoming monks.  Given the evolution of universities from monastic and church schools where it seems that monks, or aspirants, were the dominant (only?) students and then teachers, the term becomes applied to the legal, medical, and theological professions.

How Things Change--Vaccine

 Early in the year we were amazed that West Virginia was leading the way in vaccinating their people.  My cousin in Massachusetts was griping about the way the governor was mishandling vaccination there.

Today it seems that West Virginia has fallen back, almost into the lowest tier of states, while Massachusetts is in the top tier. 

A Use of CRA

 Dems use the CRA on civil rights. Why use it on this, and not other regulations? The article explains why the EEOC is different.

Our Chaotic Times Are New?

 Seb Falk in "The Light Ages" quotes the fourteenth century poet John Gower"

"For now at this time

men see the world on every side

changed in so many ways

that it well-nigh stands reversed."

I'm just through the first two chapters, and I like it very much.  Particularly enjoyed the explanation of math operations using Roman numerals (turns out to be not that hard with the tools and processes which had been invented). 

How We Talk, and What It Means

 Slate has a long interview with someone studying Black American accents, how they vary from place to place and in time. 

Anyone who's seen My Fair Lady is likely to be interested in the subject.  Apparently it's harder to nail American accents down to a locality than English English, or maybe the parties to the interview weren't Professor Higgins.

I remember telling an employee back in the 1970's that her occasional use of black English might limit her promotion opportunities.  I think it was a true statement at the time, but over the years I've felt guilty about saying it.  

Toward the end of the interview they get into a discussion of trials, like George Floyd, in which interpreting the language of the black victim was at issue.  There's some skepticism over whether the defense attorneys were honest in their misinterpretation of what was recorded. Perhaps I'm insufficiently cynical but I can accept that in the instant a policeman could interpret what he/she heard as being white English words, rather than black English language. It's problematic, but just an instance of how difficult it is to bridge social and cultural issues.

The Scourge of "Usism"

 Some writers use "racism", some use "tribalism", some use "colorism", some use "ageism", some use "ableism"...  Here's the first result when I googled "what 'isms' are there?" 

The bottom line is, I think, we love to define "us" versus "them", or "others".   It's natural to do so, because that's how we think--defining what something is by what it is not. When we do it to people, it's a problem. 

The United States of Excess

 This is a 2015 small book by Robert Paarlberg, subtitled "Gluttony and the Dark Side of American Exceptionalism.". Its thesis is that the US stands out for its obesity and its per capita greenhouse gas emissions, both of which are based in America's:

• material and demographic conditions
• political structure
• culture.

I found it interesting, specifically:

• the importance of geography in American politics in contrast to European countries--our politicians do "earmarks", bring home the bacon for their constituents while EU pols are more bound to a party platform.
• the distinction between "mitigation" and "adaptation" as applied to climate change and obesity.  Mitigation means changing the causes of the problems; adaptation means dealing with the results.  He argues that the US will go for adaptation in both instances.  

The Reality as Humans Perceive It Is Fractal

 What I'm trying to get at is a phenomena I think I see.  Scientific theories, or at least stories, prevail for a time, then get trashed.  But years or centuries later the new theory circles back to the old, at least in some respects. Two examples:

• Lamarckian theory of evolution said changes due to the environment can be passed down to the offspring.  A giraffe would extend its neck reaching for foliage, and the slightly longer neck could be passed on.  With Darwin this was thrown out. But recent genetics seems to have found cases where the first sentence is true.
• An article, I believe in Wired, I read today but didn't get the url.  It was a long piece on aerosol transmission of covid, a story of scientists researching and upsetting a long-established belief that droplets bigger than 5 microns were the key.  The scientists believe that much smaller aerosols are key in many viruses.  They have echoes of the long disdained "miasma" theory of the 19th century--the idea that cholera, yellow fever, etc. were transmitted by "bad air". 

The moral for today might be: take care in totally dismissing established theories--an element of truth may be hiding below the surface.

Cancel Culture Changing--Metaphor

 Yesterday I wrote on what I see as changes through our/my history of what is "canceled" and what is not.

I've a metaphor: 

Think of society in history as being reduced to a map in some way.  Then the boundaries of what's included and what's not can be represented by a low resolution magnifying glass help over the map, a glass which brings some aspects to the fore and doesn't recognize other aspects.  But over time the glass moves around, adding and subtracting things to look at.

Cancel Culture Changing

 I'm taking "cancel culture" as a generic process of society expressing disapproval of certain things, putting things outside the bounds of what used to be called "polite society".  There should be a term for the opposite phenomena; society changing boundaries to bring things inside--in other words inclusion versus exclusion.

In my youth, Carlin's seven words were excluded.  Judging by the NYTimes some are excluded because obsolete, some are no longer excluded.

References to certain sex acts (or maybe all acts outside of "missionary position") were excluded.  Now all are included, as are all sexual propensities. 

Profanity in its original meaning, cursing, particularly when related to Christianity, was excluded.  Profanity which might offend religious people of another faith was more borderline.  These days offensive words are excluded, though the curses which relate to Christianity (i.e., "god damn" etc.) are included.