Rama's Book of Political Verse

Ramma Damma Ding Dong

Nah...it takes a soft heart to write lines like that. Pull your claws in for a bit and give it a try.

One little, two little, three little Indians living in America and living the American Dream and more.

One little Indian in Germany dreaming of the American Dream.

D-
Your cadence is much too smooth and your syntax far too sequential. Probably most importantly, in terms of poetic spirit, you'll have trouble finding any examples of rama making fun of an individual. He seems to be quite without that sort of pettiness. He writes on a grander, more heroic scale.

Simple. Evocative. It pulls us in immediately. What is going on in Koln? I sure as hell want to know and eagerly await further details.

How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why
My latest book purchase just arrived to add to my stack. I think more people should read it rather than making fun of people from other lands---and they might learn something. ---BBB

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why
by Richard E. Nisbett (Author)

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly

This book may mark the beginning of a new front in the science wars. Nisbett, an eminent psychologist and co-author of a seminal Psychological Review paper on how people talk about their decision making, reports on some of his latest work in cultural psychology. He contends that "[h]uman cognition is not everywhere the same"-that those brought up in Western and East Asian cultures think differently from one another in scientifically measurable ways. Such a contention pits his work squarely against evolutionary psychology (as articulated by Steven Pinker and others) and cognitive science, which assume all appreciable human characteristics are "hard wired."

Initial chapters lay out the traditional differences between Aristotle and Confucius, and the social practices that produced (and have grown out of) these differing "homeostatic approaches" to the world: Westerners tend to inculcate individualism and choice (40 breakfast cereals at the supermarket), while East Asians are oriented toward group relations and obligations ("the tall poppy is cut down" remains a popular Chinese aphorism).

Next, Nisbett presents his actual experiments and data, many of which measure reaction times in recalling previously shown objects. They seem to show East Asians (a term Nisbett uses as a catch-all for Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and others) measurably more holistic in their perceptions (taking in whole scenes rather than a few stand-out objects).

Westerners, or those brought up in Northern European and Anglo-Saxon-descended cultures, have a "tunnel-vision perceptual style" that focuses much more on identifying what's prominent in certain scenes and remembering it. Writing dispassionately yet with engagement, Nisbett explains the differences as "an inevitable consequence of using different tools to understand the world." If his explanation turns out to be generally accepted, it means a big victory for memes in their struggle with genes.

From Scientific American

Nisbett, a psychologist and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, used to believe that "all human groups perceive and reason in the same way." A series of events and studies led him gradually to quite another view, that Asians and Westerners "have maintained very different systems of thought for thousands of years." Different how?

"The collective or interdependent nature of Asian society is consistent with Asians' broad, contextual view of the world and their belief that events are highly complex and determined by many factors.

The individualistic or independent nature of Western society seems consistent with the Western focus on particular objects in isolation from their context and with Westerners' belief that they can know the rules governing objects and therefore can control the objects' behavior." Nisbett explores areas that manifest these different approaches--among them medicine, law, science, human rights and international relations.

Are the societal differences so great that they will lead to conflict? Nisbett thinks not. "I believe the twain shall meet by virtue of each moving in the direction of the other."

Thanks B.


Tico has the spirit. B for contribution.

Try reading "The Lotus and the Robot' by Arthur Koestler.

Ich bin ein Pfannkuchen.

1/3 tireless bore, completely insensitive to the interests of those he is addressing

1/3 intense emitter of neurotic psychobabble

1/3 potential as idiot savant

You've got to get this right: It's the "AMERICAN DREAM". Capitalization is important here.

Insteaded of denigrating the activve participants and mocking the ignorance
let Abele2Know educate, enliven, enlighten and
therby make this forum a better one.
Rama

Oh, quit gesplittin the minuscule.
If your intent is to make this a better forum
you seriously lack for direction.

I am as ignorant as all the people who uphold their ignorant views.

Rama Fuchs

My humble request to the viewer of this thread.
Why most of you ignore
Mahtma Gandhi
Nelson Madela
martin Luther king
Mother theresa?
Karl Marx?