I have been busy for the last few days but I didn't
want to let this get by.
I've been re-reading and re-thinking three books on
linguistics from several years back when I use to go to parties and have
discussions at Rockefeller University in the home of Robert Jarvella whose wife
at the time was a wonderful flute player. Jarvella was the first to
help me think about my Cherokee English as we sat and talked about different
ways of thinking about language and how language shapes thought.
That extended to the diction used by professional
performing artists where we could be saying one thing and have our audience
arrive at the polar opposite interpretation from a simple observation of the
performance. Not unlike the opinions of the great Vietnam war
photographers whose pictures changed the American putlic's attitude towards the
war to the opposite conclusion of the photographers themselves. On a
couple of occasions, good people who were supporters of the American side, ended
up having their lives ruined by an interpretation of a picture that was at odds
with who they were and how they did the job required.
Diction, or the performance of meaning in a
language, is the root of all communication. I would recommend, for
fun if nothing else, Wallace L. Chafe's "Meaning and the Structure of
Language" (Chicago); "Psycholinguistics", selected papers, by Roger
Brown (Free Press); and one I'm just beginning to crack on these issues
"Introduction to the Theory of Grammar" by van Riemsdijk & Williams
(MIT).
So Arthur in your last statement:
> For those who remain angry with
econonomics/economists , try this URL
Was this an antidote to your complaint or an
example or what you didn't like?
I assumed the former while Keith assumed the
latter.
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 1:56
AM
Subject: Sexy stuff (was Re:
economics)
>
> At 11:56 29/01/02 -0500, you wrote:
> (AC)
> <<<<
> As a Ph.D. economist I almost never speak economics stuff with economists.
> It becomes theoretical or theological all too soon and thus quite
> boring/frustrating.
>
> For those who remain angry with econonomics/economists , try this URL
>
> Post Autistic Economics
> <http://www.paecon.net/>
> >>>>
>
> I sympathise! These "post-autistic economists" write pretty indigestible
> stuff. Correction: very indigestible stuff. However, bear in mind where
> it's coming from. Their Post-autistic Economics Newsletter is really not
> about economics at all. It doesn't contain a single positive idea. It's all
> about protest -- which is what the French have been very good at ever since
> 1789.
>
> Their papers remind me of Robert Solow's charge against Milton Freidman:
> "The big difference between me and Milton is that everything reminds Milton
> of the money supply; everything reminds me of sex, but I try to keep it out
> of my papers".
>
> These French student economists are still trying to recreate the French
> Revolution. They tried again in 1968 with those notorious Student Riots
> which spread into most universities, if you remember. But that didn't
> succeed either. Whatever it was they were protesting about.
>
> I couldn't help but chuckle at J. K. Galbraith's magnificently diplomatic
> "support" for them in their 4th Newsletter (as was Solow's previous article
> in "Le Monde"). The only way he could express sympathy for them was by
> saying that the counter-protest (the response of some of their Professors
> of economics) was even sillier.
>
> In fact, I felt quite drawn to Galbraith after reading his piece -- even
> though I disagree with him, and even though he's Canadian.
>
> Keith
>
>
> __________________________________________________________
> "Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in
> order to discover if they have something to say." John D. Barrow
> _________________________________________________
> Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> _________________________________________________
>
