On 8/13/06, Doyle Saylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The whole nation often speaks a common language. That part I'm sure
you understand as the nationalist concept of 'we'.
I understand it but I don't think it's that simple. You and I speak a
common language at one level and two very different languages
conceptually. We use the same vocabulary but many of the words have
different inflections for each of us. My technical terminology is your
jargon and vice versa.
99% of communicating an emotional relationship is a face symbol of
emotions.
So what ever happened to the voice? Where do you find a percentage breakdown?
I can hear you saying what stops this from being deformed? I can hear
echoes of Stalin using fear as a means of governing. Then a socialist
must understand what is an equitable emotional relationship to the
state?
You heard correctly, Doyle. But I wouldn't worry about Stalin. He
dead. I would worry about McDonald's and Wal-mart using it to sell
crap and GOP and Dem campaign advisors using it like a focus group to
tailor their "message". Or, rather, I wouldn't worry so much as accept
the inevitability. Those abstract universals are so... well, abstract.
The answer consists of a realistic knowledge of what emotional
connection really is in it's own form, not a verbal description of it.
A regulation of emotion so that abuse is not fostered between people.
That in itself is worthy goal of a realistic emotion structure project
in socialism, to proscribe emotional abuse.
So who has that knowledge? Everyone? The working class? Social
activists? Emotion lab technicians? It may be a "worthy" goal but it
is not a well-defined one and an ill-defined goal cannot be realistic.
Do I get my passport taken away if I show a cynical face in response
to a "war on terra" message? Do I get extra rations if I show a
suitable degree of fright and faith in our country's leaders?
I don't mean that developing technology for communcating emotion
information is itself unrealistic or that it wouldn't be a useful
improvement over smileys ;-) What I'm about to suggest you might want
to take with a grain of salt but I'm serious. We already have the
technology for doing what you're talking about in an urban setting and
we don't use it. Walk down the road on a rural island and people
you've never met smile and wave at you as they drive by. Walk down the
street in the city and a thousand people pragmatically avoid face to
face communication with you and the other 999 people. But walk a dog
down the street. Every dog has to stop and sniff every other dog's
butt. I call myself sandwichman but sometimes I actually do put on a
sandwichboard and walk downtown. The trick here is that the sign
presents itself to precognitive perception as a face (or proto-face).
People's involuntary response to a billboard is to scan it. They have
to be consciously resisting to not do it. The sign attached to a human
being presents people with a dilemma; their curiousity about the
sign's message conflicts with their habituation to inattention to the
unknown person who bears the sign.
I wrote a note to myself on a parking lot receipt that says (the
receipt, not my note), "DISPLAY FACE UP ON DASH" (it's like "close
cover before striking"). So I'm thinking of a sandwichboard sign that
says:
DISPLAY
FACE UP
ON DASH
Would that not be in the common language that the whole nation speaks?
--
Sandwichman
