The power given to words

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, as far as I can tell, is an interesting read and provides some valuable insights into the Puritan settlers who first colonized America. It also happens to remind me of a few things that I've heard before.

The scarlet letter referenced in the book title no doubt has a negative connotation, but it and pretty much every other word in existence only really has as much power and meaning as we decide to give it. I mean, think about the idea of a scarlet letter if it was not referenced with a book. It would be a red colored...letter. It would be like hearing a word from another language. Without some knowledge or context to work out what the word in question means, the only real thought possible in such a situation is simply, "What does that signify"?

The thing is, the scarlet letter only has meaning when we have an idea or know what it means. Reading the first chapter of the book is enough to give you enough context that the letter is probably bad. Looking at the covers of the books we were given and seeing the rather sullen face of the woman with the letter is also context. We learn that the book is going nowhere good and the woman is probably not doing so well (Also if you DO know what the letter means note that the woman is holding a baby).

We made language by assigning values or definitions to arbitrarily picked sounds (this is probably why we have different languages -- everyone just assigned the values to different sounds). This is also why some languages happen to have words for certain things while others suffer from such lexical gaps (see below).

This is also a scarlet letter, and though it is also not good news, it most certainly is NOT the same as Hawthorne's scarlet letter

Lexical Gaps (as explained by Hank Green)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LpHfPOM6GQ

Give me liberty or give me death...or both!

Allow me to start off by pointing out that Patrick Henry is dead. He has been dead for a long time. But before he died he became one of the most influential founding fathers of the greatest nation in history, a nation founded on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But also remember that the US was created in a revolution. And a revolution, as pointed out by the video below, means a 360 degree turn. So it's worth asking the following question: did we actually change at all?

Even Patrick Henry himself, despite his calls for liberty, strongly opposed the US Constitution on the grounds that it created a president that could easily turn into a new king. Yet despite his protests, the Constitution was ratified and the office of President created. So if our initial idea of governing head was based on the British model, did we really change? Or did we simply change leaders?

Remember that on the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers listed grievances towards Britain in terms of things that the King did. They protested HIS rule and subsequently fired up rebellion. But considering the fact that the initial issue with Britain that started the whole thing was "taxation without representation,"they were OK with the taxation and representation in Parliament meant something.

Eventually we ended up with the US and its Congress (based on Parliament) and its President (Loosely based on the king). They just were filled with different guys.

"Look at all those stairs we climbed! We must have made such progress!"

A revolution is a 360 degree turn plus some background info on the American Revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EiSymRrKI4

Hysteria

People who live today can easily claim to be extremely different compared to, for example, the Europeans that colonized America. But is that really true? Changes between generations of living beings tend to be minute at best -- for example, there was no point at which a wolf became a dog, or, as minutephysics will point out in the video at the end, no point at which a proto-chicken became a chicken. There was no generation during which a colonial-era human gave birth to a modern-day human. So how do we know that we have changed? Well, maybe we haven't. In fact, in terms of actual behavioral change, we probably haven't changed much from our distant cave men ancestors. For example, we tend to feel adrenaline rushes while presenting to an audience. As a result, we are jumpy and speak quickly. So if the adrenaline doesn't help us, why do we have it? Probably because such mechanisms were useful in prehistoric eras when humans had to respond to unforeseen dangers quickly. But why am I discussing long term changes anyway?

Because we have made almost none. We still react the same way to the same stimuli as before; we just have more sophisticated titles for things that scare us. Witches and Communists are both equally unlikely to take over America, but we have responded with the same fear and finger waggling to both. It simply takes a target that many people hate combined with some over-zealous investigators as well as some high intensity accusation matches to cause the mass hysteria that engulfs and damages society.

Even now, we are still freaking out over entirely useless things. Things like the Illuminati. Or the shadow bankers of the Knights Templar. Or Majestic Twelve.

Or this guy.

Minutephysics discusses change/evolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a8pI65emDE

Democracy may not always be the best idea

No doubt we all remember the Salem Witch Trials as a horrific event filled with wild accusations, brutal trials and executions, and mass hysteria and mob mentality. But the Salem Witch Trials were certainly not the norm or else we would not remember them as well. So what made the Salem Witch Trials possible?

To start, the government in Salem at the time takes some of the blame. The theocracy in charge of Salem and indeed the region made witchcraft a crime that is both heavily punished and yet easy to pin on others. This makes it possible for vengeance to be extracted fairly easily through legal means. Social standards also are a little at fault as the lack of privacy advocated in the community certainly made it easy to feed on the resulting paranoia and convert it to mass hysteria

The most important factor in the creation of the Salem Witch Trials, though, has to be the mob mentality.

As pointed out by John Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the accusing party in the Witch Trials is never at fault and is often seen as completing a holy task. Thus, there is a huge incentive to be part of the accusing party -- accusations against you will not be taken seriously. As the mob grew larger and larger the power it wielded grew until the courts began to act like democracies; you won if more people screamed with you. And with the charges more often than not leveled on a single person, it's rather hard for the accused to win such a battle.

This effect can be shown in a segment in the following video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygEEL57AcZs
Start at about 6 minutes in and end at 7 for the specific segment about a democracy vs a republic.

The powers of democracy and mob mentality made it so that the powerful elite at the head of the mob could charge who they liked of Witchcraft and get many of them to die or lose their reputations. Thus, the Trials could commence in of their grisly glory (or lack of glory thereof).

Why are we alive?

No this is not going to be a self-pitying rant about "Why am I specifically alive?" or "Why are we all here," but rather a question on the intentions of God and other religious deities.

As a christian, I'm not even going to pretend to know what God wants. Historically, this "we can never know the will of God" thing has been very convenient for religious leaders, as they can spout all kinds of nonsense and just say that they could not understand the powers that be when people point out that they are wrong. However, I am going to make a case against one religious leader, Jonathan Edwards.

In his rather famously brutal speech "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God," Edwards makes some very emotionally compelling arguments (Apparently he had people weeping and contemplating suicide due to his speech), but the logical side of his arguments certainly needs some shoring up. For starts, Edwards constantly describes all the endless horrors that God has ready for unconverted men, and that he could at any time kill them, whether it be by withholding miracles or opening the earth beneath them or just shooting them with invisible divine bow and arrows. But why hasn't he?

In his speech, Edwards fails to mention any reason that God has not done so, other than the fact that no one knows what He is thinking. If God truly had no reason to hold off all this imminent death, then surely everyone who is reading this blog should not exist, as he would not have held off this death and thus our ancestors (and thus us) should never have existed to start with. Then why DO we exist?

Perhaps we exist because God is indeed not that angry at us. According to the Bible, God sent his only son in the form of Jesus Christ to pay for our sins because he loved us. It is also said that Jesus paid for every sin in the past, present, and future. To make such a claim, God would have to know the future, meaning that he would know about the people of Edward's time well before they were alive.

Admittedly, that argument (and any other argument made on this topic) is flimsy at best, because really we don't know much about our divine entities, probably because this mysteriousness is part of their attractiveness. Again, we do not know the will of God. But surely anyone with the time and sense to think through Edward's speech can tell that what he says does not reflect the will of God. Or maybe you think otherwise. Anyway, let me know in the comments. And please do not go crazy with about religion and all.

"Asian Education"

Sherman Alexie, in an excerpt from his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, describes his unorthodox upbringing at the hands of alcohol and racism. The result is what he labels "Indian Education." Yet every ethnicity's quirks can result in a different type of education, right?

It's no secret that Asian children have recently been developing a reputation for substantial success in America's education system. The modern (partly correct) stereotype of always overachieving and getting top notch grades no matter the price tends to put Asians among the creme de la creme in terms of achievement focused students. But why is this the case? Here's my take on it (or at least my take on Chinese students, as I'm not qualified to really examine another ethnicity).

One factor in this success could be the heritage of modern Chinese students. It was only recently that Chinese people were really allowed to leave the country, and those that did were the intellectual elite of the Cultural Revolution era. Whether they were allowed to leave because they posed the greatest threat to Chairman Mao's rule or because they would China look good to the international community I do not know. Perhaps, though, as they had children, they passed down their affinity for education.

The people who could leave also passed down their habits and views. No doubt in order to succeed, they put insane amounts of effort into their work. It would not be much of a stretch to assume that they taught their children to do whatever it takes to reach their goals. Also, as a result of the crippling poverty that marked the cultural revolution, modern Chinese parents probably place more importance on money than most other things. This is probably why many Chinese students are aiming to become doctors, lawyers, or engineers, three of the top-paying jobs on the market.

No doubt there are other factors in the modern phenomenon of high achieving Asian students, but it would seem like a ridiculous coincidence that the smartest people from Asia came to breed some of the smartest children in the rest of the world if indeed heritage does not play a role in Asian success. In whatever the case, I look forward to what you think. Any thoughts? Comment below.

Is the truth worth sacrificing for the sake of the "truth"?

Stories are meant to convey information, whether it be sensory information or emotional information. Yet, when the information is of an emotional nature, story writers have had problems conveying the emotions themselves as opposed to descriptions of the emotions. Thus, the following question arises: "What are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of the truth?"

Obviously, since this is a rather personal question, different people have had different answers. For example, Tim O'Brien, in his book The Things they Carried, successfully maintained verisimilitude. Yet he admits that most of the story was fake. Why?

Clearly, for Tim, the gut emotions of his war experiences amounted to more than the experiences themselves. Thus, for him, for the sake of the "truth," (his emotions) he sacrificed the truth (what actually happened). For example, in the chapter "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," the entire incident including Mary Anne was highly unlikely, as no girl would be allowed into an American base in Vietnam. Yet, the core truth -- that war changes people and forces them back to their feral roots -- is enhanced by the deception.

This truth is seen in the real world, too. As areas formerly peaceful have become shaken by war, common civilians have both taken arms and used their skills to help others. For example, some civilians in war-torn Syria have created a homemade tank. It can be seen by following the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB1BDrFzFY0

Still, back to the point, Tim O'Brien was willing to sacrifice a lot for his "truth." His decision reflects on him as a writer and as a person. What would you sacrifice for the truth? Is information gathered by the senses worth more than information gleaned from experience? Let me know.