4 ms·
I dunno, I find that people are can be relatively open to talking about 'bigger' issues so long as it's framed in a way that departs from the normal polarizing
by abeppu 3y ago
I dunno, I find that people are can be relatively open to talking about 'bigger' issues so long as it's framed in a way that departs from the normal polarizing frameworks we're used to engaging in.
Talking about politics in the sense of current party issues is either boring or divisive depending on the group. But talking about voting systems and social choice theory can turn out well, especially if you frame it around something that doesn't look like governance in a traditional state. E.g. "The recent Colorado river water deal was kind of undemocratic. But what would be a fair, democratic and reasonable way to make decisions around that kind of resource problem?"
"Which religion is right?" is a bad conversation starter, but nerdy people enjoy a question that departs from normal identifications, like "Judaism, Islam and sometimes Buddhism care a lot about engaging with religious texts in their original language, but Christianity cares a lot less. Does faith come with an intuition about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?" People aren't precommitted to a camp in an emotional way, aren't offended by disagreement, and are willing to think about something new.
- lazyasciiart 3y agoHeh, in the Catholic Church this could jump you right into a current vicious divide between regressive “Latinists” who want to undo all of Vatican 2 (most relevantly, the change from holding mass in Latin to holding it in the local language), and the pope and actual church.
- abeppu 3y ago... but even if you're an old-school Catholic who wants Latin mass, is that consistent with a strong version of Sapir-Whorf given that the new testament was written in Koine Greek and Jesus and the disciples spoke Aramaic? I.e. if language limits which concepts you can hold, Latin may not be able to communicate same understandings as intended by the authors of the gospels?
- lazyasciiart 3y agoI don't think you'd get informed takes on Sapir-Whorf, but people who already have opinions on Latin Mass and not linguistics might assume that you were referring to that topic.
- abeppu 3y agoYeah but if your conversational partner wants to express an opinion without understanding the question, and who doesn't have the intellectual curiosity to ask about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis then they encounter it, maybe you already weren't going to have a good conversation irrespective of the topic.
- toyg 3y agoThese arguments are rarely about who's objectively right, but rather an ideological justification for a power struggle. Undoing "Vatican II" is largely about repositioning Catholic attention towards the wealthy end of the social spectrum, to make it easier to wield hard, temporal power; Latin mass is just one of the ideological wedges used to support that effort.
- philwelch 3y agoThe Sapir-Whorf stuff has almost nothing to do with why some traditionalist Catholics prefer the traditional Latin Mass. (Also, the language spoken is not the only difference between the TLM and the post-Vatican II mass.)