| http://www.westegg.com/morgan/ |
| |
| "I'm an easily amused compulsive people watcher" |
| + |
| +I subscribe to his [Random Thoughts|http://www.westegg.com/rt/] : ...It is the forum that I use to share insights, information, and interpretations with interesting people from around the world... |
| + |
| +One of the recent RTs started |
| + |
| +... |
| +Merely talking about something confers importance on it. What I value |
| +isn't |
| +revealed by a declaration of values that I may make or recite but |
| +rather by |
| +what I do--how I spend my time and other resources. I may declare my |
| +hatred |
| +of materialism; but if I spend all of my time talking about that new |
| +Rolls-Royce, then maybe I'm deceiving myself. We are, in other words, |
| +what |
| +we talk about. |
| + |
| +What we talk about of course differs not only by individual, but by |
| +region, |
| +profession, ideology, and countless factors. Take the subset of what |
| +people |
| +talk about upon meeting each other for the first time. College |
| +students, |
| +for example, ask each other what they are majoring in--they all |
| +do--upon |
| +meeting. But there are some commonalities among other groups as well. |
| +What |
| +do such conversation beginnings say about each society? |
| +..... |
| +Mark Twain suggested one answer, observing in his autobiography, "In |
| +Boston |
| +they ask, 'How much does he know?' In New York, 'How much is he worth?' |
| +In |
| +Philadelphia, 'Who were his parents?'" Perhaps examining the question |
| +that |
| +Twain posed humorously might prove a bit illuminating as to the issues |
| +that |
| +every society places importance on |
| +..... |
| +Imagine what we don't ask when we meet people. What if it were the |
| +societal |
| +standard that our first question upon meeting someone for the first |
| +time |
| +was, "What have you read lately?". Imagine we expected people to ask |
| +and |
| +answer this question in social situation after social situation. This |
| +would |
| +certainly reveal a very different value system. It would suggest that |
| +society expects people to read a lot, to discuss what they read--in |
| +other |
| +words, to value reading..... |