Otherwise, I??m content that the explanation I??ve provided about the problems inherent in the following:

My comments and my editorials in major newspapers are taken quite seriously by enough people, thanks.

?? has been more than sufficient by now.

Bye now.

I am still trying to figure out what that exactly means. I have, however, heard some African-Americans call other African-Americans who speak grammatically proper English as “sounding white.” So I guess it’s a good thing.

And apparently I make “Kipling-sque” remarks. While I really appreciate that unwitting compliment, I really seriously doubt that I write like Kipling at all. One only wishes.

James
aka Guns and Butter
aka The Asianist

??????! Somebody’s been called out for “not thinking like a Korean”!

You clearly chose to make issue with the messenger (me) rather than the message (the subject at hand). You could’ve disagreed with my observation or view (or that of my father) with your own observations to the contrary (if any) or other evidences (that would, for example, counter why charity giving or adoption outside families might be low other).

Instead, even now, you are making ME the issue, not the subject at hand.

James
aka Guns and Butter
aka The Asianist

YADDAH X3 …

In contrast, you called me a ??know it all,?? a name-calling, clearly with an intent to denigrate ME rather than engage or attack my argument. That is a classic case of ??ad hominem.?? Maybe you can look that up on Wikipedia too.

I put the link up to Wikipedia because you don’t seem to understand why your denoting yourself as an authority on this issue, and your appeals to authority in general are mistaken. I had thought an encyclopedia article would be simpler for you to grasp, and more concisely written than anything I could readily provide, but even in this I seem to have misjudged you. I’ll see if I can find a comic book that shows why appeals to authority are not compelling.

You are just not an authority on the issue, at least no more than anybody else here. Your work history doesn’t make your opinion any more weighty, so your recourse to credentialism is irrelevant. Since you’ve been so persistent about it, I really can’t hold any longer that it’s an honest mistake and will say just you’re being obstinately dumb (There, that’s an ad hom).

If you were Paul Krugman and we were discussing international trade, deference would be due. If you were Noam Chomsky and we were disccussing linguistics, likewise, his credentials, his employment as a linguistics professor at MIT, etc., all would command respect from amateurs. However, being a top economist and linguist respectively don’t mean that they’re necessarily right about anything as social commentators, and you would laugh if Chomsky said “You better take me seriously, I’m a linguist at MIT!”. For the same reason, when we’re discussing a non-techie topic that everybody here is familiar with, your credentials are really irrelevant, and demanding deference for them is lame beyond comprehension.

I wasn’t really going out of my way to insult you personally, so you might want to get down off that cross now. I’m satisfied that I’ve shown why part of your reasoning is flawed in a very elementary way. I said you were a know it all, because you insist that one holds your views to be authoritative without any good reason why. I don’t think that’s engaging in personal attacks.

And yet, it didn’t stop you from referring to the book in an authoritative fashion.

Cause in the 17th century there was no official ??Austrian-Hungaro empire??. The emperor of that time was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (Heiliges R??misches Reich deutscher Nation).

And yet, you continue to attempt to give history lessons (but I can use the German lessons, thanks). Und das heilige r?mische Reich war weder heilig noch r??misch.

Good question. Why don???t you answer for us? Tell me of another current civilization where women hold such high status outside the Western civilization.

I figure you wouldn’t answer this question seriously, because you know what’s true. Women enjoy much higher status in the West than they do elsewhere.

Questionable theory. Women rights for female Roman slaves?

Not questionable at all. Roman legal concepts formed the basis of European (and later American) legal tradition. Roman law protected rights of women in a number of specific ways.

Sure, Rome was an ancient civilization and had slaves (who didn’t back then?). But let’s compare apples to apples. Roman free women had specific legal rights that surpassed those in other contemporary civilizations (or, for that matter, many non-Western civilizations of much more recent vintage).

They West had luck… But civilizations rise and fall.

“Luck” is what losers blame when others win.

But, for once, I agree with you on one thing — of course, civilizations rise and fall. I never maintained otherwise.

Contrary to the straw man position, I never mainted that the West or its civilization is inherently superior. It is very possible that the West may fall in the future and others may rise in its place. Likely, however, that won’t happen in my life time, and thank goodness for that.

China, for centuries, was much ahead of any civilization on this planet.

That’s a fascinating subject actually that warrants its own space — why China lost its technological advances of, say, the 14th Century (I touch on that briefly in my next column).

Look, wiseass, I??m not a gentleman. And I love ad hominem attacks against arrogant banana-punks like you.

I think a “punk” is someone who, unable to argue like an adult, engages in childish name-calling.

Well, you’ve clearly established that you are not a gentleman. Neither are you, apparently, in possession of the politeness and dignity prized in Korean culture. What exactly are you? Confused? The worst of both worlds?

Oh, and I much prefer the term “twinkie” over “banana.”

I think we’re done here. At least I am. As a wise man once said, “Don’t try to teach a pig how to sing. It will annoy the pig and it still won’t be able to sing.”

James
aka Guns and Butter
aka The Asianist

They West had luck. The West is ahead of the technological and scientific race for 500 years. But civilizations rise and fall.
China, for centuries, was much ahead of any civilization on this planet. The Far East could have luck as well. Maybe for the next 5 centuries. Hold your breath, GB!

Is there no ??gentlemanliness?? in other cultures and civilizations on par with Western civilizations?

Good question. Why don??t you answer for us? Tell me of another current civilization where women hold such high status outside the Western civilization.

Your “feministic” answer to my rhetorical question!

Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism or Animism influenced civilizations differ but that doesn??t make them naturally ??ungentle??.

More straw man, since I said or implied no such thing.

My reaction to your “feministic” answer.

Only, the seeds for high status of women date back much longer to the days of ancient Greco-Roman civilizations (Roman women could inherit property and divorce freely, for example). Even in 50 BC, the West was ahead in the game of rights for women.

Questionable theory. Women rights for female Roman slaves?

Much of the rest of your statements is more personal attack. I??ve endured enough ad hominem, so I won??t respond to any more personal attacks. If you got the ??stuff,?? argue the substance. Otherwise, like I wrote before, ad hominem is a sign of a weak argument.

Note that I haven??t made any derogatory remarks about YOU. I??ve criticized what you wrote instead without calling you names. Perhaps if you were a gentleman, you??d kindly reciprocate.

Look, wiseass, I’m not a gentleman. And I love ad hominem attacks against arrogant banana-punks like you. And my oratory is always heart-throbbingly good although I don’t write editorial for important newespapers and journals.

Leaving other issues aside for the moment, I’d argue that pervasiveness of charity has much to do with humanism.

Bernard Lewis?? observation of forementioned Austrian-Hungaro emperor is an example of a gentleman with a heart of stone. The same emperor led his people to a senseless war in the trenches - breaking the hearts of millions of women by sending them to the butchering field of World War I, whilst not caring a shit about their deaths. I would call him a ??gentle?? SOB.

Magnificent oratory! Except for one inconvenient fact. The Lewis excerpt is from an Ottoman emissary describing the Austrian emperor of 1665. As you know, I am sure, WWI took place some two and a half centuries later. That’s one long-living emperor.

Nice having a “know it all” around, isn’t it?

By the way, there is no proof that Emperor Franz Josef (the Austrian emperor and the Hungarian king who ruled when WWI began) did “not care a shit about their deaths.”

Franz Josef was popular among the empire’s subjects until his death in the middle of the war. He was particularly known for attempting to grant Slavs in the empire self-rule (prevented by his German and Magyar nobles).

His rule was celebrated as that of a “liberal monarchy” (participation of different ethnicities in governing) particularly in light of subsequent rise of highly nationalistic fascism in both Austria and Hungary (and persecution of ethnic minorities).

Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism or Animism influenced civilizations differ but that doesn??t make them naturally ??ungentle??.

More straw man, since I said or implied no such thing.

The level and higher standing of women and children in society took the West hellovalot pain and was a slow process - it??s an achievement of industrialization in the 18th-19th century and due to the progress of liberal democracy.

Only, the seeds for high status of women date back much longer to the days of ancient Greco-Roman civilizations (Roman women could inherit property and divorce freely, for example). Even in 50 BC, the West was ahead in the game of rights for women.

But even if one were to accept your logic that only industrialization and liberal democracy led to such a situation, why is it that industrialization and liberal democracy just happened to have occurred in the West first?

Much of the rest of your statements is more personal attack. I’ve endured enough ad hominem, so I won’t respond to any more personal attacks. If you got the “stuff,” argue the substance. Otherwise, like I wrote before, ad hominem is a sign of a weak argument.

Note that I haven’t made any derogatory remarks about YOU. I’ve criticized what you wrote instead without calling you names. Perhaps if you were a gentleman, you’d kindly reciprocate.