Re: OT: Worcestershire sauce

En réponse à Andreas Johansson :


>No I didn't - I interpreted it as saying that you thought "pica" was just 
>a way
>of denigrating non-Western habits. Sorry for misunderstanding.
It's OK, I was probably unclear.


>I don't necessarily agree that contrasting Western and non-Western is stupid;
>it makes perfect sense when discussing areas where Western culture differs 
>from
>what is otherwise normal in human societies.
I personally find it useless because there's no single Western culture. 
There are just plenty of related cultures, but the differences are strong 
enough that talking about a Western culture as opposed to other cultures 
makes the word "culture" meaningless (I should know. I've been living for 
two years in a country only 300km from my home country, and I've still not 
completely recovered from the culture shock).

>  (Would you assert that
>contrasting, say, Javanese and non-Javanese is also necessarily stupid?)
I would say it's useless, as there's no such thing as a single non-Javanese 
culture (and is there a single Javanese culture?). Comparisons between 
cultures can be enlightening, but only when you define clearly both terms 
of the comparison. As such, any "one against everything else" comparison is 
doomed from the beginning.

And with all the prejudiced stuff you see around these days (from all 
sides), this kind of comparisons, or anything related to it, looks 
suspicious to me. It may make me suspicious against perfectly innocent 
studies, but I still prefer to stay vigilant :)) .

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

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