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Re: CHAT: cultural interpretation [was Re: THEORY: language and the brain]

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Saturday, July 5, 2003, 0:13
On Fri, Jul 04, 2003 at 10:19:36AM +0200, taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> > Sorry. What I said is, or recently was, reportedly true in Norway, > > Nope. Never has been, and isn't the case now.
Okay, fine, I give up. I shall complain to my friend for passing along an urban legend, especially when he should know better. :) I take it back. It's still the case that there are, in a great many otherwise free countries, a variety of what seem to us UnitedStatesians odd restrictions on odd things that the government, in our collective opinion, really has no business messing about with. However, it's also true that there are restrictions here that do not exist elsewhere, which may be regarded as more fundamental in some places. There also remains an unfortunately large amount of intolerance, in various geographic or societal areas of the US for various types of people or choices. Fortunately, very little of that intolerance is institutionalized in law - less so all the time, as in the recent Supreme Court strikedown of several states' anti-sodomy laws. Meanwhile, the social realities are also getting much better as time goes on. Perhaps too slowly, but I don't think there's much we can do about that - I really think significant progress against racism, sexism, sexualityism, and other -isms can only happen in generational jumps.
> Norway is also the country with the world's largest humanist organization, > HEF (Human-Etisk Forbund) of which I am a member.
Gratulerer! :) -Mark