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

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