Re: Hot, Cold, and Temperature

Of course, this is all very subjective. But I was
trying to avoid the "thinking" attitude, like in:
spiders cannot be negative, BECAUSE they can be useful
(this is analyzing, I referred to instinct). I think
that usually, in our cultures, if you say the word
"spider" and don't leave any time to a person to think
it over, it will rather characterize it as negative
(and even more if it sees a spider before its nose).
Of course, this would not be the case for a scientist
whose entire carrier would be devoted to spiders and
would sleep with a dozen of them on his pillow. There
always are exceptions.

As to kittens, the concept "cute" also usually
instinctively comes to mind. Of course there are
people allergic to cats or to kittens. But usually,
it's a small, cute ("lovely") and funny thing, even if
you have to watch it carefully. To kill a kitten is
usually resented as very unpleasant and gruesome; it
is not so for killing a spider. It's the same for
"child". I myself am rather allergic to children
(they're noisy, dirty, dumb, exasperating and much
more), but somehow I feel that a child has a positive
value for mankind, so I would not instinctively
qualify them negatively (maybe this is auto-censuring?
Anyway, I wouldn't think of killing them). As to
considering kittens and children as "negative" because
they are small and little aged, this is true if we
consider another scale (size, weight, age...). This is
a difference between "feeling" and "knowing" I think,
or between subjective and objective fields.

IMHO, even a scientist getting his salary from working
on AIDS or cancer would respond "negative" to "AIDS
virus" or "cancer".

I also think that children and kittens would be more
positively considered among women than among men. And
spiders or rats, negatively in the same amount.

Clearly, one should not stick to a single field,
because sometimes qualifications would be
contradictory. For people eating worms, a worm could
be considered as very positive (delicious). But when
we think of a worm, we usually don't consider it from
a gastronomic point of view. (We French people might
do so for snails or frogs :-). A car is useful, but
cars are a nuisance. Etc.

--- Chris Bates <christopher.bates@...>
wrote:
> Personally I respond better to spiders than
> kittens... I'm not afraid of
> spiders, but I hate cats, vicious monsters that they
> are... my
> grandparents used to have lots of the things and
> every single one
> scratched me at some point. And kittens are worse
> than full grown cats
> for scratching.
>
> >
> >> instinctive and immediate way, would think "-"
> when
> >> hearing the word "spider", and how many would
> think
> >> "+" when hearing "kitten" ?
> >
> >
> > I don't have any particularly negative reaction to
> spiders or the word
> > "spider". Spiders have some good qualities; they
> catch insects. Black
> > widows and brown recluses have a reputation for
> being dangerous, but
> > they're not the first thing that comes to mind if
> I hear the word
> > "spider".
> >
> > "Kitten" depends on whether you're thinking of
> cuteness (subjectively
> > positive) or age (negative, compared with
> full-grown cats). I think the
> > way the question was phrased, contrasting "kitten"
> with "spider", makes
> > you think of cuteness rather than age.
> >

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html

Reply