Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, vardi wrote:

> In Judaism there is a concept of "gader laTorah" - a fence around the
> Torah. That means that you don't do act X, not because it itself is
> forbidden, but because it may well lead to act Y, which is forbidden.
But what if act X might also lead to act Z, which is the right thing to
do?

> Similarly, I think I shy away from arguments, approaches or philosophies
> which may not be harmful in themselves, but which seem to have the
> potential to lead on to things that I do see as harmful.
What's it like, being afraid of ideas? I've never known the feeling.

> Scientific objectivism (when it comes to the cultural/social field as
> opposed to scientific research as such) seems to me to be an example of
> this.
Why do you think that cultures and societies cannot or should not be
studied scientifically? How could learning in a new way *ever* be harmful?

What do you think it means to study something scientifically? Perhaps
we're using different definitions; that might be the cause of some of my
confusion.

_____________________________________________________________________________
Christopher Reid Palmer : reid@pconline.com : www.pconline.com/~reid/