Blues, you totally got what I was trying to say. You just earned massive amounts of respect. But really, pretty much all of these arguments are valid and there's no way we'll all come over to the same line of thinking.

That's probably the first positive reaction I've gotten for saying this stuff. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. *^-^*



Basically the entire point here, just substitute communication differences for, uh, hey, communication differences! Whaddaya know?

Jibing aside, that also should include cultural differences, but yeah, the entire point is that if you actually understand how someone else operates, you're not going to hate them all. They essentially are absorbed into your in group.

Because hippies and fireswords go together like ____ and ____.
But a good question would be, who doesn't like love and freedom?

Ok POS, I'll try and break it down for easy digestion:

1) World View
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Images/WorldviewLoop.gif

Basically the diagram indicates the world view loop, as you can see because this is a loop system and that the value influences the perception people have a self gratifying sense of world, to the point where there actually develops an aversion to the changing of this loop, people who don't constantly re-evaluate this synapse loop will just run it deeper and deeper into the literally physical makeup of their brains, similar to someone walking in a circle until they wear the ground in. As time goes by these uncheck self-assurances accumulate and start becoming toxic towards the expansion of one's world view, but by being so assured that we are right we are actually just assuring ourselves we cannot change, and because change is the essence of life and progression, in essence our brains stop growing and stagnate.
Because of this fact we create PHYSICAL phobias, which are a little like emotional phobias or emotional trauma links in the brain to feeling, it's a phobia that the path you've worn down so much is wrong, but as a self defense measure it avoids this.

SOCIALLY, in most modern cultures we are pretty liberal, we accept that everyone can think and do as they wish and that if people think they are right, then that's their choice and really nobody can say otherwise what they think, and because we as a society are accepting of this, if it is easier it usually becomes the standard.

So, basically, you stop reforming, which leads to slower, shallower and ultimately less meaningful thought processes (meaningful meaning that it has meaning to multiple different views you consider simultaneously), this is essentially mental obesity, and it forms a lethargic approach to adaptive thinking, which forms the same loop catch-22 to healing one's state.

Imagine if being fat were suddenly socially accepted and in many circles admired and/or improved your social standing within others in the group?

No argument gets shrill so fast and with such baseless passion as one questioning world view.

Mental Rut = Change Phobia

I am seeing a thing I do not understand.

You're obviously smoking the wrong stuff, it makes perfect sense to me.

Why do some people react to foreign cultures with animosity and some with curiosity?

I've been wondering about that for some months. I don't think it's as simple as learning tolerance, though that obviously helps. But tolerating something is just staying neutral to it. Most people either want to learn and incorporate in their world things, ideas and/or people who are different, or want to shut them out.

Kind of like in the Neolithic, then.

Lev is saying that our liberal society is so acceptant of diverse viewpoints that we even accept bigoted ones and allow those people to remain bigoted without calling them out on it, or even reward bigoted people (think of a lot of southern governments in the post-Civil War, lots of bigots were rewarded for their views by being elected to positions of power), and so society as a whole is bigoted because we don't call people out on being intolerant.

I think that's what Lev is saying.

I disagree, though, I think we here right now are talking about being bigoted in a bad way and while there are lots of people in little insular communities where being bigoted is a good thing, I think society as a whole has made it pretty clear it's not good at all and is not a desirable trait to have. I don't think society as a whole is encouraging bigoted behavior...or at least the side of society I agree with. Of course, since Arizona will probably reward their governor with another term for signing that racist immigration bill, it's probably a step backwards, since other people could see that as "Oh, if I support isolationist, racist viewpoints I might get elected to government, I'll go do that now".

But I don't think creating incentives for racist behavior is as bad as it used to be. I don't think our society is liberal in the sense that we are so sensitive we even accept racist viewpoints as "possibilities", although at the end of the day we have to tolerate these people instead of driving them out with fire and sword. I don't think we are so PC we can't call them out for being racist douchebags, though, or pick apart their arguments for racism incredibly easily and expose them as fools.