"political"

[Jonathan Lighter]

>Isn't the justification of a specific public policy a political act?

Yeah, but that isn't the issue here.

The author is simply discussing the question of whether war existed in the
Ice Age. He's saying that whatever they may have been doing to each other
with those spears, it is "a political act" to call it war.

Because the Ice Agers, for all we know, might have thought of mass stabbing
and bopping as recreation or a neutral activity undifferentiated from peace
or a smart way to honor their gods (oops! political! maybe they didn't have
"gods"!).

So "politics" and "policy" as we know them are not involved.

JL

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "political"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Isn't the justification of a specific public policy a political act? The
> author was arguing that using " the activities of the hunters of the Ice
> Age" as justification for war is political.
>
> DanG
>
>
> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 12:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      "political"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Gee, I'm dense. After decades of exposure to Marxist, deconstructionist,
> > structuralist, poststructuralist, and metastructuralist criticism, I
> still
> > don't know what "political" means!  Can you beat it?
> >
> > Can someone interpret the meaning for me in the following sentence? I
> mean
> > fairly authoritatively:
> >
> > "To use words from one culture to describe the activities of another is
> > always a political act. It is an ethnocentric value judgment to impose
> the
> > term 'war'  to describe the activities of the hunters of the Ice Age. The
> > peoples of that time probably had no word for war and would be amazed at
> > the concept."
> >
> > 'Self-serving'? 'Ethnocentrically self-serving'?  'Unjustifiable from a
> > perspective of cultural relativism'?  'Etc.'?
> >
> > There seems to be an underlying nuance of "politics" present that isn't
> > covered by OED either. But what exactly?
> >
> > Should we care?
> >
> > JL
> >
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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