Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nicholas_chiasson]

-So many times in a debate, somebody says, "Oh you're generalizing a group of people, country whatever." At the same time speech requires non-ambiguous meaning to be productive. For example 'the sky is blue' is a widely held fact, despite that being blind, color blind, and twilight all change the sky from 'blue' into something else.
-So even a statement as simple as
'Humans have one head and two arms' is totally messed up by this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_and_Brittany_Hensel
Or
'The Words of the New Testament are easy to explain' is messed up by this bit from the Apocalypse
1And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

and so on. Thus how can any opinion be held conclusively on any subject if nothing can be said to be certain in all cases? And if all truth is relative, then how can any debate said to be valid as any supposition is 'valid' depending on the viewpoint of the master debater?

[Adventurer]

Partner, I didn't quite understand your post. Would you care to clarify what you're saying?

[tomato]

One can say that "all dogs are canine" and "all cats are feline" because canine means "being a dog" and feline means "being a cat."
There are numerous other words which could be plugged into this formula, such as porcine and avine, but this is the only formula for safe generalizations I can think of.

I am curious regarding what made you start thinking about this question.
I am betting that living in Korea has something to do with it.

According to The Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett:



Asian people tend to see fields whereas Western people tend to see figures.

This could explain why Western people tend to regard prejudice as a sin and why Western people find it very difficult to convince Asian people that prejudice is a sin.

This could explain why Western people tend to believe in hiring a candidate on the basis of merit whereas Asian people tend to believe in hiring a candidate on the basis of how that candidate can fit into the organization.

This could explain why Western people tend to exalt individuals whereas Asian people tend to exalt groups.

In turn, this could explain why the family name comes last in our society but comes first in theirs.

[mrgiles]

[Adventurer]

No, I do not believe that truth is just relative. When it comes to generalizations, and the word general, I would think it would have to be
something when it is a pattern by the majority of the populace or something close to it. There is a difference between saying that Koreans are more likely to do this than say Americans or what have you, but if you say Koreans do this or do that, then it would be something one can be pretty certain most do. It's something very tricky.

Suppose someone said to a person from place Z "Z people are functionally illiterate". Someone would be quite incensed. That is true for some people, but not all. If you said many fit that.

You mentioned exceptions. It's better to say many people tend to be rude in Paris, then to simply say Parisians are rude, or if you said that people tend to be more polite in Nice, France rather than Paris, that's generally true. In this case, the majority of the people in both cities could be civil enough, but we all do know there is some appreciable rudeness in Paris.

There is a difference between saying Koreans are xenophobic and xenophobia is a problem in Korea or many of the people are xenophobic and not enough is done to combat the problem.

The more people are quick to lump each other, the more they are
likely to engage in a war.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I agree that the OP is unclear. IF I understand it, then I agree with Adventurer's post--use qualifiers like 'many', 'most', 'some' and the problem is solved.

[bacasper]