Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Humanities/2006 July 13

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I don't know, Dirk, is there anything particularly pejorative or ignorant about the

Surely it's simply a cultural thing. People from different cultures and subcultures do different things and have different values, by definition, just as with people of different racial or religious groups.--Shantavira 16:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we're looking at insufficient inductive reasoning. I lived in NYC for two years, and I saw plenty of African-Americans in both locations. You walk the bridge if you live near the water in Brooklyn. You ride the train if you live farther away. The prices of apartments in Jumbo and other locations is very high. Class and race are far less equivalent in NYC than other American cities, but they're still nearly aligned enough that the numbers would skew. The Park is another place where the properties beside it on the east side are very expensive. On the west side and at the northern end, you see plenty of diversity, as there is greater diversity in economics there. As for people travelling out of their way to go to the park to jog or the bridge to walk...that's a tourist thing. Geogre 17:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Saying it's a cultural thing is begging the question. Why then is there a cultural difference between blacks and whites? The US had centuries of slavery and apartheid was only abolished in the sixties. This history creates a chasm that isn't overcome in half a century. And as long as the 'races' (which aren't really races, but that's a different issue) don't mix the difference will remain visible and the segregation will probably remain intact for centuries. And this hold true pretty much anywhere in the world. It's like the kids at school teasing the kid with the red hair beause he's different. We learn to overcome that, but when it comes to skin colour it's different it seems. In the Netherlands there's something similar going on with people from Moroccan descent. They tend to group together, little mixing. Even some 'ghetto's'. And there is talk of so-called 'black schools'. Once a school has this name, white parents don't send their kids there, which makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wonder if this will ever end without racial mixing. Hoping for that feels a bit like the communist dream - nice, but it will never happen. DirkvdM 19:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Geogre, wrong elephant. The neighborhood is DUMBO. --Nelson Ricardo 01:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Dang! I should have remembered that it was named for the cute elephant, not the tortured real one. Geogre 12:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It probably has to do with economics like Kainaw said. Poor people tend to be too busy working to have the money or time to bike around. On the other hand, races have mixed a lot in South America and there's still a racial problem. Racial mixing doesn't eliminate skin tone differences like a lot of people think it does. --ColourBurst 02:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was a flaw in my reasoning. There has been a lot of mixing in the US too, but segregation is pretty fierce there. the only contry I can think of where the 'races' have mixed to a large extent and where there appears to be spontaneous intermixing, with people not being aware of the other person's skin colour is Cuba. But even there the blacker you are the harder it is said to get a higher position. (And Jamaicans are supposedly considered lazy, but that's not specifically a skin colour thing.)
Ehm, sufficient 'racial mixing' would create sort of an average skin colour, wouldn't it? I'm not sure what you mean there. DirkvdM 08:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Even with a lot of mixing there is always some variation. It is amazing how little difference it takes for one group to decide that another group is somehow lesser. You can see it in Mexico where a there is a gradual variation of skin tone. As you get toward the darker side of the spectrum you may experience more racism. From my Mexican relatives I have heard them say of a new baby "He is very dark" (indicating a slight derogatory) or "she is sooo light!" in a happy way. Nowimnthing 13:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Is that Mexicans in Mexico or in the US?
I deliberately brought up Cuba, because there, the mixing is so well developed that there it is almost impossible to draw a line between 'races'. An interresting thing is that I saw one girl who was almost completely white, and my first reaction was that there was something wrong there. Then it slowly dawned on me that I expected such a white girl not to mix with the 'ordinary' darker skinned people. That was one of my revelations in Cuba. Apparently, through my travels, I've grown so used to this link between skin colour and position that it looks 'wrong' to me when that link isn't there. DirkvdM 08:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I heard that skin colour didn't matter as much in Cuba. Here it matters because of social conditioning. Unlearning that process is not easy (and very easy to avoid), but necessary. --ColourBurst 17:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kundalini variants in a tantric perspective

In normal Tantric techniques, the Kundalini is raised through the central Nidis, throught the seven major Chakras. In a Tantric perspective, what would be the effect of channeling the Kundalini through minor nidis, to mino Chakras? For example, channeling it through the nidi in the arm to the hand Chakra? This is purely hypothetical. Any opinions will be much apriciated --AmateurThinker 16:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misrepresentation

I am wondering if one can be held libel for what one preceives as misrespresenation in an classified type advertisement. Say, for example, I post an ad on craigslist. A potential buyer travels to see my object for sale, but feels that it is not in the condition that I stated in my ad. Can I be held responsible for that? Is that illegal? Assuming the potential customer does not buy it, just looks.

Thanks!!!

  • I doubt that the staff at the Federal Trade Commission would time waste pursuing a person for false advertisement on Craigslist. I believe they pursue false advertisement by a business which would affect more consumers. However, I defer to a more expert opinion.--Patchouli 17:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Whether it is false advertising or not, it is not libel, which is essentially publishing derogatory and wrong accusations about someone. DJ Clayworth 17:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
What if the ad was for a person and he advertised that person using derogatory and wrong statements? --Kainaw (talk) 18:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
That pesky ol' Thirteenth Amendment might rear its ugly head. In any event, I think he meant liable rather than libel... Joe 16:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I could see a small claims court suit over this. If a person agreed to travel to the seller to look at the Mercedes he has advertised, but it turns out to be a Yugo, I could imagine the court awarding travel costs to the disenchanted buyer. StuRat 20:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

In Stu's scenario he's probably right. However in the questioner's scenario, there's just a basic degree of leeway given to advertisers. We've all heard ads stating that, for example, a certain restaurant is "the best in town" or that a certain automobile company produces "the finest piece of automotive machinery ever built". This type of hyperbole and exaggeration is almost always tolerated, and if you should state, for example that your car is in "mint" condition when it in fact has some rust, you may be faced with an angry customer, but it's very hard to see it as actually "illegal". Just as caveat emptor is an active legal notion protecting the vendor after having sold an object that the purchaser realizes is not quite what he had bargained for, I'm strongly inclined to believe that the law would take the same approach to this situation (though I can't think of a latin legal term for it!) Loomis 11:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)