----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Baker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 10:52 AM Subject: Re: Brin: the new Bush ad : I don't see any morphing...
> Dan said: > > > If one is translating a language, one does not assume that a word > > that has no direct correspondence in the target language is > > meaningless. Rather, one tries to obtain the word or words that > > convey the meaning in the origional language. In a similar vein, > > an athiest can understand the framework in which religeous words > > are used and obtain a meaningful translation to an athiestic > > framework. > > In Star Trek scripts, there's apparently liberal use by the writers of > "TECH", which means "put some impressive technobabble here". The > shooting script then replaces "TECH" with "recalibrate the neutralino > shield harmonics" or whatever. When I'm watching Star Trek (which isn't > often in recent years), my brain does a reverse translation to "TECH": I > don't even bother parsing those bits and trying to fit them into a > coherent framework because that's not the point. I think that I (and > maybe other Europeans?) do a similar sort of thing with American > political discourse. I sort of assume that there's a "DEUS" in the > original version of the speech that someone then replaces with a fancy > religious flourish. Stripping out these doesn't usually make too much > difference to the meaning. To me, this case were talking about here is > like that, because it still clearly makes sense with just the Iraqi > people's forgiveness involved, and that in turn reduces in less > charged language to something like the version I gave earlier. So, you would analyze TS Eliot by simply inserting "English Major technobabble" for all of his references to earlier literature? In the Star Trek case, the writers were just BSing. They didn't care about science. In the case of religious references, it is a reference to the foundations of Western Culture. I found it shocking that Moore actually used phraseology that is usually reserved for the most austere fundamentalists. > Now, perhaps by subconsciously doing this I'm missing something very > important sometimes, but I don't really think I am. And in any case the > alternative - that the political class of the world's largest military > power have worldviews largely shaped by Bronze Age Mesopotamia with a > leavening of the opinions of the senatorial class of Late Antiquity - is > a little scary... Ah, Western Civilization has worldviews largely shaped by Christianity and Greek and Roman thought. The main addition of Europe was the respect for craftsmen missing from ancient societies. The Enlightenment clearly traces its roots to Erasmus, who is clearly a Christian thinker. What literature and thought do you think Western Civilization is founded upon? I'd be happy to start a thread on that. The only caveat is that my wife and I are taking an early anniversary trip to Banff in a few hours...so responses after the next few hours will probably have to wait until Wednesday evening. Best regards, Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
