Style point: Shouldn't it be seascape?
In October 1880, the New York Times published an article on the word "seascape":
The propriety of this word seems more doubtful if it be borne in mind that landscape seems to run parallel with German landschaft, the primary meaning of which is the circuit of a state, and a secondary one the impression created by nature within such circuit or region on the mind (and, of course, eye) of a spectator, and then its scientific representation by the pencil or brush. Now, it need hardly be said that -schaft has no immediate connection with the root -scep, to see, but with shaffen, to make, and corresponds with our -ship, as in freundschaft, friendship. But this -ship was an Anglo-Saxon or First English -scipe, and belongs to the verbs scapan, sceapan, or scyppan, to form or shape. Our landscape, too, was often written landskip, but whether this is the older form or not I have no materials to prove. It may be a descendant or the above-mentioned scyppan or scipan. Landscipe appears in Bosworth, but not sœscipe, as the sea was probably never regarded as possessing natural lines and boundaries. Landscape is, therefore, not properly a region which the eye beholds or contemplates as a view; and if seascape be regarded as a water view, it is suggestive of a false etymology.Introspect accordingly.
(Source.)
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18 comments:
I would not describe the United States, or it's white citizens, as a "sea of empathy":
America's where the likes of Michael K live, and they brought others here to work, suffer, be mocked, and hated.
And all while DEMANDING we love each other,...
Oh - and don't forget the theft:
If whites couldn't steal it, it didn't exist for anything else anyway.
America's got lots of titles, but a "sea of empathy" definitely isn't one of them,...
There's that old stereotype that black people can't swim… in a sea of empathy.
Ann Althouse,
"There's that old stereotype that black people can't swim… in a sea of empathy."
LOL - yeah, that's some "stereotype"....
You're becoming hilarious in the morning!
David Brooks tries too hard to be an intellectual. To be an intellectual one must first have an intellect, which he lacks.
Consequently, in effect, he is not an intellectual but an ineffectual.
Black people can't swim? Have you thought to run that past Cullen Jones or Antony Ervin? Aren't three Olympic golds and three silvers between two swimmers enough for you?
Couldn't 'landscape' refer more to the type of shot, and not to the sea?
'Portait' is about you; 'landscape' is more about the world.
Maturity is moving from the close-up to the landscape, focusing less on the crease in the pants and more on the resume.
He could be referring to the conditions in a mother's womb, and the select disconnection between society and babies; but, only between conception and birth.
Maturity is a process of developing self-moderating, responsible behaviors, which are internally, externally, and mutually consistent.
Obama once seemed to have a gift for introspection, as when, in his first book, he admitted past drug use. A lot of voters assumed that if he was truthful with himself, then he would be truthful with us.
I always saw that as a deflection, a way to shut down the conversation. Obama has demonstrated over and over that he is very uncomfortable admitting mistakes. This is a hallmark of malignant narcissm.
In the future, perhaps we should ask candidates for high office to take the MCMI and share the results.
A once articulate white man swims in a sea of gibberish.
Big Mike, Anne said "that old stereotype". A stereotype is an oversimplification. Like an average: 50% are above average, 50% below.
How about Obama didn't speak negro(Biden?), Obama was clean (Reid)... What is a Democrat's stereotypical black man like?
@ Chillblaine - My first thought was that he is carrying water fot the Narcissist in Chief again, whose sharp crease he so admired.
"Maturity is moving from the close-up to the landscape, focusing less on your own supposed strengths and weaknesses and more on the sea of empathy in which you swim,,..."
I'm always diggin' on the landscape,...
Like Einstein, I like thought experiments.
Consider the result of, practicalities and scale factors aside, instantly, cleanly, transferring the US black population, as a local minority, into East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, India, South America, or for that matter Africa.
Everything is relative. And that's a lesson in perspective.
What Brooks most needs to do is to reflect more on his natural feelings. It is as though he has had some unnatural feeling in his past that has made him too suspicious of trusting his natural feelings. (I once wrote a lengthy comment suggesting this, but it was too long, so I didn't post it.) He should read John Locke's philosophical works. Locke, sufficiently a part of the established ivory-tower canon that Brooks might pay attention, points out that reflection stems from internal perception akin to how sensation is caused by external perception. Reflection is nothing but perceiving and taking notice of what the mind perceives going on itself, much like sensing is the mind taking notice of what the eye, ear, etc., perceives. To fear reflection is as preposterous as to fear sensation. Reflection is actual perception of the operation of the mind by actual mechanisms of the brain (not visible like ears or eyes, but obviously existent) that perceive these operations. Sensing the dogma of psychologists, and then reflecting on his thoughts about it and then forming opinion without actually having reflected on what his own natural tendencies are, is, well, something that David Brooks too much tends to do. He does it very well, I suppose, among those claiming to do it, which he should take as evidence that most people in the psychological social sciences hardly care what the truth is--he's like one of a handful of intelligent decent people silly enough to give a damn about what psychology elites say who actually cares what human nature is. Direct perception, such as reflection, is infallible if anything is, whereas social scientists can say all kind of crap supported with fake surveys, bogus statistics, or (to the extent science is not used) misrepresentation of internal feelings.
Reflection is such a powerful tool in understanding oneself that those who don't use it tend to having nothing useful to say about human nature. More truth concerning human nature can be gotten unscientifically from a great novel than from any psychology based mainly on experiment and surveys rather than on reflection. True, at least theoretically, it is easier to portray internal reflection (which no one else can check) falsely than it is to portray sensation falsely. People know and feel the truth that (external) sensations of different people towards the same object tend to match more than internal reflections do, but So what? Understand yourself well enough (using a combination of sober reflection and sensation) and you will understand and trust your feelings toward others well enough to trust your skills in differentiatng lying art from honest art.
As for when to especially shun reflection, I'd say the best time would be when circumstances suggest that reflection would be especially boring and irrelevant to one's understanding. E.g., if one has just smoked marijuana, as Brooks admitted to doing in his youth, and this caused unusual feelings about things, one should not be very interested in those feelings, because presumably those feelings don't reflect any natural tendency of the self worth understanding, but are just artificial feelings that are just marijuana chemicals having their effect on neuron receptors for anadamide, etc. Similarly if one has been sodomized.
There is no need to resurrect screwed-up feelings unless justice demands it, in which case they should be resurrected shallowly (rather like people tend to mumble repeatedly about past dubious things they've experienced or felt without hardly realizing they are doing it or even thinking about those things), mainly just for purposes of legal convictions of those who did the screwing-up.
Long sea waves grow anomalously fast in the wind. It's thought that they pick up energy from short waves preferentially breaking at their crests, transferring momentum to the longer waves, in a sort of maser action.
Short waves grow very fast in the wind.
Now I'm really troubled about my choice of the title "Cloudscape" for a piece I wrote for viola and guitar...
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