en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/642016 Comments by Tony Arnold http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/what-have-we-learned.html#IDComment47287137 I will be graduating in May, but this semester was my last semester taking courses. I have only a bachelor's thesis standing between me and a degree in philosophy (with a minor in English), and I am at a confluence of life paths. In fact, I feel as if, instead of finding the path down which I was "meant" to go in life, I have come instead to some sort of central hub where a host of highways meets. I am intrigued by the thought of journalism, either through graduate school or my own hit-and-miss efforts, but I know for certain that I discovered a lot about myself intellectually and as a global citizen. I know that I would like to be proactive outside of academia, and would like to use my pen (or laptop, for my fellow information-age denizens) in order to achieve that goal. Ultimately, I would like to bring attention to what I perceive to be injustices to our fellow global citizens. I believe that what I have taken away from this class is the resolve to strive for an ethical goal, no matter how nebulous or impossible it may seem, and to constantly reevaluate myself in order to ensure that I am both properly executing that goal as well as being a responsible overall citizen. I have also gleaned a profound sense of accountability for my words and my actions. And, of course, I have gleaned something equally as important (to me): a sound intellectual basis in Ancient philosophy and some new training in etymology (I absolutely loved looking up Greek words and their roots, and then perceiving how they composed many familiar contemporary words). Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:12:36 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/what-have-we-learned.html#IDComment47287137 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/honing-the-metaphor.html#IDComment47117198 Since Josh has his reservations about metaphors, and Jordan and I seem to be fond of them, couldn't we perhaps expand this conversation to the mythos/logos dichotomy? A common complaint about the metaphor is that it is too enigmatic, not straightforward enough. The same goes with the myth of course, which is considered an allegory, the allegory being intimately related to if not synonymous with the metaphor. Josh did not make such a complaint about the metaphor nor did he make the kind of complaint we heard about metaphors/myths from, say, Anthony and me in the first weekly round-up podcast. We complained about the religious allegory that Protagoras used to discuss the teaching of civic virtues. In retrospect, I put too little thought into the myth, and probably discredited what was a perfectly legitimate delivery. For example, British moral philosopher Mary Midgley points out that science--yes, rational, logical, "objective" science--uses "machine imagery" (1) to disseminate its thoughts through popular society. Midgley's definition of myths indicates that they "are imaginative patterns, networks of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world" (1). Enter machine imagery. By thinking of our bodies, for example, as machines with component parts and ones that need to be properly cared for, we easily imbibe the science behind disease and illness, growth and puberty, digestion, and so on. Very rarely would one hear a person being chastised for thinking of the body in these terms, or of thinking of the nutrition of living organisms in terms of a "food chain" or "food web." These are hermeneutics, plain and simple. They are used to interpret a so-called "objective" fact that lies before us--a self-evident object or phenomenon in the world. Perhaps, though, that's the problem. "Things" such as the Good are not self-evident objects, and so we can actually best (emphasis) describe in metaphors. Maybe that's the jibe against the myth in the Protagoran sense, although I would not be inclined to apply that double-standard. Your thoughts? I probably way departed from Jordan's post, and if I did so I'm sorry, Jordan. Source: Midgley, Mary. "The Myths We Live By." London: Routledge, 2003. Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:59:03 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/honing-the-metaphor.html#IDComment47117198 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/honing-the-metaphor.html#IDComment47115294 Another note on the arrow: Perhaps it's the trajectory of the arrow that's important, at times, and not the target? Especially if we grant that the target is unattainable, we might consider how we get to whatever mark we ultimately strike. For instance, if the arrow has improper fletching, or its fletching and its broadhead are competing to guide it, then the flight is erratic--the arrow does not fly straight and winds up fighting against the air current. If we are slightly disloyal to your metaphor and take the arrow alone as ourselves, this metaphor could map onto the charioteer metaphor that Jingting brought up: if we have two parts of our triad competing, just like the fletching and the broadhead, it will be a rough trip and we will likely find that the trajectory has altered and taken us toward a new target anyway. Actually, we do stay loyal to your metaphor, Jordan. We can blame the craftsman of the arrow for improperly calculating the length and angle of the fletching, for example, or for putting too many blades on the broadhead, or for forgetting to flute the blades. In the same spirit, we can blame the person for improperly caring for her soul--not cultivating her rational faculty or not sufficiently taming her appetitive faculty. Your thoughts? Maybe I'm on the opposite end of the metaphorical spectrum from Josh--maybe I like metaphors a little too much. Great post, Jordan. Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:32:51 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/honing-the-metaphor.html#IDComment47115294 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/thanks-prof-long.html#IDComment46937033 Thanks for posting this, Daniel. I definitely sympathize with your thanks, and would like to say thanks to Dr. Long myself. I think, Dr. Long, that you have served as a pioneer of what is bound to be a widely used learning tool. I definitely think that this blog has increased both the relevance and the value of the course material in the eyes of our class--indeed, included in your grading criteria is tying our commentary to contemporary issues--and this is bound to catch on as more and more students and teachers check the blog out and recognize both its pedagogical efficacy and its ability to tie together a community of students. Thanks again. Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:07:23 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/thanks-prof-long.html#IDComment46937033 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/thanks-prof-long.html#IDComment46936499 I'll be sticking around, Jordan. In fact, I hope as many people as possible will do the same. It seems to me that that will be a second "test" of this blog's effectiveness--that is, whether or not it motivates students to continue with the discourse after the formal grading is over and done with. Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:00:11 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/thanks-prof-long.html#IDComment46936499 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/steeped-in-shadows.html#IDComment46836932 I'm going to sit on the fence here, Jack. I think that it's necessary to be very serious about the pursuit of justice; in fact, I would argue that justice as an ethical telos should be central to one's life. That being said, however, one cannot pursue justice with enthusiasm if one is not, well, enthusiastic about it--that is, if one does not take pleasure in it. I think there even needs to be a sense of play, even of romance (perhaps eroticism?) in the search for justice. This makes justice seem like something that needs to be worked for--something for which one searches but rarely grasps. Like a potential lover, justice lies right before us, but it takes some work to seduce it. This would then go along with Socrates' idea that, though justice is at our very feet, it is elusive and difficult to catch. I hope we get some more responses. Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:30:15 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/steeped-in-shadows.html#IDComment46836932 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/search-for-justice.html#IDComment46759904 I thought the video was very provocative and would likely appeal to those who have not studied philosophy, but I have two reservations: First, I think the tone was a bit too heavy on the whole. The atmosphere of the video was dark and the music and the dialogue were very serious. I sort of felt like I was being led on a religious crusade rather than a vicarious search for justice. The reason religious advertisement (if one could or should call it that) is so dire is that the stakes are perceived to be ultimate: eternity in peace or eternity apart from God. The stakes are high for overlooking justice, but do we want the search to connote like this? Second, while I appreciate the figures being utilized in the background, I think they indicate a particular definition of justice. Mother Teresa, Gandhi, King, Mandela, Tubman, and company all did similar things: they fought for social justice, every one of them fought for the rights of a marginalized group, and all but perhaps one (Mother Teresa) fought for an underprivileged "race" or ethnicity. I think this really pigeonholes justice and makes us miss out on its other modalities, such as political justice, which can come in the form of respecting a group that is marginalized politically but not socially, or religious justice, or an everyday interpersonal justice, which is something like what our blog gets at, i.e. opening our ears to hear everybody's voice, not just the marginalized and the oppressed but all who look to speak. It just seems to me that all the above figures indicate a certain way of going about searching for justice and even indicate what we should devote our attention to in searching for justice. Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:46:31 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/search-for-justice.html#IDComment46759904 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46477294 Great parallel, Josh. And I will add to your point that the ultimate quality of a strong community should be the ability to discern whether or not the voice of the dissident (or the invader) has merit or not. As for me, I did not think that our dissident offered anything in the form of substantive criticism. Have we revealed something about ourselves, then? That we are able, as a community, to be comfortable enough with our own shortcomings to be able to address them, and to be able to block out empty criticisms? I think that's part of this thread's purpose. I think we are considering in some measure whether or not we were justified in our response, and trying to imagine when such a response might not be appropriate. And in comparing ourselves to Socrates, we might consider whether his approach is justified, and if not, in what cases. Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:39:38 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46477294 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46477178 Great parallel, Josh. And I will add to your point that the ultimate quality of a strong community should be the ability to discern whether or not the voice of the dissident (or the invader) has merit or not. As for me, I did not think that our dissident offered anything in the form of substantive criticism. Have we revealed something about ourselves, then? That we are able, as a community, to be comfortable enough with our own shortcomings to be able to address them, and to be able to block out empty criticisms? I think that's part of this thread's purpose. I think we are considering in some measure whether or not we were justified in our response, and trying to imagine when such a response might not be appropriate. And in comparing ourselves to Socrates, we might consider whether his approach is justified, and if not, in what cases. Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:38:03 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46477178 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46475808 But the U.S. doesn't jail religious fundamentalists who clearly intend that those who do not fit into their narrow conception of the world will meet disastrous ends and deserve it. Nor does it silence the voices of those who discriminate against certain types of foreigners, such as anybody remotely Arabic-looking or all so-called "Mexicans." It seems that these people intend some sort of threat to others. Perhaps some of them just threaten the right people. In any case, I would argue that our blog condones nothing in the spirit of those two examples. Hence, it is in some measure un-democratic. You can take that as a slight but I prefer to see it as a disciplinary check that we, consciously or not, have imposed on ourselves and others who decide to engage our blog. I think that it is salutary for our community, especially our classroom community; I am simply responding to Kit's observation of the "common criticism of democracy." Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:23:00 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46475808 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46474633 That's why I separated him from Callicles. Hence, "I would have preferred Callicles." Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:08:42 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46474633 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46473321 That's a really interesting insight. We have, on your account, established a dialect of dialectic. We know that we speak in response to something, but are we always left, like Socrates, simply pointing out that we are ignorant and fallible? As far as the big issues, I think we have taken a definite stance on the agonism vs. harmony issue. Even before the cyber-drama we stated our views toward agonism pretty clearly. Implicit in our response to vox_dei, we are definitely in favor of a harmonic approach to dialogue. But otherwise our biggest agreements came on small issues or at least issues that were secondary to our class corpus. So we have most aggressively established, as I noted, that we speak in the dialect of dialectic. It seems we have a phonics and a grammar for our language, but we lack a vocabulary. What do we say with this nascent language? That would be your question, and I think that you make a good point in suggesting that because we force the words through a particular pattern of speaking, we lose something in the translation-that-knows-not-what-it-translates. This is the plight of the foreigner: forced to speak the language of the host country, she sounds ignorant or suspicious or, worst of all, she sounds as if she cannot speak at all. And yet I point out that we have carved out a pretty substantial space for disagreement. Surely we don't expect nor do we condone ad hominem attacks, but we could scroll through the archives and find a pretty substantial number of pointed and, dare I say, polemical commentary. Part of the problem with philosophical discourse, in particular, is that it admits of few definite answers. That might account for why we have made little definite progress on Socratic issues specifically. I think we could discern right and wrong on the black-and-white issues that called for it, but the philosophical issues we discuss are usually so hopelessly gray that they engender equally unclear answers. In view of all this, I think that the vocabulary of our language is remarkably similar to its structures and patterns. It is paradigmatic, understanding. It allows us to adjust our viewpoint from myopic and unidimensional to far-sighted and multidimensional. I don't know that that makes you or me feel any better about things, for we end as we began: intellectually vulnerable, like Socrates. But at the moment I don't think that I can offer anything more definite. Your thoughts? Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:51:46 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46473321 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46471205 I would have to, unfortunately, separate knowledge from decorum. Just because a person is not polite does not make him/her an idiot. Nietzsche was a complete egotist--but the man was out-of-this-world insightful and incredibly learned. I don't promote the behavior of those who try to compromise this type of community, because ours is a community that is relatively neutral and lacks any dominant ideological or religious discourse. If someone chooses to question us, they question our style, not our content, I'm convinced, and that seems to me to be uncalled for intellectually. If we were all aligned in a particular camp and prescribing particular views on metaphysical truths, then I might see merit. And yet, we are driven by a democratic ideology, aren't we? Hence Kit's post. Perhaps vox_dei was probing the biggest chink in our philosophical armor--inquiring whether or not we would listen to the voice of the dissident. You know, something like freedom of speech. And yet even I would disagree that a completely disrespectful and excessively polemical individual deserves our response if he/she refuses to honor our implicit code of conduct. Thus the first limit. We have established something un-democratic here, and there again this is what Kit is aiming at. Highly insightful, Kit. I'm still trying to flesh this out. Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:26:56 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46471205 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46470186 But what else do we do, Cody? Do we transform vox_dei into "He who shall not be named"? That seems a little childish to me. Like Dr. Long said, you have to run into a character like Callicles in order to wholly conceive dialogue and its idiosyncrasies. Granted, we have cultivated a dialect within this blog, organically at that, and it has been a civil and understanding one. That said, however, we cannot say that this "Other" who challenges our assumptions is altogether wrong or unjust. I will grant you this, though. vox_dei's comments were deliberately belligerent and subersive. He wanted to prove that an online agora becomes a 4g0r4. This put him in the position not of the refugee, but of the invader, and therefore merited the community's attempt to defend itself and its raison d'etre. I would have preferred Callicles. Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:14:21 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46470186 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46394895 I'd like to comment further on this later, Kit. But for now I'll add another question: Have we cultivated a dialect on our blog? vox_dei posited him/herself as the foreigner, and this foreigner spoke in a different language. Jacques Derrida says that the first violence done to the foreigner is to force him to speak in another language. Do we force translation each time someone comments on this blog? Again, have we unwittingly created a language, a dialect, our own vernacular? If so, is this healthy or unhealthy for dialogue and digital dialogue specifically? Thank you for posting this, Kit. Wed, 9 Dec 2009 15:15:44 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/to-assume.html#IDComment46394895 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/dialogue-and-cowardice.html#IDComment46188561 You're right Jordan; I should have qualified my sentence on style and content with "not only style." But such is life. We sometimes forget to do these things. But consider my reply a recantation and an endorsement of your thoughts. Mon, 7 Dec 2009 20:41:55 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/dialogue-and-cowardice.html#IDComment46188561 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/language-or-why-we-cannot-communicate.html#IDComment46186901 You are correct that pseudonyms are a longstanding tradition in the world of letters, and I would hardly begrudge you this in other circumstances, but it seems to me there is a way to be cordial in getting across polemical points, i.e., without conducting ad hominem attacks or without resorting to blatant slights such as "i don't give a fuck." This really just proves you to be incapable of respecting the intellectual value of the comments you refute, and therefore exposes your self-righteousness. That said, if you are going to attack a person ad hominem, it seems that if you would like to avoid being hypocritical you might furnish the opportunity to return the gesture in kind. So what you are actually doing in your Eleatic experiment as one who questions and subverts the tradition while cloaked in its clothing is issuing a one-sided rant of personal tirades in expectation that they will be respected on intellectual grounds. Hell, even your response to me, while somewhat sympathetic, was arrogant and patronizing. Because of your generally patronizing tone, I will have to remind you that, as this entire exchange on language attests, you hold no monopoly on any signifier, including "always-already." I have wavered on whether or not to hyphenate it, as that does fix its meaning somewhat, but I have reevaluated the use of it in my reply to your first diatribe and have confirmed its validity in the context. For instance, a simple Wikipedia entry shows Ricoeur to have written these words: "human action can be narrated...because it is always already symbolically mediated." The use of "always already" in this context stems from the observation that all human actions are already (from the start, "the moment they enter the game" as Derrida would say) semiotic in nature. In my case, I said that an author was "always-already an interlocutor in the conversation of her work" because each and every time this author has, before the conversation starts, issued the thesis to be refuted or the ideas to be agreed upon or what have you. I guess this falls on deaf ears if you don't care for the use of the phrase by either Derrida or Ricoeur, but I'm inclined to believe their ethos in the world of letters to be at least slightly more significant than yours, and will therefore graciously accept their implicit blessing. Mon, 7 Dec 2009 20:28:37 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/language-or-why-we-cannot-communicate.html#IDComment46186901 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/dialogue-and-cowardice.html#IDComment46171385 I notice, however, that I am the only one to reply to the points of vox_dei qua content, not style. His/her ad hominem attacks are uncalled for, surely, but it is also necessary to hold him/her to the same intellectual standard as anyone on this blog, and, for that matter, the standard to which vox_dei ostensibly holds him/herself (see the last paragraph of vox_dei's initial comment). While we should discourage the method of delivery, it also seems a little irresponsible to circumvent vox_dei's comments. This is of course a double-bind, I know--a no-win situation. Mon, 7 Dec 2009 16:58:10 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/dialogue-and-cowardice.html#IDComment46171385 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/language-or-why-we-cannot-communicate.html#IDComment46170513 You make some good points, but you hide behind your anonymity, and therefore contribute to the obfuscation which you vehemently deride in your final paragraph. In that sense, you seem to be testing Anthony's thesis: if you remain detached from your words, vox_dei, if you are in effect "dead" as an author, then we have only the ability to react to your words as such, and hence possibly we will derive a variation of meanings from your overly belligerent diatribe. First, I will say that while your intellect is obviously acute, you discredit yourself with your excessive pointedness and your devolution to the phrase "buttfucking complicity" in the final line. Second, you are probably correct in your interpretation of Barthes' essay. But this interpretation contains an overly simplistic, Derridean view of linguistic meaning. You say that you believe Barthes' point is that "meaning is generated through the play of signifiers and their oppositions to one another without reference to some sort of reality outside of themselves, whether it be the world or the author's vision of what his work means." This viewpoint hinges upon Derrida's idea of differance, which, while I sympathize with the deconstructionist viewpoint, itself overgeneralizes the signification of language. While Saussure's notion of the arbitrariness of linguistic signifiers holds some truth, we overlook the designative aspect of language when we use this view to metonymize the meaning of language. The author is not in fact dead entirely, for her words intend something (emphasis) in "some sort of reality outside of themselves," for is it not clear that when the author says "He sat in a chair" or "She jumped in the car" (simple examples, yes) that there are chairs and cars involved? Whether the chair is a rocker or a Victorian table chair or whether the car is an El Camino or Honda is left unsaid, however, and this would be Anthony's point, though he takes it too far since the author has successfully communicated the actions and the trajectory (emphasis) of the story and so has held onto us as readers and interlocutors. In this sense, I cannot agree with Anthony or you vox_dei (but do you sympathize with Barthes? You hide behind his words, as well as your own.), for I feel that a signified is in fact clear to the author, and will hold true for many individuals with varying degrees of success. Anthony's view of complete arbitrariness and my correspondence point in fact marry to produce meaning. Interpretation springs from this copulation of an authorial (correspondent) reality with "the psychology of the individual." The author cannot be dead as she is always-already an interlocutor in the conversation of her work--she has offered a primer for conversation, and we cannot forget whence we came in speaking about her contribution. Mon, 7 Dec 2009 16:46:27 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/language-or-why-we-cannot-communicate.html#IDComment46170513 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/similar-cultures.html#IDComment46068612 "'This situation has social, geographical, and geopolitical complexities that you haven't penetrated in the slightest.' Please elaborate, and I will attempt to defend my position." You touched on what I was getting at in your rebuttal. Just because tribal chieftains deemed it acceptable to sell slaves that they either kidnapped (you may have forgotten about this; the continuation in another nation of so-called "accepted" roles that you perceive Africans acquiesced in in their society was not entirely, or even chiefly I might think, what supplied the "goods" for the slave trade, and so I actually forgot to add "economic" as a qualifier there) or "won" in battle does not mean that those who were sold into slavery felt that way. Moreover, once another nation was added into the mix, namely, x European or American power, the social situation totally changed through a geopolitical transaction. Even if I grant that African slaves accepted their fate in an African tribe or nation, I cannot necessarily grant this in the Americas. How am I to know that the duties, expectations, and treatment of a slave in the U.S. and in Africa were not wildly different? I know for certain they differed in one way: once the slaves arrived in the U.S. or the Caribbean or South America, colonized by white individuals, their skin color contributed to their bondage, their social perception, and eventually their self-perception. They were no longer a black slave among blacks--they had never been subjugated because of their skin color, and therefore endured new levels of cruelty, both psychological because of the shift in image perceptions, and physical because of the constraints of movement and liberties which their very visible stigmatization placed on them. I am basically saying that there is a host of variables that emerged after European-African contact that resulted in an economic (emphasis) slave trade that was the work of an elite, not of many, and which cannot be said to be primarily derived from African culture qua pre-colonized Africa, but rather from a new machinery that was set in motion after colonization. Thanks for pressing me to elaborate this, Kit; I didn't intend to gloss it over. Sun, 6 Dec 2009 18:28:34 +0000 http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/digitaldialogue/2009/12/similar-cultures.html#IDComment46068612