Hollosi Information eXchange /HIX/
HIX HUNGARY 562
Copyright (C) HIX
1996-01-27
Új cikk beküldése (a cikk tartalma az író felelőssége)
Megrendelés Lemondás
1 Re: Good vs. better (mind)  103 sor     (cikkei)
2 Re: Hungarian male attitudes (mind)  39 sor     (cikkei)
3 Re: About dinosaurs (mind)  28 sor     (cikkei)
4 Re: Feminism--alien to the Hungarian psyche? - rebuttle (mind)  99 sor     (cikkei)
5 Re: hungarians eat only cabage and sausage (mind)  2 sor     (cikkei)
6 Re: hungarians eat only cabage and sausage (mind)  4 sor     (cikkei)
7 Re: A few comments on feminism (mind)  109 sor     (cikkei)
8 Re: Feminism in Hungary/general (mind)  33 sor     (cikkei)
9 Misc comments and questions (mind)  57 sor     (cikkei)
10 Re: Doctoral titles, degrees and prestige in Central Eu (mind)  46 sor     (cikkei)
11 Re: The royal "we" (mind)  22 sor     (cikkei)
12 Re: A few comments on feminism (mind)  10 sor     (cikkei)
13 Re: Capitalism vs. Socialism and Categorization of Nati (mind)  48 sor     (cikkei)
14 A British Perspective (mind)  11 sor     (cikkei)
15 Re: Misc comments and questions (mind)  21 sor     (cikkei)
16 Re: Sexist (mind)  12 sor     (cikkei)
17 Re: to Janos Zsargo (mind)  42 sor     (cikkei)
18 Re: the economics of gender- comments by Purcell (mind)  54 sor     (cikkei)
19 Ha Ha Ha!!! (mind)  46 sor     (cikkei)
20 Re: Good vs. better (mind)  32 sor     (cikkei)
21 Re: Feminism--alien to the Hungarian psyche? - rebuttle (mind)  10 sor     (cikkei)
22 Minority Rights (mind)  206 sor     (cikkei)
23 Re: Anti-feminist bias or not? (mind)  35 sor     (cikkei)
24 Re: Feminism in Hungary/general (mind)  20 sor     (cikkei)
25 Re: A few comments on feminism (mind)  70 sor     (cikkei)
26 Re: Sexist (mind)  44 sor     (cikkei)
27 Re: Doctoral titles, degrees and prestige in Central Eu (mind)  48 sor     (cikkei)
28 Re: Good vs. better (mind)  84 sor     (cikkei)
29 Politically Correct Vs. Politically Incorrect (mind)  65 sor     (cikkei)
30 Re: Feminism for the Szalon? (mind)  27 sor     (cikkei)
31 Re: Bitchy? (mind)  16 sor     (cikkei)
32 Re: Misc comments and questions (mind)  186 sor     (cikkei)
33 Re: Capitalism vs. Socialism and Categorization of Nati (mind)  78 sor     (cikkei)
34 Re: A few comments on feminism (mind)  209 sor     (cikkei)
35 Re: Politically Stupid Vs. Politically Pathetic (mind)  90 sor     (cikkei)
36 Re: Politically Correct Vs. Politically Incorrect (mind)  57 sor     (cikkei)
37 Re: It's about time (mind)  36 sor     (cikkei)
38 Re: Misc comments and questions (mind)  81 sor     (cikkei)
39 Re: Doctoral titles, degrees and prestige in Central Eu (mind)  11 sor     (cikkei)
40 Re: Doctoral titles, degrees and prestige in Central Eu (mind)  317 sor     (cikkei)
41 Re: Politically Correct Vs. Politically Incorrect (mind)  34 sor     (cikkei)
42 Re: Politically Stupid Vs. Politically Pathetic (mind)  105 sor     (cikkei)
43 Re: Good vs. better (mind)  60 sor     (cikkei)
44 Re: the economics of gender (mind)  100 sor     (cikkei)
45 Re: A few comments on feminism (mind)  138 sor     (cikkei)

+ - Re: Good vs. better (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

> Felado :  [United Kingdom]
> So you are saying social equality shouldn't be on the agenda,
> if you have a market economy, as it is incompatible with it.
No, I'm merely saying that social equality should not be viewed as an
absolute goal at the expense of other, often more important goals. I
must say that the single largest factor of social inequality at this
point is the geographical one: if you are born Swiss chances are your
life will be pretty decent, if you are born Ugandan chances are it
will be absolutely miserable.

> History is in the past couple of hundred years seem to be
> preoccupied with this issue. You think we should give up
> and put up with the injustices of capitalism for ever?
Well, they are quite OK compared to the injustices of socialism or
tribalism, that much is certain. Though it wasn't addressed to me, I
can't resist asking you about your claim that the root of women's bad
situation is to be found in the very existence of private property --
do you think female apes have it good? If anything, it is the
civilization based on property rights that is painfully taking shape
over the millenia that gives women their first shot at equality.

> Felado :  [United States]
>    It seems to me girls do paticipate in the feminism discussion.
It seems to me they don't. Few girls or boys post on the net, and
from the level of discussion it seems all female participants are
mature women.

> Felado : Joe Szalai
> Men, Hungarian or otherwise, need more than just criticism.  They need to be
> shown that they are inadequate if they don't share the housework.  And they
> need to be shown this by other men.
You mean I can't just earn the money to pay the hired help, I have to do
the housework myself? I might be inadequate but I'm not stupid, sorry.

> >> I'm just itching for a good spanking.
> >Gotta find someone else, bondage appeals to me more than discipline.
> Yes, I thought so.  But Sir, I'm quite flexable.
Your attitude is truly commendable, but I must admit to considerable
gender bias in these matters. Surely there will be other ladies or
gentlemen delighted with this opportunity -- it is my understanding
that there is a considerable surplus of tops and shortage of bottoms,
so you find yourself in a sellers market, so to speak.

> You're starting to sound retentive.  Perhaps Moricka and I realize that we
> only live once and, after all, living well is the best revenge.
Well you have to make up your mind whether you are the hedonistic or the
messianic type. It's not that one is necessarily better than the other,
but you will find that if you profess one but also practice the other
people will invariably be suspicious.

> So anyone who wants to make this a better world is being unrealistic?
As Shaw once said, reasonable people accomodate to the world, so all
progress is made by unreasonable people.

> are you too complacent to lend a hand?  Too busy looking out for number one?
Naw, I just don't subscribe to general improve-the-world programs.

> No doubt you [sleep well]. I guess moral imperatives become more important
> when you're not at the top and become worthless concepts when you are.  For
> some morality may as well be a commodity to be traded on the stock market.
Since morality is a personal quality that can't be tranferred it's not a
commodity. But assuming there was some magical way of moving some quantity
of it from one person to another, I see no reason to believe that you have
surplus amounts for sale or to give away. Loudly declaring others (me in
this case) immoral, and by implication yourself supremely moral, is not
where it's at.

> It's too early to say what the effects of the internet will be.
The internet is a big thing. Our debate is a little thing -- don't
mistake one for the other.

> I too was alienated from society once.  But waiting for Godot turned out to
> be absurd.
Who said I was alienated from society? I am quite well known on this
mailing list for my views that favor active redistribution of wealth
(a.k.a. tax-and-spend), up to a point.

> Wrong.  I'm not fighting for women's rights.  I'm fighting (must we use that
> word?) for my right to live in a world where we treat each other with
> dignity, respect, equality, fairness, understanding, compassion, and
> helpfullness.  That's what I'm fighting for because I believe that I have a
> right to live in that kind of a world.
Well, the Great Teaching suggests that to change the world you need to
change the empire, to change the empire you need to change the
district, to change the district you need to change the village, to
change the village you need to change your neighbors, to change your
neighbors you need to change your family, and to change your family
you need to change yourself.  So how about treating people with a
slightly different opinion also with dignity, respect, equality,
fairness, understanding, compassion, and helpfulness? It's true I'm
not part of your family (your commendable flexibility in this regard
notwithstanding), but with a bit of stretching the cyber thingy I am
your neighbor.

> And do you know what Andras?  I don't want to scare you but I know
> that I'm going to win.  I'm going to use the most powerful weapons
> available - ideas, words, and language.  Do you understand?
Yes, yes, I understand. Please don't work yourself into a frenzy.
This fevered agitation looks a bit sophomoric, and can develop into
genuinely bad things. Read "Lenin in Zu2rich", you'll see what I mean.
Take care,

Andra1s Kornai
+ - Re: Hungarian male attitudes (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Joe Szalai > wrote:

>At 09:39 AM 1/19/96 -0500, Eva Durant wrote:

>>So we can't win. If we are clever and intelligent like men,
>>than we lost our identity/feminity. If we are clever and
>>intelligent in a not-man-like manner, than we are  wierd/bitchy.
>>So as our brain is different, we shouldn't have a choice in what we
>>do, we should concentrate on childrearing and domestic toil,
>>that should sure stop our brain function soon in any compatitive
>>way in the men's world...

>You've summed up the situation accurately, Eva.  Historically, women have
>been, and continue to be, seen as Madonnas (mother, care giver, etc.), or
>whores.  And since both roles serve men, women are supposed to accept their
>lot without question.

>Joe Szalai


I feel everyone earns for themselves whatever treatment they receive.
This goes for men, women, and among other things, household pets. Why
doesn't everyone stop bitching about what others think of them, and
accept whatever they bring onto themselves and live with it. In the
event you're not happy with that fruit, concider changing your ways to
something that will change people's opinions about what you are?
Lay in your beds.

OD
> =============================================================================
==
===========

                A_A
O. Deak        (o o)         The hammer shatters glass but forges steel.
------------oOO-(^)-OOo--------------------------------------------------
    |    |     | ~ |     |    |                           Russian Proverb
    |    |     |   |     |
         |     |   |          |
+ - Re: About dinosaurs (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Janos Zsargo > wrote:

>This appeared on the list several times:

>>ago that women had larger brains.  Of course, the dinosaurs had large
>>brains as well!

>Where did they find this bullshit? As far as I know the dinosaurs had
>small brain (very small!), especially the bigger ones (Tyrannosaurus,
>Brontosaurus,etc). However one of them (I guess the Brontosaurus) had
>actually two brains (or at least some kind of nerve center), one at
>its normal place and the other at the hip, but both were small.

>Janos

IThis makes it very clear then. The women, lacking this second brain,
are unable to please both feminists and male chauvanists. The only
question remaining is what to do to them in such a state.
> =============================================================================
==
===========

                A_A
O. Deak        (o o)         The hammer shatters glass but forges steel.
------------oOO-(^)-OOo--------------------------------------------------
    |    |     | ~ |     |    |                           Russian Proverb
    |    |     |   |     |
         |     |   |          |
+ - Re: Feminism--alien to the Hungarian psyche? - rebuttle (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

"Eva S. Balogh" > wrote:
>Our observer says:
>
>>From my humble experience, the words do not exist to Hungarian
>>"people" for there have always been, and am sure will continue to be
>>equal #of females vs males, working the fields throughout the
>>countryside, (if not more listed towards the female side), running the
>>family finaces, etc, as were female doctors, scientists, etc.
>
>Oh, yes. They are toiling side by side but the women are toiling a little bit
>more.

Come on Eva! Your statement is pure supposition!  And you also missed
the meaning!

But look at the alternative: The women in the field I spoke of, did have
a choice:
a) they could watch some other family(ies) be hired by the state who
would gladly continue to farm their family land, (since anything in
those days was a good alternative to starving) the exact second they
forfeit the right to do it themselves,

b)  or, continue what they have started - rather in most cases, what
their families have started generations beforehand. (regardless of the
fact, that their continued efforts are only benefitting the state from
now on).

For your interest, one of these women I speak of, who opted to "toil
along"  is actually still alive and doing very well. (at a time of her
life, which she often refers to as "her rebirth" She is 69.)    She was,
before the regime takeover, responsible for developing a new hybdrid of
raspberries - which today, under the "reclaimed ownership of her
families' land" "through the revised laws", is reaping enormous
economical benefits!  I think if she really had the desire for
statistics, she might find, that she is responsible for an amazing
percentage of export to Austria, Germany and Holland (maybe England too
- of this I am not positive)).  Ironically enough, this fact is not
important to her.  Her claim to fame is still the hybdrid, which after
all these years remains unique and in high demand.  Now,it provides for
her entire family.  (Eva, have u ever seen/tasted the raspberry that is
the size of a stawberry by the way? - if not, you are really missing a
great deal.  Not just in culinary delight, but also in a cultural one!.


>>To my
>>knowledge, feminism is about as a foreign state of mind to (at least the
>>Hungarians, that I have had the pleasure of knowing) as to an american,
>>the true meaning of communism would be.
>

>Oh, yes, they just love working from morning till night, not advancing as men
do.

You are making two huge assumption,
a) - that women work from morning till night
b) - that it is important to all women, in all walks of life to be
"advancing as men" - another supposition(s).

getting home and doing all the household chores on top of it! Oh, no,

Read my previous accounts of personal experiences while in Hungary, to
your article "the lot of Women in Hungary"  - yet another supposition.
You are assuming, that your statement is fact.  I dare to dispute!
Futhermore, I will take any personal account over a statistic - since I
am well adversed in the formation of statistics.

 it
>never crosses their minds that this may not be fair! It is absolutely alien
>to their psyche to think that this is discrimination. Oh, come off it,
>Observer. - Eva Balogh


Eva, after a short two weeks of reading, before I started writing, it is
my belief, that nothing I, or others could possibly say would be able to
have you accept the fact that there are other ways of looking at life
than that of your point of view.

-  Would you think it remotely possible, that an acceptable percentage
of women in the world are not driven by the word "fair" - you might
attribute this, to the fact that some couples actually communicate in a
rational fashion - through which they find mutually acceptable balance
fitting of their lifestyle and the needs thereof?

-  or that it would never occur to them that things are not?  Could that
"attained balance" have attributed to this somewhat?

-  That the word discrimination really,and truly does not enter their
mind? since all above being equal, why would either sex, feel a sense
of being discriminated against? - and I do stress "either" sex.  The
feminist movement, often neglects to remember, that there really are two
sexes; and that if equality is ever to be, does it not makes sense, that
they both be at ease?

-  Could you possibly imagine, that some women are actually happy with
their sexuality?

Good night Eva.
Regards,
Aniko (the observer)
+ - Re: hungarians eat only cabage and sausage (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

F*you you idiot!
JudoHun
+ - Re: hungarians eat only cabage and sausage (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

krauts are germans!
hungarians eat gulash you ignorant piece of sh*t!
otherwise i would be happy to fart on your face!
JudoHun
+ - Re: A few comments on feminism (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>
> 2.  Joe is right when he says that the question has to do with=20
> socialism.  Only he's on the wrong side.  Discrimination based on gender=20
> is likely to DECREASE with free markets, because discrimination is=20
> expensive.  If there are women willing to do a job at the same cost as=20
> men, and firms discriminate against the women, the price of labour in the=
> =20

I can't see a lot of evidence of improvement. The way it works is
industry employing women in places, where there is no comparable
male wage standard. So textiles, PCB soldering, in fact jobs
easily mechanised in the unskilled arena.  Nursing,  teaching in
primary schools is the other mass-employment area. I don't know
why student nurses and lower scale nurses should earn less than
semi-skilled engineering workers.  However such comparisons are a
waste of time, playing the divide and rule game. The point is,
that the majority of women have no chance to find a job in which they
would earn enough - especially with the cost of child-care facilities,
to keep a family. Man has more chance, but less and less so.
It was women who lost most jobs in Hungary due to the big
efficiency drive of the "change". They have to stay home, when the
local nursary closes, or becomes too expensive, as they are
in the majority of cases earn less, or there no administrative
way for the men to stay home.
So capitalism did not play a progressive role at all.
Though here in the UK with the
change to short-time contracts and part-time work, women
are sole breadwinners in a lot of families. Perhaps thatswhy
was there last year 20 million applications for family income
supplements  here. (Only a fraction granted)

> male labour market will go up (greater demand for male labour means=20
> higher price of male labour.)  The firms that are market-conscious and=20
> wish to improve their competing ability will hire women, who are willing=20
> to do the job at a lower cost (since the cost of male labour has gone=20
> up).  Those firms which do not do so will lose out.  As competition=20
> increases, and firms realise there are gains to be made by hiring women,=20
> the price of female labour will also go up.
>

The tendency in a recession is the opposite. Would anyone have
figures in the recent "boom" was there such improvement in the
US?  Here, as I said, yes, probably more women are employed,
but real wages are still on the decline for both sexes, and
the difference increased.

> The socialist solution is to attempt to do with legislation what the=20
> market would already accomplish on its own.  Only these schemes tend to=20
> backfire.  Equal pay schemes, for example, will have the results as=20
> stated in point number one above.  Quotas tend to cause friction among=20
> co-workers.  They also decrease the freedom of women to decide what=20
> industry they wish to work in.  For example, a male-dominated industry=20
> may be so because of discrimination, but it also may be so because women=20
> do not find it desireable to work in that industry - more men may want to=
> =20
> be miners than women, for example.
>
I don't know what socialsit solution you refer to, the ones you
mentioned are capitalist/burocratic attempts.
The socialist solution is not to have unemployment, equal
opportunities in education resulting in equal skills, and
all occupations to have the same dignity and worth for
society, and rewarded accordingly.  I don't think any man would
want to be miners, if there are other safer jobs available and
paying the same.   Women worked in the mines,and it was as much
of a choice as the mining folks choice in a mining village.


> There are also instances where discrimination is actually desireable. =20
> For example, men tend to prefer male doctors, and women, female=20
> doctors.  It may be more profitable for lingerie retalers to hire women=20
> salespersons than men.  Here the discrimination is based on the=20
> consumers' tastes.
>

Well, for a long while only male doctors were "desirable" for
both men and women, luckily this is one of the many that shows,
that just because it always was like that in the past, doesn't
mean it was right.   The point is opportunity on the side
of the employee, and not the whim of the employer to depend on.


> Discrimination, therefore, tends to decrease in the free market system,=20
> without harming the peculiarities of certain industries where the=20
> consumers are "gender-sensitive".
>
>

No evidence. I can't see why an equal opportunities system would
harm the "gender sensitive" industries, if indeed there are such
things.


> 3.  Balogh =C9va may find me "insensitive" for using the word "bitchy". =20
> "Bitchy" is not "politically correct".  A great problem with feminism=20
> today is that it has become caught up in the wave of "political=20
> correctness", which has set up standards for proper speech and writing=20
> that are downright dictatorial.=20
>

I think there are a strata of professional people, who feel guily
about the plight of other less fortunate ones. They want to do some-
thing, but prefebly not really rocking the boat and actually change
things. They are the advocates for changes in the language, though
I suppose most of the genuinly think, that this would trigger
changes in the attitudes, too. Unfortunately, the result is farce
resentment, and confusion.

Eva Durant
+ - Re: Feminism in Hungary/general (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

The statement only covered the characteristic style
of "willingness to be forthright", not the politics and
evilness. However even that is an illusion, neither of
them really told people what the result of their action
would be. (E.g. Thatcher promised the end of unemployment, in
fact figures tripled, and Hitler did not hint what
the price of his seeming achievent  was.
Eva Durant



>
> At 06:55 PM 1/24/96 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >>It is interesting that you think I would say that I had no trouble in being
> >>a woman, like Maggie Thatcher.  I am not a Maggie Thatcher, although I
> >>admire her tremendously for her gumption and willingness to be forthright,
> >>a rare commodity in politicians.
> >
> Joe Szalai's answer:
> >Hitler had it too.  I see this as an all too common, yet dangerous argument.
> >Right wing politicians are having a field day dismantling social safety nets
> >that were developed during this century.  And they're getting away with it
> >because many people hold gumption and forthrightness to be more important
> >than social programmes.
>
> Oh, for Pete's sake. To compare Margaret Thatcher to Hitler? Don't you think
> that you are overdoing it a bit? Hitler's sin wasn't exactly the
> "dismantling social safety nets that were developed during this century." I
> suggest that you do a little more reading on the subject.
>
>
> Eva Balogh
+ - Misc comments and questions (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Hello again to all on the list! -

Just wanted to say that I have been enjoying the vigorous repartee among the
people who have been writing. I was thinking in his last response to me that
Joe G. Szalai had turned into a pussycat, but I noted that he was back to
his old form in his more recent articles. I hope to have a chance to comment
on some of his articles sometime this weekend, when I have a little more
time to write.

And Celia - my Heavens! It must be that bum knee, right? You're laid up, so
you have nothing to do but write these tomes! Very interesting, but I must
admit that so far I have been just glancing over them to get an idea of
their contents. Hope to have some comments on your articles as well. (Did
notice what was probably a typo in one letter. You wrote about the Party
elites "dachaus," when I you actually meant "dachas." There's a big
difference - the first sounds like the party leaders each had their own
personal concentration camps rather than country homes! ;-)

I actually joined the list to learn more about Hungary and Hungarians, and
there are a number of things I would like to ask the members of the list. I
understand that Transylvania has a roughly 40% Hungarian population. I have
also read that Transylvania at one time was "the most Hungarian part of
Hungary," and I presume that may have been due to the fact that most of
Hungary proper was ruled for a couple of hundred years by the Ottoman Turks,
while Transylvania remained an island of Christian and Hungarian
independence. I further understand that there was not a sizable Romanian
(Wallachian) population in Transylvania but that the Romanians basically
filtered in - I think some have viewed it is a deliberate strategy to
achieve majority population status and thus a territorial claim on the land.
I know from reading this list the last couple of weeks that there is a good
deal of resentment toward Slovakia and Romania for less than enlightened
treatment of ethnic minorities, primarily Hungarians, resident within their
borders. I also remember reading that Hungarians (and Romanians, presumably)
are very aware of the dangers of ethnic warfare, as evidenced by the
experience of Bosnia next door, and perhaps wish to avoid such an
eventuality at all cost. Is there any possiblity of Transylvania being
divided politically along ethnic lines, with the Hungarian and Szekely
regions being returned to Hungary? Any possibility of Transylvania or at
least its Hungarian and Skekely inhabitants being given special status
within the Romanian state? Any possibility of Transylvania being given
autonomous status or anything similar?

Given the frustrations of Hungarians at the limitations of the economic
opportunities open to them, and the problems experienced by the other
countries in Central and Eastern Europe, are there efforts being made to
foster economic cooperation with the other former countries of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire or other neighboring countries?

I would love to have comments on these matters from the esteemed members of
the list.

Yours,

Johanne

Johanne L. Tournier
e-mail - 
+ - Re: Doctoral titles, degrees and prestige in Central Eu (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

The 5 years  ELTE TTK diploma definitely worth
the 4 years MSc, but I agree, that it is not equal
to a PhD here (UK), which is usually a 3 years
post-gradual work. Eva Durant



>
> > Then there is that traditional range of postgraduate QUALIFICATIONS.  In
> > Hungary, there have been three doctoral qualifications: the 'small' or
> > university-level doctor, the 'candidate' and the 'doctor of sciences'.  The
> > latter two used to be awarded by the Academy of Sciences, while first used
 to
> > be the domain of individual universities.  For the university doctoral
 degree,
> > a thesis of around 30,000 words was required, pretty well like a thesis-onl
y
> > Masters in the English tradition.  Requirements for the candidate and docto
r
> > of sciences were longer theses, language exams and documented scientific
> > achievement.  The UK/US/Australia/etc. PhD is closest to the Candidate
 Degree.
> > While this system was an exact copy of the Soviet one, I understand that th
e
> > German regime is also different from that of Anglo-Celtic countries.
> George Antony cites the above as the Hungarian system today.
>
> As of 1995, there is a new setup, one that makes me see red though.
> Doctorates are being given in Hungary now, granting a Ph.D in only 1.-2
> years after the completion of the diplom. Albeit, everyone claims that
> the first un9versity degree is equivalent to teh masters in the US, I
> have seen what geography students have to learn and I am quite sorry,
> that ain't a Ph.D from any top 20 geography school in the US, or I'll
> wager Britain, Australia, or Ireland, Germany, etc.
>
> Of course, part of this is related to standardizatio with 'western'
> systmes of education so that some leverl of comparability is there.
> However, I have read a couple of the 'dissertations' and they are not
> quite theoretical enough to pass a Ph.D exam here. I am not saying this
> is not a bad idea, but it still needs a little work.
>
> Please, someone over there now feel free to talk about this topic,
> because this was going on as I left, and could have changed immensely,
> perhaps James Doeepp could shed some light being in Miskolc?
>
> Darren Purcell
+ - Re: The royal "we" (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Actually, there can be amazing changes in human
consciousness in a few days... been a historian, Eva, you
must yourself know a few examples. However, I have to
admit, some correspondents on this list are rather well
set in their ways...
Eva Durant


>
> At 12:01 AM 1/25/96 -0500, Joe Szalai wrote:
>
> >So?  Today people believe this, and tomorrow, they'll believe that.  If
> >you've read Cecilia Fabos-Becker's posts today you might have noticed that
> >she worked for McGoverns campaign, and today she is an active member of the
> >Republican party.  Were her views correct then and wrong today, or vice
> >versa?
>
> Her change of political views is much more common then the other way around!
> So, if you think that members of this list, as the years go by, will become
> flaming socialists I think you are wrong.
>
> Eva Balogh
+ - Re: A few comments on feminism (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Unfortunately the HVG article from which I hoped
the latest comment/information on the sociological
question on women's emancipation in Hungary, all
I got is the biological fenomena reserched: why do
women live longer, some intersting biological facts -
nat to be taken seiously from HVG, where this stuff
is not froofread and full of mistakes - and the usual
stereotypical remarks...  So HVG didn't brake the mold,
the issue as such was not discussed...
Eva Durant
+ - Re: Capitalism vs. Socialism and Categorization of Nati (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>
> The problems are these:  It is statistically and historically proveable that
> there are always many, many more followers than leaders--and people always
> make their own choice whether to follow or lead.  It doesn't matter what
> kind of government is set up, a few people will always emerge to do most of
> the governing and make most of the policies.  Add to this the equally
> proveable (scientific observation, experimentation, etc.) fact that people
> don't like change, and will only do so when it is more uncomfortable for
> them to stay as they are than to change, and then will only make the most
> minimal amount of change to place themselves in a "comfort zone" again,
> because they fear the unknown.  Real Pioneers and explorers are a minority
> of all populations.  People who have nothing, also have nothing to lose.
> People who have something, if they feel it is substantial in comparison to
> what they see others owning around them, are less likely to want to risk
> losing what they have.  The problem in most third world countries is too
> large a number of the people have very, very little--and they live within a
> short distance of people who have infinitely more.
>

But you have a much more chance to be a leader, if your parents
are already part of the leading establishment. If you say this
is due to inherited capabilities - which I don't agree with -
than the inequal reward is not fair anyway, you did not have to
do anything to gain it.  I think a very few minority of people
have a chance to find out if they are capable to lead or not.
In a society, where everyone has a good education to bring
out all creativity/ability, you'll find that everyone has
ambicion to decisionmaking, and everyone has the capability
for it, given encouragement and information.

Sorry, poverty has no rational reason to stay with us amongst
all the quantity and quality of wealth that can be now produced.
Besides, this setup brings destruction even by your opinion, as
more and more people feel they have nothing to loose. And those
who think they have something realise, that they can something
better in a society that is genuinly democratic.

>
> What goes around comes around, I guess. It's never right, and all one can do
> is try to stop the current wrong and try to help people get over some
> seriously hurt feelings and avoid a further cycle of revenge.  Much easier
> said than done.
>

so might as well try to work out what is the fundamental fault
in the system.

Eva Durant
+ - A British Perspective (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

The current issue of East European Quarterly, Vol. XXIX, No. 4,
January 1996, has an article which may be of some interested to the
history inclined reader. It is:

        A.J. Kochavi, "British Diplomats and the Jews in Poland,
        Romania and Hungary During the Communist Takeovers.

It relies heavily on documents from PRO (Public Record Office, United
Kingdom, Kew) and Foreign Office files.

CSABA K. ZOLTANI
+ - Re: Misc comments and questions (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

All in good time, my friend, all in good time...

Pro Libertate!

Dan Rako

Johanne L. Tournier wrote:
>I understand that Transylvania has a roughly 40% Hungarian population.
>I have also read that Transylvania at one time was "the most Hungarian
>part of Hungary,"
>
>Any possibility of Transylvania being given autonomous status or
>anything similar?
>
>Yours,
>
>Johanne
>
>Johanne L. Tournier
>e-mail - 
>
+ - Re: Sexist (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>
> What is the official definition of the 'sexist'? Can a women be 'sexist' or
> this is a privilege of men only?
>
> Janos
>

No, it is not a privilege of men only. I know several male nurses that
run into it all the time. What is the basis for this behavior on either
side, I just do not know.

Darren Purcell
+ - Re: to Janos Zsargo (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>
> You wrote:
>
> >So, I can call you bastardly, since that is usually applied to Males, or
> >can I say penis (or your own faul word of choice?)-ly?.
>
> I guess if you want to say something which is equivalent of the "bitchy"
> for males, it would be the "macho".

Good point, since I was just called bastardly after posting this by a
very hacked off student of mine...caught them cheating on a quiz...and
falied them on the quiz for it. Bastardly unprofessional behavior, was
the direct quote.

>
> >PC is not all on standards of speech, but it does have something to say abou
t
> >the meanings you imply in those words.
>
> Or rather those imply in them who listen to them.
>
> Janos
>

POint taken, whihc goes to many arguments of how language works in a
society. Anythings we say has a meaning behind it, one that we borrow
from the history of the word. Of course, the receiver is going to take it
a certain way from the meaning they have grown up with.

Thus, wouldn't it be better to find words that a least can be agreed
upon. It sounds to me like one side doesn't want to change. Not a fan of
the PC cops myself, and I have been known to take them on...there is a
point to their argument. Meanings change, bitchy, bastard, etc, all have
changed.

When you think "rotten bastard", do we really think of a specific
behavior, and attributes in the same way bitchy connotes. Think on that
one for the moment, I gotta run and teach. I may bring this one into my
class today. The half of the calss that might attend on a Friday might
hve fun with this one.

Darren
+ - Re: the economics of gender- comments by Purcell (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>
> On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, DARREN E PURCELL wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Doepp James wrote:
> >
> > > A couple of comments on the discussion of feminism:
>
>
> > And after the wages go up for women, then who gets hired? Those willing
> > to work part-time with no benefits.
>
>
> Normally those working part-time with no benefits are people who desire
> to get a job 'at any cost'.  They are normally non-skilled workers, or
> people skilled in areas that are no longer in demand.  But 'no benefits'
> is really a misnomer.  The benefit is that they are not unemployed, and
> they are gaining experience - many work part-time so that they can study
> part-time.
>
Jim, watching my wife try to find full-time employment, state-governemtn
wants part-timers, no one is allowed to get close to 40 hours, and I
worked too many jobs putting myself through school to swallow that one
wholly. I won't disagree that a significant portion may desire part-time
employment, but to lump them all together is a little far in my opinion.

On the point of experience, do unemployed men or women in upraban areas,
say Northeast of US or even in Northeast Hungary only want the part-time
work that the market can offer them?


>
> > So, I can call you bastardly, since that is usually applied to Males, or
> > can I say penis (or your own faul word of choice?)-ly?. PC is not all on
> > standards of speech, but it does have something to say about the meanings
> > you imply in those words. There are all sorts of words for men in general
> > that I really don't like to hear. (I will go into examples privately if
> > you so desire, but I think we are all odl enough to think of some easily)
> >
>
> Somehow I fail to see the connection between 'culturally' or otherwise
> 'insensitive' words - such as handicapped or gyp - and taboo words.  If
> I call somebody a mother f--r, a I being insensitive to people who are
> involved in incestuous relationships with their mothers?
>
>
Nah, you would not be insensitive, I would applaud you in that case. So
would you leave out the foul words from the realm of PC cops?

By the way, any info about doctorates in Miskolc?


Best to all,

Darren PUrcell
+ - Ha Ha Ha!!! (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Hali,

Johanne wrote:
__________________________________________________________
Is there any possiblity of Transylvania being
divided politically along ethnic lines, with the Hungarian and Szekely
regions being returned to Hungary? Any possibility of Transylvania or at
least its Hungarian and Szekely inhabitants being given special status
within the Romanian state? Any possibility of Transylvania being given
autonomous status or anything similar?
___________________________________________________________
Surely, you jest!!!

RETURN is absolutely not in vocabulary of the Romanian higher ups. TAKE is
definitely in the vocabulary of Romanian higher ups. Take away your rights to
speak your mind. Take away your language. Take away your schools. Take away
your name. Take your churches. There's a lot of taking going on.

There's no possible way that Hungary can get anything back without causing a
disturbance. Plus, Hungary would be made out to be the BAD GUYS, anyway, since
Hungary was "on the wrong side" during both wars. Unwise, indeed. In my heart
I'd to see a whole Hungary again, but that's pure fantasy. Pure reality is that
it'll never happen. So, scratch that out of your minds.

Dividing-  Everybody's really into this division thing, since the US
maintaining divisions between the parties involved in Bosnia. Does it solve
anything?? The second the US pulls out. Bang bang. They're back it again.
Division works really shitty, if you ask me. Look at Cyprus. People say it's a
successful story, but if the UN wasn't there.......Not a good example to follow
at all.

Special status- The status of ethnic minorities in Romania are eSPECIALy bad.
The focus should not be on "special status". What makes anybody more "special"
than the next, anyway?? There should be equal status for all citizens, not this
hand-out mentality. This one get's this perk or exclude this one from some kind
of perk.

No!!

 Equal status for all.

Anything else is highway robbery!!!

Udv.,
Czifra Jancsi
john_czifra @ shi.com
+ - Re: Good vs. better (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

> > So you are saying social equality shouldn't be on the agenda,
> > if you have a market economy, as it is incompatible with it.
> No, I'm merely saying that social equality should not be viewed as an
> absolute goal at the expense of other, often more important goals. I
> must say that the single largest factor of social inequality at this
> point is the geographical one: if you are born Swiss chances are your
> life will be pretty decent, if you are born Ugandan chances are it
> will be absolutely miserable.
>

You might as well classify these more important goals, please.
I wonder if proper - not only the present nominal - democracy
is included.  I doubt it, as  it is as incompatible with market
economy, as social justice.



> can't resist asking you about your claim that the root of women's bad
> situation is to be found in the very existence of private property --
> do you think female apes have it good? If anything, it is the
> civilization based on property rights that is painfully taking shape
> over the millenia that gives women their first shot at equality.
>

My impression was, that in the prehistoric tribal society
matriarchy was the general setup.  When private property
appeared, the inheritors of it had to be identified, also
men had bigger role in gaining it through fighting.
Private  property is the main reason, attitudes of thousands
of years built on societies based on private property are the
others.
Eva Durant
+ - Re: Feminism--alien to the Hungarian psyche? - rebuttle (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>
> -  Could you possibly imagine, that some women are actually happy with
> their sexuality?
>

Nobody claimed, that those not happy with the present situation
of women's right  are not happy with their sexuality.
We just want the same opportunities and power as men.
Naught to do with our feminity, thank you very much.
Eva Durant
+ - Minority Rights (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

To Hungary list and NY Times:

Just thought I'd pass on a copy of the letter, and forwarded posting, that I
sent to the white house.  Since they have largely ignored similar questions
before, perhaps if others agree these are good questions and ideas, we might
have a few more people raising them.  Do you think I should have also
reminded them this is an election year??  Naaah, they ought to at least have
the intelligent awareness of that much by themselves.  Perhaps they just
figure we're all recently immigrated criminals (see U.S. officials' comments
regarding "Keyser Soze", etc.) or illegal aliens who can't or won't vote.
Do we dare wonder what they're inhaling _these_ days? ;-)

Sincerely, and only semi-seriously for the above,

Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker

3273B Rocky Water Lane
San Jose, CA, USA  95148
tel.& fax: 408-223-6102
e-mail: 

Copy of letter and posting now:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

>Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 10:56:42 -0500
>To: 
>From: Tony and Celia Becker >
>Subject: Minority Rights
>Cc: 
>
>Dear President Clinton and Vice-president Gore:
>
>The attached posting raises a very interesting question.  Why is it the
West European Countries and the U.S. only protect the rights of minorities
in those countries, and not in East Central Europe?
>
>If we can apply sanctions to South Africa--a much larger and more powerful
entity in its region/continent, why cannot the U.S. prohibit loans and
investments from the World Bank, IMF, and private U.S. banks to East Central
European nations who persecute their minorities?  Why cannot the U.S. make a
clear program of cutting off privileges such as this, and NATO and WTO
membership until specific steps--including granting regional autonomies
within the larger surrounding nations is done?  For instance, ending the
language laws could result in World Bank and IMF loans being restored.
Passing a "hate crimes" law and setting up a modern re-education program
(similar to U.S. police force ethnic sensitivity classes) for miscreants
could result in being put back in the process for eventual NATO membership.
Reserve the WTO and EC membership and restoration of private loans and
investments for full, autonomy.
>
>In your discussions with the persecuting nations, constantly refer to Spain
and Switzerland, and the U.S. and emphasize that more highly evolved, truly
civilized nations, "adults" in the international community practice
tolerance and grant autonomies--that if they wish to join the "adult"
national community and receive all the correspondent privileges, they must
first act as mature, tolerant "adults."
>
>When nations mistreat minorities, there is a greater chance of labor and
widespread civil unrest and violence.  This is not good for U.S. loans and
investments of U.S. taxpayer, investor, saver, business account money.  If
the mistreatment is very severe, refugees and immigrants come to either the
U.S. or our friends and allies, straining ours and their resources.
Ultimately _we_ pay to care for them, to resettle them, etc.  If the severe
treatment increases again, we may have to send in _our_ troops, _risking our
children's lives_, such as in Bosnia, Somalia, etc..  THUS IT IS IN _OUR_
INTEREST TO PREVENT AND/OR STOP PERSECUTION OF MINORITIES!  WHEN ARE
_WE_--OUR GOVERNMENT LEADERS GOING TO DO IT???
>
>Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker (Hungarian-American, U.S. citizen, born in U.S., etc.
)

Note: I was technically born a dual national, though born in the U.S., due
to an old law, but I didn't think the President and Vice-president would
either care about or understand that, so I didn't mention it.) CFB

>
>3273B Rocky Water Lane
>San Jose, CA, USA  95148
>tel.&fax: 408-223-6102
>e-mail: 
>
>
>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>(Forwarded posting now)
>
>
>>Date:         Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:37:22 EST
>>Reply-To: Hungarian Discussion List >
>>Sender: Hungarian Discussion List >
>>From: "Csaba Zoltani (ASHPC/CTD)" >
>>Subject:      Minority Rights
>>Comments: To: 
>>Comments: cc: 
>>To: Multiple recipients of list HUNGARY >
>>
>>On 14 Jan 96, d.A., i.e. ibokor > wrote:
>>
>>>>I would seriously argue that there are many countries in Europe with a
>>>>much better record of minority treatment than Romania.  Switzerland,
>>>>Italy, Holland, Spain come to mind.
>>
>>>You should perhaps look into at least Switzerland and Spain more carefully.
>>>Ask a few questions about how the Swiss population and authorities have
>>>treated "das fahrende Volk", as an example.
>>>Ask a few question about the "difficulties" and civil disturbances in,
>>>say, Andalucia or the prohibition for so long of the Catalonian
>>>language, etc. in Spain.
>>
>>Yes indeed. Let's look at Spain "carefully". The first step would be
>>be to read:
>>
>>        The Catalan Statute of Autonomy
>>        Generalitat de Catalunya
>>        Departament de la Presidencia
>>        March, 1993
>>
>>Some brief excerpts:
>>
>>"In the process of regaining their democratic freedom the people of
>>Catalonia also recover their institutions of self-government.
>>
>>Catalonia, exercising the right to self-government which the
>>Constitution recognizes and guarantees to all nationalities and
>>regions of which Spain is composed, manifests its desire to
>>constitute a Self-Governing-Community.
>>
>>.....
>>
>>Article 3
>>
>>1. The language proper to Catalonia is Catalan.
>>
>>2. Catalan is the official language of Catalonia, as is Castilian, the
>>official language of the whole of the Spanish State.
>>
>>3. The "Generalitat" shall guarantee normal and official use of both
>>languages, adopting all measures necessary to ensure they are known, and
>>creating those conditions which shall make possible their full equality
>>with regard to the duties and rights of the citizens of Catalonia.
>>
>>Article 4
>>
>>The Catalan flag is the traditional one of four red stripes on a yellow
>>background.
>>
>>.....
>>
>>Article 13
>>
>>1. The "Generalitat" may set up an Autonomous Police Force within the
>>framework of this Statute.....
>>
>>......."
>>
>>
>>Switzerland is also an excellent example. Switzerland has four (4)
>>official languages and the government protects and furthers (!) the
>>interests of its minorities. Recently, Prof Chasper Pult, President
>>of the Lia Rumantscha, representing the Raeto-Romansch minority
>>of Switzerland spoke at the conference "Promoting European Security
>>and Integration: The Role of National Minorities" in the US House of
>>Representatives' foreign relations hearing room. He passed around in
>>the audience his passport and a Swiss banknote to demonstrate that
>>one of the languages on these documents is Romansch, even though less
>>than one percent (!!) of the population of Switzerland belongs to this
>>group. He pointed out that during the first three years of school,
>>children of this ethnic group learn the Romansch language. The Swiss
>>Federation allows the sharing of power between the cantons (i.e.
>>counties) and the central government, leading to effective protection
>>of national minorities. This results in the demonstrated fact that
>>minorities retain their identity without harboring exclusivist sentiments.
>>
>>Contrast this with the situation in Slovakia with the roughly 10%
>>ethnic Hungarians or Romania, where Hungarians, Saxons, Romani make up
>>in excess of 23% of the population. In both of these countries,
>>repressive, anti-minority legislation was recently enacted.
>>
>>Thus, as a.D. suggests "looking" can be very educational. It does not
>>take long to realize that advocates of the unitary state nonsense can
>>not, in light of the fact that in Europe there are 70 different peoples
>>but only 36 states with more than half a million inhabitants, close
>>their eyes to reality and not suffer the consequences. (In Europe there
>>are at least 250 national or ethnic minorities with over one hundred
>>million persons which corresponds to one seventh of the 750 million
>>Europeans.)
>>
>>As the Federal Union of European Nationalitiea (FUEN) recently stated:
>>
>>"States are products of human society. They exist for the people and not
>>vice versa. At least since the triumphant advance of democracy, this
>>principle can claim general validity. Therefore states have to adapt to
>>the necessities of the people. Polyethnic populations necessitate
>>multinational states. This insight is the indispensible prerequisite for
>>the reform of the states, with the aim to overcome, through integration,
>>national conflicts between ethnically heterogeneous parts of populations
>>of different sizes, in order to arrive at a national partnership which
>>alone can guarantee the necessary solidarity and loyalty of all with all
>>and the necessary stability of long-lasting peace."
>>
>>The message has not gotten through to the rulers in Bratislava or
>>Bucaresti. Time is not on their side.
>>
>>CSABA K. ZOLTANI
>>
>>
>
AE0M, Tony Becker -  - Silicon Valley, U.S.A.
+ - Re: Anti-feminist bias or not? (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

In article >, Eva Durant
> writes:

> Also, on what basis can you disregard the "pure"
>ideal, not so far experienced, of democratic socialism. Thank you.
>Eva Durant
>
>

Ever notice when they're not in power that the Marxist-Leninists say you
can't use the history of communist nations to judge their philosophy
because it has never been implemented in "pure" form yet? But when the
bastards do have their fingers on the trigger, you can bet your last
forint they'll pull it as many times as they deem necessary to stifle any
kind of intellectual pluralism that might offer a basis from which to
launch an informed, critical examination of that "pure" form.

Marxism-Leninism isn't some ultra-rational philosophy meant to liberate
man. It's a crummy, scrofulous, hypocritical belief system, a utopian
religion that can't even summon the strength of its own convictions. And
everywhere that it has been implemented, most of the regime's energy and
resources have been dedicated to beating and starving the governed into
dogmatic conformity, much like the Spanish Inquisition. Inwardly, of
course, no one believes the crap they're forced to spout publicly under a
Marxist-Leninist system, either the elite few on top or the many others
standing in front of the business end of a rifle barrel. But the penalty
for stepping out of line is too serious to ever contemplate voicing that
disbelief in public.

Thus you get some of the stunning corrosion in moral orientation we see at
work in places like Bosnia and Russia. Capitalism didn't numb these folks
to the differences between right and wrong. Living an outright lie day in
and day out under Marxism-Leninism, living and knowing it and knowing that
everyone else around you knew it too, that's what numbed them.
Sam Stowe
+ - Re: Feminism in Hungary/general (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

In article >, Joe Szalai
> writes:

>I was comparing Thatcher's and Hitler's 'gumption and willingness to be
>forthright'.  I suppose you would have been happier if I included all the
>Soviet leaders.  I didn't because I didn't think they were forthright.
>Anyway, I was being critical of people who view gumption and
forthrightness
>as virtues, regardless of the message.
>
>Joe Szalai
>
>
>

Joe, if you can get hold of it up there in the wilds of Canada, check out
Stephen L. Carter's essay in the February, 1996, issue of the Atlantic
Monthly entitled "The Insufficiency of Honesty." Say, they don't actually
censure American magazines up there, do they?
Sam Stowe
+ - Re: A few comments on feminism (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 02:03 PM 1/25/96 -0500, you wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Doepp James wrote:
>
>> A couple of comments on the discussion of feminism:
>
>SNIP
>
>> 2.  Joe is right when he says that the question has to do with
>> socialism.  Only he's on the wrong side.  Discrimination based on gender
>> is likely to DECREASE with free markets, because discrimination is
>> expensive.  If there are women willing to do a job at the same cost as
>> men, and firms discriminate against the women, the price of labour in the
>> male labour market will go up (greater demand for male labour means
>> higher price of male labour.)  The firms that are market-conscious and
>> wish to improve their competing ability will hire women, who are willing
>> to do the job at a lower cost (since the cost of male labour has gone
>> up).  Those firms which do not do so will lose out.  As competition
>> increases, and firms realise there are gains to be made by hiring women,
>> the price of female labour will also go up.
>
>Jim, could you point out a few countries where this happens? I can't help
>but think of the Thrid World where the answer for keeping NIKE shoes
>cheap is to simply hire chearpe girls (real girls, not the diminuitively
>created) to do the work.
>And after the wages go up for women, then who gets hired? Those willing
>to work part-time with no benefits. But under todays's capitalist
>economy, this process happens faster and faster. So, and not being a
>jerk, please point out a few "real life examples" where this has happened
>and how this has lasted.
>
Hewlett Packard Company is an example, Hennepin County Government,
Minneapolis City Government, San Jose City Government, miscellaneous
high-tech companies in northern California, Washington, Oregon, and
Minnesota to name just a few.  The problem is, as whole companies and
institutions they are still a minority in the total U.S.  Parts of other
companies are good, but other parts or divisions of the same companies are
not.  Some states, or regions of large states are generally better, but
again it is not universal.  Most of the gains have been, according to "U.S.
News and World Report" and others, since the big comparable worth strike and
lawsuits the same year of 1981.  It sure did get expensive for those who
didn't even try...

Another problem is that companies do _not_ always notice the very real costs
of discrimination and hiring poorer workers through discrimination
practices.  They don't consider all the legal costs combined with the extra
taxes everyone--them included--pays to care for uninsured workers who can't
even earn enough to put adequate food on the table without food stamps,
etc.--and in redoing work, scrapping parts and products that don't work,
etc. all because of less competent workers.  When unions, class actions,
etc. have been careful to point out all the _real_, obvious--and
hidden--costs of discrimination to shareholders of public companies, or
elected officials of public institutions (and the area media, respectively),
there is usually some change from the companies or institutions.  However,
not all unions and class actions have been smart enough to do that, and we
don't generally have enough state and U.S. attorneys general willing to do
it as part of a consistent widespread program, and our elected
officials--elected by the people don't insist on such programs.  The free
market, such as it is, ultimately prevails, but with mixed results...

Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker

3273 B Rocky Water Lane
San Jose, CA, USA  95148
tel.&fax: 408-223-6102
e-mail: 




AE0M, Tony Becker -  - Silicon Valley, U.S.A.
+ - Re: Sexist (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear Janos:

At 05:42 PM 1/25/96 -0500, you wrote:
>What is the official definition of the 'sexist'? Can a women be 'sexist' or
>this is a privilege of men only?
>
>Sexist: denotes preference, or higher regard for persons of one sex above
another by an individual, in areas of life where rationally either one could
just as easily as the other accommodate the interests of said individual.

It's like racism: blacks can be just as prejudiced against whites as
vice-versa, and blacks can and have demonstrated discrimination based upon
their estimation of people of varying shades of even that general skin tone.
There was recently a documentary on U.S. public television that covered
that, using a lot of examples from Louisiana.

Many women will not vote for females for public office believing that only
men have "the right stuff," and will even in small group settings with mixed
company ignore other women in conversation and only pay attention to men.

So yes, "sexism" can be--and is--practiced by either men or women--even
against their own sex.

Another term that is often used here in California by females to describe a
sexist female is "she's male-oriented," said with a very derogatory tone and
downward slide of the last syllable.  (I have to thank my sister for her use
and explanation of that one day, soon after I had moved back to California.)
Her remark at the time referred to a waitress who took orders from and
served every male in a restaurant--including all those seated after we had
been for up to 10 minutes after--before taking our order, despite numerous
polite attempts on our part to catch her attention.

Respectfully,

Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
3273 B Rocky Water Lane
San Jose, CA, USA  95148
tel.& fax: 408-223-6102





AE0M, Tony Becker -  - Silicon Valley, U.S.A.
+ - Re: Doctoral titles, degrees and prestige in Central Eu (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

In article >, Tony and Celia
Becker > writes:

> Then during the American revolution the English led
>Tories exhibited their greatest cruelties toward the rural and frontier
>Scots and Scot-Irish.  They were led by Cornwallis's pet, Banastre
Tarleton
>(nicknamed something else that sounded similar to his first name, by his
>victims), who boasted to his fellow officers as he volunteered to help
>subdue "the rebellious rabble", that he intended "to go down in history
as
>the English officer who had killed more men and bedded more women than
any
>other officer in history."  He wasn't too particular about how he did
>either.  Look up what he did at Waxhaws Ridge (Buford Regiment Massacre)
and
>the Kingstree area plantations in South Carolina.

The American Revolution in the South cut through this mystical division
between Anglo-Saxons and Celts. Highland Scots fought both for the Patriot
side (the Over-The-Mountain Boys at King's Mountain, for example) while
many other Highlanders settled in the South provided good, loyal service
to the British Crown throughout the war. And Tarleton wasn't the only one
to play the genocide game during the war. In 1781, Patriot troops led by
Gen. Harry 'Lighthorse" Lee and operating close to Tarleton's camp near
Hillsborough, North Carolina, tricked a company of  450 Loyalist soldiers
into surrendering their weapons, then massacred them in cold blood,
killing 90 and seriously wounding 150 others. The death toll was almost as
much, if not more, than Tarleton's infamous refusal to grant quarter to
Gen. Buford's troops at the Waxhaws. In sum, the Revolution in the South
had much more of the character of a civil war than it did that of an
external power invading and attempting to subdue the Southern colonies.

I have lived in the South most of my life, was reared in a Southern family
that was one of the first settled in North Carolina in the 1600s and can
tell you that this is the first time I have ever heard about a deep-seated
schism between white Southerners of Anglo-Saxon descent and white
Southerners of Celtic descent. Is this in W.J. Cash's book? I don't have a
copy at hand as I write this. If anyone would have been perceptive enough
to pick up on such a cultural split, it would have been him. The rest of
the post, as far as I can tell, grossly distorts general American history
in the service of an unsubtle anti-English screed. For example, the
torpedoing of the Lusitania and the German government's indiscreet offer
to Mexico of American territory if it would attack the U.S. (the Zimmerman
Telegram) had a lot more to do with America's entry into World War I than
any supposed English trickery. Not good academic history, but amusing
polemic nonetheless.
Sam Stowe
+ - Re: Good vs. better (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear Andras:

At 10:40 PM 1/25/96 -0800, you wrote:
>> Felado :  [United Kingdom]
>> So you are saying social equality shouldn't be on the agenda,
>> if you have a market economy, as it is incompatible with it.
>No, I'm merely saying that social equality should not be viewed as an
>absolute goal at the expense of other, often more important goals. I
>must say that the single largest factor of social inequality at this
>point is the geographical one: if you are born Swiss chances are your
>life will be pretty decent, if you are born Ugandan chances are it
>will be absolutely miserable.

I regretfully and respectfully have to disagree.  This suggests that the
attitudes and behavior and choices of Ugandans, and English colonialists,
and whatever else were ever in that area, were controlled by their
latitudinal and longitudinal position and the climate.  This is not
consistent with the greater potential for most residents to be found in
countries like Costa Rica, Kenya (not a lot better than Uganda, but better),
and Malaysia.

The largest social inequity is what people determine as their own values and
what they are willing to endure without protest or their own effort to change.

My husband is fond of saying, "you will only be treated like a doormat if
you lay down and let people walk all over you."  It is true.  I've seen this
many,many times, and have listened to and read similar far more scientific
observations of this from numerous anthropologists, social scientists,
psychologists, etc, etc..


On a macro-level, it is true that what great powers over the centuries have
done to conquered, or intimidated peoples or neighbors is very wrong,
however, in nearly every case, there were also quislings among the elites of
the victims who chose to help oppress their own people.  Most of what the
U.S. has done in Latin America, for instance, especially since the 1960's
was not possible without the willing cooperation of hundreds of extended
families of greedy, self-interested elites with no real sense of country,
and even less regard for anyone not part of their own family within a few
degrees of relation.  There is no general humanity among them, and they have
the power, to choose their own values.  Worse, many of them and their
children have even been well-educated in the finest of U.S. and Western
universities where they could learn other values.  No, the elites of Africa,
Asia, and Latin America have chosen what they are--and the people under them
that they tight-fistedly rule with guns and money.

The problem is the people beneath also are learning nothing different.  They
have only the example of what is and what came before, unless they realize
that their behavior and attitudes have been thus narrowly influenced to be
as they are, and then willingly re-educate themselves to become something
different.  That also is not happening in many places.  It is too easy to
simply assume, "it's all someone else's fault and responsibility" and not
look too closely in a "moving picture-mirror."




>Well, the Great Teaching suggests that to change the world you need to
>change the empire, to change the empire you need to change the
>district, to change the district you need to change the village, to
>change the village you need to change your neighbors, to change your
>neighbors you need to change your family, and to change your family
>you need to change yourself.  So how about treating people with a
>slightly different opinion also with dignity, respect, equality,
>fairness, understanding, compassion, and helpfulness? It's true I'm
>not part of your family (your commendable flexibility in this regard
>notwithstanding), but with a bit of stretching the cyber thingy I am
>your neighbor.
>

Very much agreed, Andras.  That's just what I said above, to show how it
relates to what is already.  It's not just the future changes that are only
a reality this way, but the present situations, also.  The future does not
exist without the present and the past--and none are abstract or vacuums.
They are the present, past and future of some things or some ones.

Respectfully,


Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA, USA


N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA
+ - Politically Correct Vs. Politically Incorrect (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

I find it rather alarming that many well-meaning people have decided that
it's OK to be opposed to 'political correctness'.  It seems to me that if
you're opposed to 'political correctness', you must be in favour of
'political incorrectness'.  This is an area in which I can't see a middle
ground.

Some people are opposed to political correctness because it seems to be the
fashion these days.  They want to bleat with the rest of the flock.  I feel
sorry for these people but I don't worry about them.  For example, a couple
of years ago, a woman came to work wearing a T-shirt with the message, "I'M
OPPOSED TO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS".  I didn't say anything right away, but
later, when she started to make some political comments I told her to shut
up because women didn't know anything about politics.  Needless to say, she
got rather upset.  She told me that she thought I was more progressive and
didn't expect me to say such things.  I told her that I was just trying to
agree with the message on her T-shirt.  I was being politically incorrect.
She looked puzzled and said that that's not what she meant by wearing the
T-shirt.  So I asked her what she meant by wearing the T-shirt and she said
she didn't like 'all the other things' about political correctness.  I asked
her what 'the other things' were, and all she could say was, 'well, you
know'.    I told her that I didn't know.

A more serious opposition to political correctness comes (mainly) from men
who feel that they have to watch every word they use.  I guess the story
here is that men historically have been willing to call anyone, anything
they wanted.  For example, yesterday, James Doepp wrote:

> Somehow I fail to see the connection between 'culturally' or otherwise
> 'insensitive' words - such as handicapped or gyp - and taboo words.  If
> I call somebody a mother f--r, am I being insensitive to people who are
> involved in incestuous relationships with their mothers?

In this example, if James wants to swear and use a vulgur expression then
why, oh why, would he care if he's being insensitive?  Swearing is about not
being sensitive.  On the other hand, if James is not swearing, then I wonder
if he would call a husband who has sexual relations with his wife a "wife
fucker".   And if James knew a women who only, or often, had oral sex with
her husband, would he feel comfortable calling her a cocksucker?  I hope
that the obvious answer would be, no.

The reason that political correctness developed was that many people felt
hurt, degraded, or invalidated by common language use.  Calling someone who
is overweight, 'fatso' or 'fatty', draws attention to only one,
insignificant, part of their lives.  Eskimo, in the Inuit languages, means,
'raw flesh eaters'.  I, like most people in the world, always called the
people of the high artic Eskimo.  I didn't know any better.  But once I
found out that the Inu would prefer to be called Inu, I obliged.  After all,
as a Hungarian, I wouldn't want others to call me 'gulyas eater'.  Although
I eat gulyas, I am much, much more, than just a 'gulyas eater'.

Political correctnes is really nothing more than being polite and civil, and
calling or referring to people, by words or expressions that they would want
to be called.  It really is as simple as that.  And yes, that means, that
from time to time, we may be asked to change our language.  Is that really
such a big deal?

The most serious attack on political correctness comes from the extreme
right wing.  People with neo-nazi tendencies often complain that they can't
express themselves, the way they want to, because of political correctness.
All those who are opposed to, or attack political correctness, should keep
in mind that, in the long run, the biggest beneficiaries, will be people
with the narrowest world view.  And if they ever come to power, we'll have
more things to worry about than language.

Joe Szalai
+ - Re: Feminism for the Szalon? (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 05:19 PM 1/25/96 -0500, Eva Balogh, in response to my post, wrote:

>>In a futile attempt to disguise their contempt, racists and sexists and
>>bigots of all kind often use the diminutive and/or pseudo-affectionate
>>form of address when talking to an adult.
>>
>>In the U.S. it was common to call a black man 'boy', regardless of his
>>age.  Women are often called 'girls' or 'ladies' by both men and women. I
>>don't know about you or others on this newsgroup but I find 'ladies' to be
>>as offensive as 'girl' when referring to a women.
>>
>>Of course, if language can be used to diminish the worth of a person, then
>>economically and politically that person will lose, if for no other reason
>>than society dosen't treat children equally.
>>
>>Joe Szalai
>>
>
>My Golly, there must be something wrong with me today. I agree with every
>you say.
>
>Eva Balogh

Oh sure!  They day after I explain that my preference is to be disagreeable,
you agree with me.  Are you trying to unsettle me?

Joe Szalai
+ - Re: Bitchy? (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 05:33 PM 1/25/96 -0500, Eva Balogh wrote:

>At 03:47 PM 1/25/96 -0500, Joe Szalai wrote:
>
>>I tend to think that you have a selective memory.  But don't we all?  Do you
>>remember that thread on 'Hunglish' last spring.  Well, I started that
>>thread.  Also I've been reading this list since it first became available.
>>It's just that I've had more time to make postings this past year.
>
>Well, it wasn't that memorable.
>
>Eva Balogh

The better side of me says I shouldn't comment on your remark.

Joe Szalai
+ - Re: Misc comments and questions (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear Johanne:

At 08:31 AM 1/26/96 -0400, you wrote:
(Did
>notice what was probably a typo in one letter. You wrote about the Party
>elites "dachaus," when I you actually meant "dachas." There's a big
>difference - the first sounds like the party leaders each had their own
>personal concentration camps rather than country homes! ;-)

Oops!  Must have been remembering that recent article about Beria.  I think
in his case he really might have had a personal "dachau." ;-)
>
>I actually joined the list to learn more about Hungary and Hungarians, and
>there are a number of things I would like to ask the members of the list. I
>understand that Transylvania has a roughly 40% Hungarian population. I have
>also read that Transylvania at one time was "the most Hungarian part of
>Hungary," and I presume that may have been due to the fact that most of
>Hungary proper was ruled for a couple of hundred years by the Ottoman Turks,
>while Transylvania remained an island of Christian and Hungarian
>independence.

That's only partly the reason.  Actually, it was because that when
Transylvania was first _really_ settled in "modern" Christian era times, and
quite late at that. It was forest, mountains, etc. and frankly the majority
of people didn't have adequate tools for clearing and living with that until
almost the Rennaissance--which is why the Romans themselves never extended
the empire all over Germany and the British isles).  The West European
Christian missionaries that accompanied the first Magyar settlements into
Transylvania in the late 10th, 11th and 12th centuries noted that the area
was almost completely uninhabited by any human beings before the Magyars
arrived.  The trees were very large and old, centuries-old and the forests
very dense.  The Magyar name for Transylvania, "Erdely" I believe is itself
something like "the forest region."

Then when the Mongols swept through Hungary in 1240-41, this region was not
as devastated, and thus did not need to be resettled partly with excess
Bavarian, Tyrolean, etc. populations the Magyar kings later invited into
Hungary.  The language and cultural traditions came to be regarded as closer
to the orginal Magyar because they were less likely to have been influenced
by the admixture of other ethnic groups/cultures.  The Arad Hungarians
(Romanian "Oradea") are described in even some modern non-Hungarian produced
travel books as "the purest Magyar-speaking Hungarians of all."

An interesting sidelight of all this is that both after the Mongols left and
later when the later Turks then depopulated the center and southern parts of
Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia, growing families from Transylvania gradually
expanded south and west and came to dominate large portions of areas as far
as Novagradiska along the Croatian-Bosnian border, and Marcali in Somogy.
The various locations of the Szecsenyi, Teleki, and other families as
described in parish and land records in the late 1800's and early 1900's are
examples of this.  The Szecsenyi are credited by Austrian imperial records
as being founders of what is now Novagradiska in 1526.  The Szecsenyi were
"the lords of Arad" in the 12th and 13th centuries, according to the
Chronicles of Matyas Corvinus, and some more recent German historical works.


I further understand that there was not a sizable Romanian
>(Wallachian) population in Transylvania but that the Romanians basically
>filtered in - I think some have viewed it is a deliberate strategy to
>achieve majority population status and thus a territorial claim on the land.

The Romanian refugees were invited, as good fellow-Christians, to settle in
Transylvania as the Turks increasingly warred on and conquered Wallachia,
etc. on the other side of the Carpathians.  At the time, they were grateful
and respectful.  However, over time they seem to have forgotten what really
happened, and then they had a clever opportunist for a queen with close
family ties to the English royal family, at a time when a fairly large
number of English aristocrats (social, political and economic) wanted to
quite literally divide and colonize all of East Central Europe to the
English advantage.  (See articles and books about "The Crewe House," group,
etc.)

She was, according to her own autobiography, more than willing to support
Romanian propagandists--who were hoping for large estates and riches of
their own, etc. and her first cousin's interests in exchange for having a
large rich country of her own to rule.  She really wanted to rule a large
country--her own large country--and didn't want to share power with anyone.
This is why she turned down George V's offer of marriage and took poor
Ferdinand.  While she did love her husband, she clearly also knew that she
was the stronger figure and that she could easily control him, and that idea
played a part in her own decision whom to marry.

Let's put it this way.  Everyone today remembers "Queen Marie."  She is
pictured and voluminously described in numerous, numerous books and articles
while her husband is scarcely mentioned, and her picture and memory are
everywhere, still in Romania.  Who remembers poor Ferdinand, her husband?
How many people do you think even easily remember his name, or face?  The
problem is, Queen Marie, by her own often repeated, black-and-white
statements in her own autobiography, hated Hungarians--all Hungarians...

The Hungarians had been unconcerned about the growing Romanian minority in
Transylvania until a few Romanians began rather loudly suggesting they were
now a majority and should be joined with Wallachia and Moldavia.  At the
time of the beginning of World War I, it is now estimated by many
non-Hungarian researchers, the ethnic Magyars and Romanians who identified
themselves as such were probably close to 40 and 45% respectively.  There
was a growing element who considered themselves literally, half-and-half.
But many more families probably were a mixture than what was self-acclaimed.
During a victorious-allied mandated census in about 1920, it was determined
that the Magyars (bear in mind this is after some have been already
"encouraged" to leave what had already just become Romanian territory) were
about 40% of the population, and the Romanians about 55% with a few percent
still courageously claiming to be Gypsies, Germans, Serbians, and a mixture.


>I know from reading this list the last couple of weeks that there is a good
>deal of resentment toward Slovakia and Romania for less than enlightened
>treatment of ethnic minorities, primarily Hungarians, resident within their
>borders. I also remember reading that Hungarians (and Romanians, presumably)
>are very aware of the dangers of ethnic warfare, as evidenced by the
>experience of Bosnia next door, and perhaps wish to avoid such an
>eventuality at all cost. Is there any possiblity of Transylvania being
>divided politically along ethnic lines, with the Hungarian and Szekely
>regions being returned to Hungary? Any possibility of Transylvania or at
>least its Hungarian and Skekely inhabitants being given special status
>within the Romanian state? Any possibility of Transylvania being given
>autonomous status or anything similar?
>

If the great powers would insist upon autonomy for Transylvania, and back up
the insistence with sanctions such as denial of loans and investments and
NATO and EC membership until it was done, it might happen.  However, there
are still some English "leaders" (financial, political,etc.) who still
harbor the dream of their parents or grandparents regarding East Central
Europe--as a set of English colonies subservient to English elite interests.
Their public schools seem not to have changed education patterns since
before World War I.  This is not just my assessment.

Check out the May, 1992? or 1993? (USNWR is not on AOL and my group of old
issues of USNWR was recently relocated by my husband to the garage without
much care for keeping them in chronological order, when we last tried to
make room for more books and computer equipment in the study) issue of "U.S.
News and World Report," titled, "Can Europe be Unified?"  I never thought I
would see a non-Hungarian writer of a major Western magazine put in writing
what was normally just quietly, verbally expressed widely in DC, like so
much gossip.  It's not normally done, but there they were, black and white
statements such as:  "The major drawback to unification is  English
attitudes and interests. ... It is the opinion of most fellow-Europeans at
the conferences that the English have not changed their ideas about the rest
of Europe since World War I."

So, _if_ the English elites still want East Central Europe as a whole to be
second-class colonies and they still consider more independent minded
Hungarians as a threat to that idea, and their own (English) people continue
to be oblivious to what in reality is likely to be a minority view among
their own leaders, but still a powerful one, then it is not likely that
Transylvania will get autonomy, or that conditions for Hungarians in
Transylvania will significantly improve.

Also remember, much more loudly and widely expressed in Washington DC, among
Congressional aides, etc. is the following opinion.  "The Clinton
administration feels very close to and wants to appease the English
aristocratic friends Clinton made while a Rhodes scholar, and in subsequent
contacts."  Thus, "since Clinton also doesn't seem to have many strong
convictions and much will of his own," (except to get himself re-elected),
"U.S. foreign policy is made in  England."

If, and I do emphasize the "if," these situations are indeed to a moderate
or high degree reality, then it is even more unlikely that the situation in
Transylvania will improve.  Somewhere, somehow, something has to change in
one of these great powers before we little people can gain much benefit.

>Given the frustrations of Hungarians at the limitations of the economic
>opportunities open to them, and the problems experienced by the other
>countries in Central and Eastern Europe, are there efforts being made to
>foster economic cooperation with the other former countries of the
>Austro-Hungarian Empire or other neighboring countries?

Yes, the largest amounts of investments and loans come from Germany,
followed by the U.S..  Trade with the U.S. is now at over $4 billion a
year--each way.  It's even greater with Germany.  More locally, trade and
financial transactions, and various political efforts are doing well with
the Czech Republic, Poland, and the Baltic nations, particularly Estonia.
(The Visegrad Group and Baltic Group).  Relations are very good, generally
with Croatia, and better than Slovakia and Romania, between Hungary and
Slovenia and Ukrainia.  Hungary is not without friends, even among
neighbors.  It should also be remembered that England and the U.S. are not
monolithic entities.  There are many individual non-Hungarians in both
countries who feel friendly to and supportive of Hungarians.  However some
of the obnoxious neighbors have really powerful allies, also--and we all
notice "the squeaky wheels" more.

Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA, USA

N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA
+ - Re: Capitalism vs. Socialism and Categorization of Nati (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear Eva:

At 01:41 PM 1/26/96 +0100, you wrote:
>>

>
>But you have a much more chance to be a leader, if your parents
>are already part of the leading establishment. If you say this
>is due to inherited capabilities - which I don't agree with -
>than the inequal reward is not fair anyway, you did not have to
>do anything to gain it.  I think a very few minority of people
>have a chance to find out if they are capable to lead or not.

There are many ways in many aspects, at many levels of life to assume the
responsibilities of leadership and find out if one is capable of it.  A
friend recently sent me something that has been reported by carefully
investigating reporters in China, as well as letters and notes (I don't ask
many details about his network to avoid jeopardizing lives there, sorry.)
It seems as the government there has been breaking down, and there have been
more economic opportunities delegated or granted, more and more villages are
actually running themselves, democratically, without the communist party
bosses--and without much formal schooling or anything else.  The adults and
even many older children are just getting together discussing needs,
figuring  out who can best do what (or who they think can best do what they
think needs doing)--and doing it.  Each village seems to have one or more
people whom have simply stepped forward to lead discussions and actions.

Also in the group dynamics of Deming-style work groups, as described by
noted author Tom Peters, there are always those people who choose to be more
outspoken, volunteer to either speak or do more, perform demonstrations,
etc.--lead, in other words, and often the group leaders are _not_ the
individual manager or foreman who may or may not be in the particular group.

It is often the confidence built up in some small situations that causes
people to try to lead in others.  But there are leaders--and potential
leaders everywhere, in all societies, at all levels.  They just as a total,
are far fewer than the followers, and the leaders willing to take the
greatest risks and responsibilities are simply the far end of that "bell
curve,"--the fewest of all.


>In a society, where everyone has a good education to bring
>out all creativity/ability, you'll find that everyone has
>ambicion to decisionmaking, and everyone has the capability
>for it, given encouragement and information.
>
>Sorry, poverty has no rational reason to stay with us amongst
>all the quantity and quality of wealth that can be now produced.
>Besides, this setup brings destruction even by your opinion, as
>more and more people feel they have nothing to loose. And those
>who think they have something realise, that they can something
>better in a society that is genuinly democratic.

Very true, real poverty has no reason.  The problem is "poor" is also a
relative comparison, based upon perceptions of those who have, and observe,
their neighbors.  Look at the Los Angeles riots after the trial of the
police officers who beat Rodney King.  The riots took place in neighborhoods
of single-family homes with yards and fences and automobiles parked in
driveways, homes with electricity, indoor plumbing with clean water, sewage
treatment, etc..  The people who rioted had clothing that generally fit and
did not have holes or tears in it on their bodies, had shoes upon their
feet, and looked well-fed--no hollow-eyed gaunt cheeks of starvation, were
there?  Yet these people who rioted consider themselves poor and oppressed.
Compare this to the cardboard and fruit-crate shantytowns outside of so many
Latin American, African and Asian cities?  Do you think the inhabitants of
the shantytowns, if they could see the areas of Los Angeles that rioted,
would consider the inhabitants of those riot areas, poor?  Again, though,
you are right, real deprivation of care for the basic needs, real poverty is
wrong.  But "poor" will always be with us as a human perception of difference.


Respectfully,


Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA, USA

N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA
+ - Re: A few comments on feminism (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear James:

At 12:28 PM 1/26/96 +0000, you wrote:

>> >1.  Andr=E1s is right when he argues against equal pay for equal=
 'worth'. =20
>> >The problem is that the enforcer of such legislation would not be able=
 to=20
>> >judge what the 'worth' or value of the worker is.  Not only that, but=20
>> >they hurt the women most in need, because firms would be less inclined=
 to=20
>> >hire women with little experience, likely to accept lower wages - these=
=20
>> >are the women who, perhaps, took some time off to take care of the=20
>> >children.
>>=20
>> Actually they did a pretty good job of analysis, legislation and=
 enforcing
>> in a few states.  Ever hear of the "Hayes Studies?"  They used some
>> excellent quantitative and qualitative measurements that were reasonably
>> objective.  The owner of the consulting company and most of the=
 principals
>> who developed this analysis--which has been supported by quite a broad
>> political and social, etc. spectrum--were males, by the way.
>
>
>Here our difference is in epistemology.  How can one KNOW the conditions=20
>of the market.  I suggest you read FA Hayek's "Economics and Knowledge"=20
>(found in Buchanan and Thirlby, _LSE Essays on Cost_.

It depends upon the quality and type of measurements and the expectations.
By that I mean, realistic expectations of what actually can be observed,
measured or subjected to repeatable experiment.  There was recently an
article in "The Atlantic Monthly" for instance that credibly questioned the
whole current field of "economics" analysis and predictions and pointed out
that "when it is said that the economy is improving or worsening, all it
really means is the quantity of economic transactions--regardless of type or
quality--is either increasing or decreasing."

A really good analysis is done using research into several fields, at once.
However, I think the best examples of successfully learning about a market,
and manipulating it--that this can actually be done, and often is, are not
strictly in the works of social sciences or economics.  Take a look at the
books on public relations, advertising and propaganda.  American advertisers
successfully learn and manipulate mass markets of diverse subgroups all the
time. Men of far less quality than Washington or Lincoln have literally been
successfully "marketed" to the freely voting U.S. Citizens.  No campaign
today is run without a public relations specialist in the highest inner
circles.  Consider the changing titles of some books about the Presidency
from _The Making of a President_ about 1961, to _The Selling of a President_
in the 1970's.  Then finally, there is the example of Germany and
Goebbels...  Very effective marketing of horrible ideas, wouldn't you say?
Was there a village anywhere in Germany that a Jew or a Gypsie was safe?  Do
you think all villages and towns really started out that way?



>
>
>
>>=20
>> I'm not sure the writers in this discussion group really understand the=
 U.S.
>> term "comparable worth."  It is not the worth of the worker, per se, but=
 the
>> comparability of the requirements of education, experience, working
>> conditions, etc. for the _jobs_ themselves.
>>=20
>> As my late mother, Wilma Maie Wallace-Fabos said in July, 1981 during the
>> strike she organized and led against the City of San Jose; "it's a little
>> ridiculous to be paying female head librarians who have to have master's
>> degrees and deal with all sorts of people and complex research and other
>> problems, less than mostly male janitors required to have less than a
>> high-school education, and having few, mostly rather simple
responsibilities."
>>=20
>
>
>I don't see it as ridiculous at all.  A person (male or female) with a=20
>PhD in Philosophy will probably earn less than the janitor.  This is=20
>probably because of unionisation, but I can imagine a world where it is=20
>very difficult to find people who wish to do janitorial work, and thus=20
>they are willing to pay more for that labour.  I know college graduates=20
>who are now janitors - why not, it pays!
>
It wasn't because of unionization.  The librarians and other female
dominated positions had been unionized for several years with few results
until 1981.  Also records from personnel department meetings, city
officials' meetings, etc., etc. that later appeared in numerous hearings and
courtrooms, and newspapers (through the Freedom of Information Act, leaks,
etc.) made it very  clear that the officials in charge of setting the wages
for the jobs were indeed doing it on the basis of what sex dominated, and
for no other reason.  Their stated attitude was literally, "if a woman can
do it, it must not be worth very much."  There was a lot of pretty
disgusting transcripts...

>
>> There is also another legal concept called "equal pay for equal work." =
 That
>> means if you do the same amount of work, with equally good effect, in
>> exactly the same position you deserve equal reward.  Again, however, the=
 job
>> specifics are important; it's not just an abstract amount of effort
>> overcoming resistance or friction, and measured in foot pounds per inch=
 or
>> something.  What this also relates to--and does not contradict--is the=
 idea
>> that if you work harder and accomplish more--which is an unequal=
 situation
>> to  the person next to you who has precisely the same job description and
>> tasks and time, you have the right to earn more money.
>> >
>
>
>Again, the problem of knowledge.

Not just knowledge, although that is frequently an element in the situation,
but also initiative.  I know a 22 year old female very well who is very
bright but who is going nowhere in life because she's very, very lazy, and
prefers to just have fun, rather than work or improve her education, despite
numerous opportunities offered for both.  Then she complains she doesn't
have  enough money to do _everything_ she wants...

>
 >There are also instances where discrimination is actually desireable. =20
>> >For example, men tend to prefer male doctors, and women, female=20
>> >doctors.  It may be more profitable for lingerie retalers to hire women=
=20
>> >salespersons than men.  Here the discrimination is based on the=20
>> >consumers' tastes.
>> >
>> >Discrimination, therefore, tends to decrease in the free market system,=
=20
>> >without harming the peculiarities of certain industries where the=20
>> >consumers are "gender-sensitive".
>> >
>> Ay, there's the rub, "free market."  It's the ideal, but often not the
>> reality in the U.S., just as elsewhere.  Not surprising in a country that
>> has as one of its most profitable industries, an entire industry built on
>> illusion...
>
>
>The freedom of a 'free market' is a matter of degree. Too many times people
imagine the
> "free market" as some sort of *state of affairs* where there is "perfect=
=20
>competition" (ie. no competition at all).  This is not at all what I=20
>mean when I refer to the free market.  The market is a process.  The=20
>*freedom* of the market refers to the interference by government in the=20
>*direction* of the market.
>

I agree with the relativity problem.  Unfortunately, as for "interference by
government" we're back to people again, and individual persons' initiatives,
knowledge and values, because governments don't exist without people.  It
seems to be purely a human term and largely a human invention.

My husband once paraphrased Einstein to make what I think has got to be just
about the most final analysis of all this during one discussion of ours that
went on for a large part of a vacation (we were having fun, really, but it
was getting hard to get rid of and find a new subject that one or another of
us couldn't relate in some way, however initially obscure).  He said, "ah,
life! It's all relative anyway!"

Then he ran his hand through his light blonde, rather curly and longish hair
to make it stand out and up, and then wiggled his own bushy eyebrows and
mustache at me--looking as much like Einstein himself as he could manage.=20

I couldn't think of anything else to say after that--for one thing I was
laughing too hard.  (Am I the only person married to an engineer who is also
such an incisive comedian--must be that stray long-canine-toothed Magyar in
his Austrian ancestry, right?)
>
Respectfully,

Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA, USA



>
>jim
>
>
>
>
>/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
>
>James D. Doepp
>University of Miskolc (Hungary)
>Department of Economic Theory
>
>
>"...if pleasure and liking, pain and dislike, are formed in the=20
>soul on right lines before the age of understanding is reached,=20
>and when that age is attained, these feelings are in concord with=20
>understanding, thanks to early discipline in appropriate habits -=20
>this concord, regarded as a whole, is virtue.  But if you consider
>one factor in it, the rightly disciplined state of pleasures and=20
>pains whereby man, from his first beginnings on, will abhor what=20
>he should abhor and relish what he should relish - if you isolate=20
>this factor and call it education, you will be giving it its true name."
>
>Plato, Laws II
>
>/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
>
>
AE0M, Tony Becker -  - Silicon Valley, U.S.A.
+ - Re: Politically Stupid Vs. Politically Pathetic (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Hali,
___________________________________________
jgszalai wrote:

The most serious attack on political correctness comes from the extreme
right wing.  People with neo-nazi tendencies often complain that they can't
express themselves, the way they want to, because of political correctness.
All those who are opposed to, or attack political correctness, should keep
in mind that, in the long run, the biggest beneficiaries, will be people
with the narrowest world view.  And if they ever come to power, we'll have
more things to worry about than language.
___________________________________________

Whoa whoa whoa!!!

It takes 2 to tango, Jozsi!!! Those on the left aren't immune either. The whole
Soviet Bloc were the supreme enforcers of political correctness, my friend, in
case you've forgotten. The only thing is that "politically correct" wasn't a
buzzword then. It was more known as speaking against the State. Just count the
numbers who have vanished out of sight. Count those who have been jailed for
saying something contrary to the "norm" of the State. Count those who've been
sent to the gulags. Count the number of people in the Soviet Union who have
been executed under Stalin for saying something that wasn't "correct". Count
the numbers who've suffered under Rakosi's political correctness. Those who've
fled Hungary in 1956 weren't politically correct either. Those German's who
didn't agree with Honecker and the Stasi. Those Hungarians and Romanians who
didn't agree with Ceaucescu and the Securitate. Those in Tianamen Square were
the most politically incorrect folks you'd ever meet in China. Of course, we
still don't know what happened to a lot those politically incorrect bastards,
now do we, Jozsi?? The list goes on and on

So, what you've written so far is a bunch of dribble. There is no need to be
"politically correct", just cause some asshole in government says so. Who the
fuck is he?? Who made him God?? Do you really need someone to tell you to be
"correct"?? Just watch your own fuckin' mouth that's all. Insted of sitting
down with a particular person, who may express himself in a fashion that you
may not agree with, and hearing him/her out and working out your different view
points. You'd rather blacklist this person (like Solchenitzen, Pastenak, Rajk
Jr., and a huge cast of others), fine the person, or throw him in jail. It's
strikingly similar to what McCarthy did in the US in the early 50's. In fact it
is no different. Politically imposed "correctness" is just another form of
censorship. Though it's at a small scale, now, it can grow, if feeble minded
folks like yourself let it blow by.

Call me "politically incorrect" and I'll say FUCK YOU cause your CORRECTNESS is
not your own, but someone elses dribble that you soaked up because you have no
mind of your own to watch over yourself. It's that simple. "Correctness" is
just a front. There's absolutely no need for it. First off, folks like yourself
should start off with RESPECT, then there would be no need for the political
dribble. It's very simple, Jozsi.

RESPECT- yourself
RESPECT- others
RESPECT- elders
RESPECT-  opinions
RESPECT- the living
RESPECT- the dead
RESPECT- women

You see, Jozsi. You can go on and on and add to the list by yourself.  Be an
individual, first and you'll be OK. You see, it doesn't matter if you're on the
extreme left or right because those bastards can take all those examples away
from you and all you'll be "politically" forced to do is:


RESPECT THE SYSTEM!!
DO NOT QUESTION THE SYSTEM!!
THOSE WHO DISRESPECT THE SYSTEM WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY!!


This is probably the start of every handbook on how to become an ultra right
wing dictator or ultra left wing dictator (if one exists).

I'm very apolitical. It's all a bunch of hogwash. The State of The Union
Address has been the same speech used over and over again, I'm convinced. The
thing hasn't changed, since the 1960's. Taxes, crime, drugs, the environment,
and destroying the nuclear arsenal. Laddy da!! I lost faith in all politicians
years ago. I still vote, though. I'm not that ignorant. I mainly vote for the
MMI Party on the write in ballot. Oh, MMI is the Me Myself & I  Party, by the
way. Until I see someone respectable enough that can clean up all the bloated
corrupt bastards in Washington, it'll be MMI all the way in 1996!! If you say I
have no right to comment on anything, then you're wrong again. I expressed my
right to vote for the party that can make a difference Me, Myself, & I.

So, Grasshopper, you must gather knowledge from both sides of fence before you
put shoe in mouth.

Udv.,
Czifra Jancsi
john_czifra @ shi.com
+ - Re: Politically Correct Vs. Politically Incorrect (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>I find it rather alarming that many well-meaning people have decided that
>it's OK to be opposed to 'political correctness'.  It seems to me that if
>you're opposed to 'political correctness', you must be in favour of
>'political incorrectness'.  This is an area in which I can't see a middle
>ground.....

>A more serious opposition to political correctness comes (mainly) from men
>who feel that they have to watch every word they use.  I guess the story
>here is that men historically have been willing to call anyone, anything
>they wanted....

>The reason that political correctness developed was that many people felt
>hurt, degraded, or invalidated by common language use.  Calling someone who
>is overweight, 'fatso' or 'fatty', draws attention to only one,
>insignificant, part of their lives....
>
>Political correctnes is really nothing more than being polite and civil, and
>calling or referring to people, by words or expressions that they would want
>to be called.  It really is as simple as that.  And yes, that means, that
>from time to time, we may be asked to change our language.  Is that really
>such a big deal?....

>All those who are opposed to, or attack political correctness, should keep
>in mind that, in the long run, the biggest beneficiaries, will be people
>with the narrowest world view.  And if they ever come to power, we'll have
>more things to worry about than language.
>
>Joe Szalai


Joe,

        I must take exception to your view of what political correctness
means.   The term itself has fallen out of favor (you could say that it's
no longer politically correct) for good reason.  The reason;  nobody could
agree on what was politically correct.

        Recently, a well known eastern university dictated rules for
courting between consenting adults.  Failure to follow these rules could
result in the university taking disciplinary action against the "offender".
Kind of like Orwell meets Gidget.  Never mind whether it was the business
of the university in the first place, but in my day if a man or a woman
acted inappropriately, you simply got up and left, or politely declined an
invitation for another date.  If the rude behavior didn't change, the young
man or woman soon found it hard to find dates.  Rather Darwinian in its
simplicity.   Now not only do you have to deal with the threat of romantic
rejection,  you also have to beware of prosecution if you forget to ask a
woman if you can put your arm around her at the football game!  It would be
funny if it weren't all too true.

Regards,




Doug Hormann

+ - Re: It's about time (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

> Felado : Zsargo Janos
> Well, I was waiting for a while to see how the folks react to this 'vowels
> story'.

> Also, Mr.Kornai's intention was not clear to me. Was it a test, or
> only a joke?
A test? I found the stuff on the net and got a good laugh out of it,
so I reposted it on HUNGARY, thinking that others will too.

> And with whom he was joking, with the American soldiers
> or the Bosnian peoples?
Neither. It's obviously a spoof taking off from certain characteristics
of the Serbo-Croatian language (mostly apparent only in writing, as
the spoken language treats r as a vowel) and aimed mainly at a widely
used "CNN style" of reporting events.

> And the title, why is about time? Not a month ago, or a year ago?
It's about time they got some vowels...

> I doubt that a bosnian or serb would laugh on this. Or maybe the PC is only
> an american internal affair and not valid for foreigners?
No, PC encompasses the whole world. As I mentioned in an earlier
posting, the Stanford Linguistics e-mag, which carries a great deal of
irreverent material, also wanted to publish it, but was stopped from
doing so by someone who felt somebody might take offense. Obviously
that person was right, because you seem to be very upset. I guess one
can no longer joke about incessantly crying babies (surely if you are
the mother of one you might take offense) about doctors and patients
(what if you have a relative in the hospital) or any subject
whatsoever. Jokes about the guy in the lunatic asylum who thinks he is
Napoleon? Oh no, this might offend the poor soul. Jokes about dogs?
Well, maybe, as long as they don't cast any pet-owner in a bad light.
So I guess it was a test after all -- are you truly PC? Rejoice, you
passed with flying colors!

Andra1s Kornai
+ - Re: Misc comments and questions (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

>That's only partly the reason.  Actually, it was because that when
>Transylvania was first _really_ settled in "modern" Christian era times, and
>quite late at that. It was forest, mountains, etc. and frankly the majority
>of people didn't have adequate tools for clearing and living with that until
>almost the Rennaissance--which is why the Romans themselves never extended
>the empire all over Germany and the British isles).

   Excuse me, but I thought the Romans did colonize "Brittania" or did
someone else build Hadrian's wall?  While forestation did have something to
do with the Empire not colonizing all of Germany, (Roman infantry tactics
were marginal at best in heavy forest and mountains)  the presence of
certain hostile peoples probably had more of an impact.


>If the great powers would insist upon autonomy for Transylvania, and back up
>the insistence with sanctions such as denial of loans and investments and
>NATO and EC membership until it was done, it might happen.  However, there
>are still some English "leaders" (financial, political,etc.) who still
>harbor the dream of their parents or grandparents regarding East Central
>Europe--as a set of English colonies subservient to English elite interests.
>Their public schools seem not to have changed education patterns since
>before World War I.  This is not just my assessment.
>
>Check out the May, 1992? or 1993? (USNWR is not on AOL and my group of old
>issues of USNWR was recently relocated by my husband to the garage without
>much care for keeping them in chronological order, when we last tried to
>make room for more books and computer equipment in the study) issue of "U.S.
>News and World Report," titled, "Can Europe be Unified?"  I never thought I
>would see a non-Hungarian writer of a major Western magazine put in writing
>what was normally just quietly, verbally expressed widely in DC, like so
>much gossip.  It's not normally done, but there they were, black and white
>statements such as:  "The major drawback to unification is  English
>attitudes and interests. ... It is the opinion of most fellow-Europeans at
>the conferences that the English have not changed their ideas about the rest
>of Europe since World War I."
>
>So, _if_ the English elites still want East Central Europe as a whole to be
>second-class colonies and they still consider more independent minded
>Hungarians as a threat to that idea, and their own (English) people continue
>to be oblivious to what in reality is likely to be a minority view among
>their own leaders, but still a powerful one, then it is not likely that
>Transylvania will get autonomy, or that conditions for Hungarians in
>Transylvania will significantly improve.

        The article you refer to I believe had to do with England's
hesitation to enter the EU which had nothing to do with any English
elitism, but rather with concerns that cheaper Eastern European labor would
worsen an already bad labor situation in England.  What did this have to do
with Transylvanian dreams of autonomy?  Absolutely nothing.

>Also remember, much more loudly and widely expressed in Washington DC, among
>Congressional aides, etc. is the following opinion.  "The Clinton
>administration feels very close to and wants to appease the English
>aristocratic friends Clinton made while a Rhodes scholar, and in subsequent
>contacts."  Thus, "since Clinton also doesn't seem to have many strong
>convictions and much will of his own," (except to get himself re-elected),
>"U.S. foreign policy is made in  England."

(Loud disbelieving laughter!!!!!)
>
>If, and I do emphasize the "if," these situations are indeed to a moderate
>or high degree reality, then it is even more unlikely that the situation in
>Transylvania will improve.  Somewhere, somehow, something has to change in
>one of these great powers before we little people can gain much benefit.

>
>Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
>San Jose, CA, USA


Celia,

        Your  discussion of the English reminds me of those who spoke (and
in some places still speak) similar words about the Jews.  You've all but
said they slink about at night poisoning wells and stealing babies.  "U.S.
foreign policy is made in  England." ????  Give me a break.

Regards,

Doug Hormann

+ - Re: Doctoral titles, degrees and prestige in Central Eu (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 12:20 PM 1/26/96 +0100, Eva Durant wrote:
>The 5 years  ELTE TTK diploma definitely worth
>the 4 years MSc, but I agree, that it is not equal
>to a PhD here (UK), which is usually a 3 years
>post-gradual work. Eva Durant
>
You are talking about England, not the United States. In the United States a
B.A. takes four years of undergraduate work; two years of postgraduate work
for an M.A. and four years (minimum) for a Ph.D.

Eva Balogh
+ - Re: Doctoral titles, degrees and prestige in Central Eu (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear Professor Stowe:

First of all, before I get into the body of this response, I would like you
and all the other readers of this group to know I thoroughly enjoyed your
response to me, and found it also both interesting and amusing.  Then I
proceeded to really enjoy writing the response to the response.  Please
don't take much of this too seriously.  It wasn't written that way, and the
chuckles while doing so were not malicious.  Professor Stowe seems to have a
pretty good sense of humor and I'm trusting he will it employ it while
reading this.  By the way, one thing I never really figured out in my
mother's genealogy of her Carolina ancestors--did the "borderers" and
"lowlanders" ever intermarry much?  Professor Fischer didn't seem to think
so, but read on...


At 12:07 PM 1/26/96 -0500, you wrote:
>In article >, Tony and Celia
>Becker > writes:
>
>> Then during the American revolution the English led
>>Tories exhibited their greatest cruelties toward the rural and frontier
>>Scots and Scot-Irish.  They were led by Cornwallis's pet, Banastre
>Tarleton
>>(nicknamed something else that sounded similar to his first name, by his
>>victims), who boasted to his fellow officers as he volunteered to help
>>subdue "the rebellious rabble", that he intended "to go down in history
>as
>>the English officer who had killed more men and bedded more women than
>any
>>other officer in history."  He wasn't too particular about how he did
>>either.  Look up what he did at Waxhaws Ridge (Buford Regiment Massacre)
>and
>>the Kingstree area plantations in South Carolina.
>
>The American Revolution in the South cut through this mystical division
>between Anglo-Saxons and Celts.

Not entirely, not in all regions.  Try parts of Tennessee and Missouri, and
Arkansas to this day.  The problem is what was the perceptions of the people
who won, the families who won.  What did they choose to believe?  Read the
books on the "Kings Mountain Men," for one group of examples.  This issue is
also discussed in quite a lot in the fourth section of a recently published
book, _The Seed of Albion_.  I found of lot of my own family history books
and records--done by many people periodically that exhibited quite a lot of
this schism. It's here and there in the letters and interviews in the Lyman
Draper collection as well (University of Wisconsin and Library of
Congress.)--when you can decipher the double pointed, seldom sharpened quill
pens trying to stretch the last drop of ink before redipping  These are just
a few examples.

 Highland Scots fought both for the Patriot
>side (the Over-The-Mountain Boys at King's Mountain, for example) while
>many other Highlanders settled in the South provided good, loyal service
>to the British Crown throughout the war.

True, but most of them didn't stick around after the war to confront any
continued or later prejudices, however wrong they might be, and generally
are.  I have some sixth and seventh cousins in Canada whom I have only
recently rediscovered because their ancestors were Tories and "encouraged to
leave" afterward.  History books and schisms/prejudices are created by
winners and passed on.  It doesn't make it right, just _a_ reality, but
certainly not the only one.

nd Tarleton wasn't the only one
>to play the genocide game during the war. In 1781, Patriot troops led by
>Gen. Harry 'Lighthorse" Lee and operating close to Tarleton's camp near
>Hillsborough, North Carolina, tricked a company of  450 Loyalist soldiers
>into surrendering their weapons, then massacred them in cold blood,
>killing 90 and seriously wounding 150 others. The death toll was almost as
>much, if not more, than Tarleton's infamous refusal to grant quarter to
>Gen. Buford's troops at the Waxhaws.

The Waxhaws took place after the fall of Charleston in 1780, a year before
what you described.  Also the Kingstree devastation took place in 1780,
also.  Lee's family knew the Wallaces and Adam Wallace whom had been left in
charge at the Waxhaws when Buford left.  The Campbells who were the leading
officers of the Americans at an even greater massacre of Tories by the
Americans at King's Mountain in 1781 (around 1,000) were also relatives of
the Wallaces.  The password one night before that "battle" was "Buford."
This was mentioned in the U.S. Parks Service presentation at the Guilford
Courthouse Battle Site in North Carolina in 1977.  It is also described in a
book published earlier (when I was a wee girl) literally called _The King's
Mountain Men_.

In sum, the Revolution in the South
>had much more of the character of a civil war than it did that of an
>external power invading and attempting to subdue the Southern colonies.
>
>I have lived in the South most of my life, was reared in a Southern family
>that was one of the first settled in North Carolina in the 1600s and can
>tell you that this is the first time I have ever heard about a deep-seated
>schism between white Southerners of Anglo-Saxon descent and white
>Southerners of Celtic descent.

I am truly glad you were spared such things, and I do mean that.  I have
never liked prejudice.  I am simply pointing out that some of these
attitudes  exist in wider areas than one might think.  Heck, I encountered
it among living relatives I'd never met before, while traveling all over the
the "border states" of the South and in the Blue Ridge.  I was surprised.
My own mostly Scottish mother hadn't raised me to be cautious around the
English, my paternal Hungarian grandparents tried to do so, but even they
never said hate all English or never have anything to do with any of them.

I had no idea of these beliefs in my mother's families and their neighbors
until I began doing extensive genealogical and historical research among
lots of both published and non-published items and meeting relatives I'd
never met before and discussing family history and asking them their views.
Also, as I said, I think a certain amount of "prejudice" in who they now
select to marry, or with whom they become business partners, or whatever is
subsconscious simply from long years of habit, and the equally long
preferred habit is simply to choose to trust whatever they perceive as their
"own kind" because they know better what to expect from them.  Fewer surprises.

I also am descended from some very old Carolina and Virginian families:
Wallace, Dunlap/Dunlop, Landrum/Lendrum, Dark/Darke, Campbell, Woods,
Walker, Randolph, Alexander, Kirk, Lemar/Lamar, Lewis, Ray, Ross, Mills
(Scottish, not Dutch, there was also a Dutch family often in the same
areas), etc..  I trust some of them are familiar to you?

Is this in W.J. Cash's book? I don't have a
>copy at hand as I write this. If anyone would have been perceptive enough
>to pick up on such a cultural split, it would have been him. The rest of
>the post, as far as I can tell, grossly distorts general American history
>in the service of an unsubtle anti-English screed.

There is also an interesting segment of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
History--a book published in the 1880's that had an interesting few pages in
it about the English-Quaker discrimination against the Scottish and
Scot-Irish in the distribution of land, and how a lot of them ended up going
to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia because after paying fees for years and
years and being promised land, they never got any.  Later German emigres got
it first, as being more desireable neighbors.  I found that history in the
Library of Congress.  However, those few pages are nothing to compare with
what was in _Albion's Seed_ by Professor David Hackett Fischer, of Brandeis
University, in 1989, Oxford University Press.  Particularly read pages
605-783, "Borderlands to the Back Country."  It covers both the experiences
in Pennsylvania and King's Mountain, among others.  And has quite a lot to
say about the "xenophobia" of the peoples who have stuck together for 200
years in the "ridge areas" of the U.S., including parts of the Carolinas.

Quoting from the jacket of the book, "Professor Fischer took his degrees
from Princeton and Johns Hopkins (PhD, 1962).  He teaches at Brandeis, but
has also taught at Harvard and the University of Washington.  In 1985 he was
elected Harmsworth Professor of American History and Fellow of Queen's
College, Oxford, where much of this volume was written."

Related to the World War I stuff: Then please tell also whomever it is that
has been doing some of those documentaries about World War I on Public
Television and A&E, among others.  _The Great War_ was one series that
discussed some of the questionable English activities, as I recall, that
they are using a lot of "unsubtle screed" and should stop that.

Funny, some of those documentaries were even narrated by people with a
decidedly English accent.  It was actually a situation that caused me to
have great respect for English generally, that they could admit some of
this.  Rather like our own admission here in the U.S. to how terrible
segregation and all really was, and that it existed and should be changed.
But I guess this is minor.


> For example, the
>torpedoing of the Lusitania and the German government's indiscreet offer
>to Mexico of American territory if it would attack the U.S. (the Zimmerman
>Telegram) had a lot more to do with America's entry into World War I than
>any supposed English trickery.

Please read the rest of Barbara Tuchman's works.  I read _The Zimmerman
Telegram_, too.  And I previously said that "some _real_ German stupidity
was a major factor, just not the only one.  In _The Zimmerman Telegram_ and
_The Proud Tower_ Ms. Tuchman also discussed the environment in which the
German stupidity took place--the dynamite waiting to be lit.  A large amount
of it was English.  And where was the Lusitania going, might I add, and what
was it carrying in violation of a neutrality treaty?  Now, there have been
both books and a Public Television documentary with modern research that
reviewed all the evidence in a nice professional, Mr. Quincy.M.E. sort of
way and generally concluded that the Lusitania was carrying American
ammunition along with the American passengers, and this was a violation of a
treaty.  It was even suggested in the film documentary that the poor
passengers may have been deliberately set up to be victims so that the U.S.
general public would be shocked enough to enter the war on the side of the
English.  The Lusitania carried Americans, but wasn't it part of the Cunard
lines--a British ship?

Also, please read Caroll Quigley's _Tragedy and Hope_, 1963.  He was a
Georgetown University professor of English descent who was a personal friend
and acquaintance to many of those who later provided him with such shocking
interviews and documents related to their own activities before and during
World War I--including influencing the U.S.  In his book he about equally
criticizes the English and the Germans, but a bit more so, the English.
Also go to the Holocaust Museum and talk to the officials there about what
they said and wrote to explain why the U.S. was partly, not totally, but
partly reluctant to aid West Europe.

I don't control these people, sir.  I was but 14 years old when Professor
Quigley wrote his book, and not even old enough to be in school when
Professors Clough and Colefield wrote their _Economic History of Europe_ in
1953, that also cite some shocking English documents and statements on this
subject.  Regarding the earlier American schism that you claim did not
exist,  well, I just don't control Professor Fischer, either.  I've never
even met him.  He got his PhD before I even was old enough for high school.
Gee, do you think he might have been getting senile when he wrote his 1989 book
?


If you would like to call Professor Quigley's book "unsubstantiated screed"
may I please humbly suggest you take that up with either his familial heirs,
or whomever has inherited his papers and research at Georgetown University.
Gee you would think Georgetown and Brandeis University professors would be
above mere "screed" and "mythic schisms" wouldn't you?  How terrible!
Georgetown and Brandeis Universities!  Well, well, you just wouldn't think
that of them, would you?  Perhaps the national magazines should downgrade
them a bit, then, don't you think?  How could they let their professors
carrying their entire universities' reputation in their titles and books go
around publishing "mythic schism" and "screed"!



Not good academic history, but amusing
>polemic nonetheless.

Don't tell me, kind sir, I didn't write or film it. Please tell it to
Brandeis and Georgetown U, and whatever colleges Clough and Colefield came
from.  Oh yes, don't forget Oxford too, Wilfred Fiest of _Peace or
Partition_ came from there, besides Professor Fischer.  And above all, you
must have the Holcaust Museum redo their exhibit on the American relations
and actions--and why.  Why don't you do this right away, I'm sure they'll
all be very happy to hear from you.  I'm sure they wouldn't want such
embarrassingly wrong things to be exhibited or in libraries any longer to
further discredit them.  You'll probably be doing them a real favor, right?

However, until I see and hear retractions of all this, like scholarly
rebuttals to these books, and the Lusitania documentary, that are done with
a fresh look at all available documents, transcripts of high place people
who were in position to have any real influence, etc., then I must very
regretfully consider the sources to have a certain degree of validity.

Finally, consider this, again, the population of the U.S. today, after the
two world wars and what their perceptions might be, their attitudes about
their own people and what they might be passing on to their children, in
every  medium they can influence.  The single largest ethnic group in the
U.S. is German American and there is a resurgence of angry Germany Americans
tired of constantly seeing Germany blamed for every ill of this
century--rightly or wrongly.  Again, history, and mass attitudes, are
created by victors, but also those sometimes include those who are merely
still standing.

History, like a lot of other things is relative; both in the selection of
facts by the individual authors, and the selections of the readers, and
theorists, and policy makers.  What you have read does not appear to have
agreed with some of my sources, but it does not mean that one or the other
is completely without validity.  I doubt that either of us have read
absolutely everything there is too read on the subject. I suspect it's
rather like the six blind men and the elephant.  Every one of them had a
different idea of what the total beast was like, but they were all held a
part of the truth.

When I went to the University of Minnesota, one of the best lessons in
history I ever got was from Professor Bernard S. Bachrach.  He deliberately
signed everything, "B.S. Bachrach," "so we would not ever take what we read
or heard from a single historical source, too seriously."  He had us read
two items in Medieval-Rennaissance History; both were a biography of
Charlemagne: one by his paid court biographer, the other by a man who didn't
like him.  One had all his virtues, the other had all his faults.  (Einhard,
and Notker the Stammerer were the biographers).  Then Professor Bachrach,
with his incredible Bronx accent gave his interpretation of what kind of man
Charlemagne really was by reading both books together and then between them
and saying" in udder woids, he did this--and this."

Well, sir, by the time he was done, the botany class next door had let out
earlier--and the entire class had filled up the empty chairs, aisles and
hall outside listening too. The windows were shaking and rattling with the
laughter of more than 200 students, and some had rolled out of their chairs
with tears in their eyes and holding their sides.  Professor Bachrach was
absolutely both one of the greatest historians--and comedians--I have ever
known.  And also the finest teacher I have ever had.  I don't read anything
these days without questioning the background of the writer and the motive,
and considering how complete is the author's selection of materials.

What Einhard and Notker did has been done since.  Sir Thomas More writing
about the last Plantagenets was paid by the Tudors.  So was Shakespeare.  In
England, the records of the monarchs, their meeting notes, etc., and for the
prime minister are sealed for up to 75 years.  Many World War I records are
still sealed, but some have been released, little by little since the
1950's.  I don't believe the whole story is known yet, but from what I do
know of human nature and the capabilities of powerful people in great
powers, and what they have already done to one another and the rest of us so
many times before, I don't believe the English empire, and some of its most
powerful and influential leaders in the end will have been found to be any
better than any other empire has been at its zenith.

Respectfully, semi-seriously, but with sincere good wishes for you.  Your
writings have also truly been very enjoyable,


Cecilia L. Fa'bos-Becker
San Jose, CA, USA


Seriously, I really am enjoying this group--all of it.  When the doctors
told me first I had to at least semi-retire two years ago, then told me I
was going to be ever more limited with this consarned knee, for a few weeks
I was really beginning to feel very blue.  Again, thank you, thank you, very
much.


And Again, I repeat, I do _not_ ostracize or refuse to have anything to do
with the English.  I do not hate them, or think that the majority of them
are racist, ethnocentric, prejudiced, or anything, or even that the majority
of their leaders were such.  I'd even say I have some friends and even a
very ancestors that were English (somehow they did get past the "borderers"
xenophobia), but you would be justified in throwing up, so I'd better stop
here, while you still can contain yourself.  Isn't this all so silly? Write
again, please.



N0BBS, Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker -  - San Jose, CA
+ - Re: Politically Correct Vs. Politically Incorrect (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 06:46 PM 1/26/96 -0500, Doug Hormann wrote:

>Joe,
>
>        I must take exception to your view of what political correctness
>means.   The term itself has fallen out of favor (you could say that it's
>no longer politically correct) for good reason.  The reason;  nobody could
>agree on what was politically correct.
>
>        Recently, a well known eastern university dictated rules for
>courting between consenting adults.  Failure to follow these rules could
>result in the university taking disciplinary action against the "offender".
>Kind of like Orwell meets Gidget.  Never mind whether it was the business
>of the university in the first place, but in my day if a man or a woman
>acted inappropriately, you simply got up and left, or politely declined an
>invitation for another date.  If the rude behavior didn't change, the young
>man or woman soon found it hard to find dates.  Rather Darwinian in its
>simplicity.   Now not only do you have to deal with the threat of romantic
>rejection,  you also have to beware of prosecution if you forget to ask a
>woman if you can put your arm around her at the football game!  It would be
>funny if it weren't all too true.

Doug,

Why would you think that such stupid rules have anything to do with
political correctness?  My  argument regarding political correctness was to
point out that attacking it was to make it legitimate to call others
whatever we want to call them.

Unfortunately, if you've read John Czifra's missive, you'll see that some
people seem to think that saying it is wrong to call women, girls, is the
same as supporting a totalitarian political system.  I don't get it.  Do you?

Joe Szalai
+ - Re: Politically Stupid Vs. Politically Pathetic (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 05:39 PM 1/26/96 -0500, John Czifra wrote:

>It takes 2 to tango, Jozsi!!! Those on the left aren't immune either. The
>whole Soviet Bloc were the supreme enforcers of political correctness, my
>friend, in case you've forgotten. The only thing is that "politically
>correct" wasn't a buzzword then.

That's because what the Soviet Bloc did had nothing to do with political
correctness.  It had a lot to do with political oppression.  If political
correctness would have been a puzzword back then, we may be reading the
history of how Stalin urged all people to treat women as equals not only at
work but at home as well.  He would have told soviets not to make fun of
overweight people.  But that's not the history we read, is it?

As for a tango, no thanks.  It seems you're  more interested in fighting
than in dancing.  And if you think that I'm into defending totalitarianism,
then it would appear that not only do you not agree with me, you haven't
understood anything I've written.

Joe Szalai





It was more known as speaking against the State. Just count the
>numbers who have vanished out of sight. Count those who have been jailed for
>saying something contrary to the "norm" of the State. Count those who've been
>sent to the gulags. Count the number of people in the Soviet Union who have
>been executed under Stalin for saying something that wasn't "correct". Count
>the numbers who've suffered under Rakosi's political correctness. Those who've
>fled Hungary in 1956 weren't politically correct either. Those German's who
>didn't agree with Honecker and the Stasi. Those Hungarians and Romanians who
>didn't agree with Ceaucescu and the Securitate. Those in Tianamen Square were
>the most politically incorrect folks you'd ever meet in China. Of course, we
>still don't know what happened to a lot those politically incorrect bastards,
>now do we, Jozsi?? The list goes on and on
>
>So, what you've written so far is a bunch of dribble. There is no need to be
>"politically correct", just cause some asshole in government says so. Who the
>fuck is he?? Who made him God?? Do you really need someone to tell you to be
>"correct"?? Just watch your own fuckin' mouth that's all. Insted of sitting
>down with a particular person, who may express himself in a fashion that you
>may not agree with, and hearing him/her out and working out your different vie
w
>points. You'd rather blacklist this person (like Solchenitzen, Pastenak, Rajk
>Jr., and a huge cast of others), fine the person, or throw him in jail. It's
>strikingly similar to what McCarthy did in the US in the early 50's. In fact i
t
>is no different. Politically imposed "correctness" is just another form of
>censorship. Though it's at a small scale, now, it can grow, if feeble minded
>folks like yourself let it blow by.
>
>Call me "politically incorrect" and I'll say FUCK YOU cause your CORRECTNESS i
s
>not your own, but someone elses dribble that you soaked up because you have no
>mind of your own to watch over yourself. It's that simple. "Correctness" is
>just a front. There's absolutely no need for it. First off, folks like yoursel
f
>should start off with RESPECT, then there would be no need for the political
>dribble. It's very simple, Jozsi.
>
>RESPECT- yourself
>RESPECT- others
>RESPECT- elders
>RESPECT-  opinions
>RESPECT- the living
>RESPECT- the dead
>RESPECT- women
>
>You see, Jozsi. You can go on and on and add to the list by yourself.  Be an
>individual, first and you'll be OK. You see, it doesn't matter if you're on th
e
>extreme left or right because those bastards can take all those examples away
>from you and all you'll be "politically" forced to do is:
>
>
>RESPECT THE SYSTEM!!
>DO NOT QUESTION THE SYSTEM!!
>THOSE WHO DISRESPECT THE SYSTEM WILL BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY!!
>
>
>This is probably the start of every handbook on how to become an ultra right
>wing dictator or ultra left wing dictator (if one exists).
>
>I'm very apolitical. It's all a bunch of hogwash. The State of The Union
>Address has been the same speech used over and over again, I'm convinced. The
>thing hasn't changed, since the 1960's. Taxes, crime, drugs, the environment,
>and destroying the nuclear arsenal. Laddy da!! I lost faith in all politicians
>years ago. I still vote, though. I'm not that ignorant. I mainly vote for the
>MMI Party on the write in ballot. Oh, MMI is the Me Myself & I  Party, by the
>way. Until I see someone respectable enough that can clean up all the bloated
>corrupt bastards in Washington, it'll be MMI all the way in 1996!! If you say 
I
>have no right to comment on anything, then you're wrong again. I expressed my
>right to vote for the party that can make a difference Me, Myself, & I.
>
>So, Grasshopper, you must gather knowledge from both sides of fence before you
>put shoe in mouth.
>
>Udv.,
>Czifra Jancsi
>john_czifra @ shi.com
>
>
+ - Re: Good vs. better (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

At 01:40 AM 1/26/96 -0500, Andras Kornai wrote:

>You mean I can't just earn the money to pay the hired help, I have to do
>the housework myself? I might be inadequate but I'm not stupid, sorry.
If you were/are married, would/do you treat your partner ass hired help?


>> >> I'm just itching for a good spanking.
>> >Gotta find someone else, bondage appeals to me more than discipline.
>> Yes, I thought so.  But Sir, I'm quite flexable.
>Your attitude is truly commendable, but I must admit to considerable
>gender bias in these matters. Surely there will be other ladies or
>gentlemen delighted with this opportunity -- it is my understanding
>that there is a considerable surplus of tops and shortage of bottoms,
>so you find yourself in a sellers market, so to speak.
Hmmm.  Maybe capitalism isn't that bad after all.  But I'm a bit shy about
selling myself.  You seem to have more experience in this area.  Maybe you
can give me some helpful hints.

>Well you have to make up your mind whether you are the hedonistic or the
>messianic type. It's not that one is necessarily better than the other,
>but you will find that if you profess one but also practice the other
>people will invariably be suspicious.
They can seek professional help if they can't handle a multi-dimentional
person.

>> So anyone who wants to make this a better world is being unrealistic?
>As Shaw once said, reasonable people accomodate to the world, so all
>progress is made by unreasonable people.
Now you're confusing me, Andras.  That's a quote I should be throwing at you.

>Since morality is a personal quality that can't be tranferred it's not a
>commodity. But assuming there was some magical way of moving some quantity
>of it from one person to another, I see no reason to believe that you have
>surplus amounts for sale or to give away. Loudly declaring others (me in
>this case) immoral, and by implication yourself supremely moral, is not
>where it's at.
Yeh.  I know that.

>> It's too early to say what the effects of the internet will be.
>The internet is a big thing. Our debate is a little thing -- don't
>mistake one for the other.
The size queen in me wouldn't allow it!

>Who said I was alienated from society? I am quite well known on this
>mailing list for my views that favor active redistribution of wealth
>(a.k.a. tax-and-spend), up to a point.
And what point would that be?  Are you really in favor of tax-and-spend?  If
you are, you should express yourself more boldly.  I'm getting to know a lot
of people on this list, but I wouldn't have pegged you as a tax-and-spender.

>So how about treating people with a
>slightly different opinion also with dignity, respect, equality,
>fairness, understanding, compassion, and helpfulness?
You may find it hard to believe, but I do.  Or at least I try to.  It's
ideas and opinions that I really like to rip apart.  I know that hurts some
people, but sometimes, so do their ideas and opinions.  What comes around,
goes around.  And Andras, please don't let me use another cliche again.

Joe Szalai
+ - Re: the economics of gender (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, DARREN E PURCELL wrote:

> On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Doepp James wrote:
>
> > A couple of comments on the discussion of feminism:
>
> SNIP
>
>
> Jim, could you point out a few countries where this happens? I can't help
> but think of the Thrid World where the answer for keeping NIKE shoes
> cheap is to simply hire chearpe girls (real girls, not the diminuitively
> created) to do the work.


There are many things that effect the price of labour.  In industrialised
countries the number of female workers has risen dramatically in the last
thirty years.  This means the market had to absorb this new supply of
labour.  So to point out the continuous male-female wage differentials in
the US as an argument that the market will not eventually reduce those
differentials, is to ignore the supply side of the equation.  Second, the
market is a process that develops over time.  People do not adjust their
behaviour overnight.  They may have incorrect information, for example
they may think that women are less efficient or less able to - say, take
managerial positions.  But that firm which discovers that they can hire
woman managers who are just as qualified as men, and require less
payment, is the firm that will have an upper hand on the market.  Other
firms will need to do the same in order to compete.

A historical example of where companies were 'forced' to hire female
labour in this way despite people's biases is WWII.  The supply of male
labour was diminished to the extent that any company that wanted to
survive had to hire women. The decrease in the male working force in this
case was due to an endogenous shock, but it is in extreme cases like this
where one can see clearly the effects of the cost of labour on the labour
market.

One example, not of gender discrimination but race discrimination:  South
Africa.  Remember, the white population in South Africa is not uniform.
There are the Africaaners, who are mainly farmers and miners, and the
South Africans of English background, who are mainly businessmen.  The
Apartheid laws were set up by the Africaaners.  The business community
has generally been against apartheid, because it limited their access to
the abundant (and cheap) black labour.  Apartheid failed because it
conflicted with these economic forces, thus decreasing the living
standard of all South Africans.



> And after the wages go up for women, then who gets hired? Those willing
> to work part-time with no benefits.


Normally those working part-time with no benefits are people who desire
to get a job 'at any cost'.  They are normally non-skilled workers, or
people skilled in areas that are no longer in demand.  But 'no benefits'
is really a misnomer.  The benefit is that they are not unemployed, and
they are gaining experience - many work part-time so that they can study
part-time.


> So, I can call you bastardly, since that is usually applied to Males, or
> can I say penis (or your own faul word of choice?)-ly?. PC is not all on
> standards of speech, but it does have something to say about the meanings
> you imply in those words. There are all sorts of words for men in general
> that I really don't like to hear. (I will go into examples privately if
> you so desire, but I think we are all odl enough to think of some easily)
>

Somehow I fail to see the connection between 'culturally' or otherwise
'insensitive' words - such as handicapped or gyp - and taboo words.  If
I call somebody a mother f--r, a I being insensitive to people who are
involved in incestuous relationships with their mothers?



jim



/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

James D. Doepp
University of Miskolc (Hungary)
Department of Economic Theory


"...if pleasure and liking, pain and dislike, are formed in the
soul on right lines before the age of understanding is reached,
and when that age is attained, these feelings are in concord with
understanding, thanks to early discipline in appropriate habits -
this concord, regarded as a whole, is virtue.  But if you consider
one factor in it, the rightly disciplined state of pleasures and
pains whereby man, from his first beginnings on, will abhor what
he should abhor and relish what he should relish - if you isolate
this factor and call it education, you will be giving it its true name."

Plato, Laws II

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
+ - Re: A few comments on feminism (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Tony and Celia Becker wrote:

> At 02:51 PM 1/25/96 +0000, you wrote:
> >A couple of comments on the discussion of feminism:
> >
> >1.  Andr=E1s is right when he argues against equal pay for equal 'worth'=
. =20
> >The problem is that the enforcer of such legislation would not be able t=
o=20
> >judge what the 'worth' or value of the worker is.  Not only that, but=20
> >they hurt the women most in need, because firms would be less inclined t=
o=20
> >hire women with little experience, likely to accept lower wages - these=
=20
> >are the women who, perhaps, took some time off to take care of the=20
> >children.
>=20
> Actually they did a pretty good job of analysis, legislation and enforcin=
g
> in a few states.  Ever hear of the "Hayes Studies?"  They used some
> excellent quantitative and qualitative measurements that were reasonably
> objective.  The owner of the consulting company and most of the principal=
s
> who developed this analysis--which has been supported by quite a broad
> political and social, etc. spectrum--were males, by the way.


Here our difference is in epistemology.  How can one KNOW the conditions=20
of the market.  I suggest you read FA Hayek's "Economics and Knowledge"=20
(found in Buchanan and Thirlby, _LSE Essays on Cost_.



>=20
> I'm not sure the writers in this discussion group really understand the U=
.S.
> term "comparable worth."  It is not the worth of the worker, per se, but =
the
> comparability of the requirements of education, experience, working
> conditions, etc. for the _jobs_ themselves.
>=20
> As my late mother, Wilma Maie Wallace-Fabos said in July, 1981 during the
> strike she organized and led against the City of San Jose; "it's a little
> ridiculous to be paying female head librarians who have to have master's
> degrees and deal with all sorts of people and complex research and other
> problems, less than mostly male janitors required to have less than a
> high-school education, and having few, mostly rather simple responsibilit=
ies."
>=20


I don't see it as ridiculous at all.  A person (male or female) with a=20
PhD in Philosophy will probably earn less than the janitor.  This is=20
probably because of unionisation, but I can imagine a world where it is=20
very difficult to find people who wish to do janitorial work, and thus=20
they are willing to pay more for that labour.  I know college graduates=20
who are now janitors - why not, it pays!


> There is also another legal concept called "equal pay for equal work."  T=
hat
> means if you do the same amount of work, with equally good effect, in
> exactly the same position you deserve equal reward.  Again, however, the =
job
> specifics are important; it's not just an abstract amount of effort
> overcoming resistance or friction, and measured in foot pounds per inch o=
r
> something.  What this also relates to--and does not contradict--is the id=
ea
> that if you work harder and accomplish more--which is an unequal situatio=
n
> to  the person next to you who has precisely the same job description and
> tasks and time, you have the right to earn more money.
> >


Again, the problem of knowledge.



><snip>

> >There are also instances where discrimination is actually desireable. =
=20
> >For example, men tend to prefer male doctors, and women, female=20
> >doctors.  It may be more profitable for lingerie retalers to hire women=
=20
> >salespersons than men.  Here the discrimination is based on the=20
> >consumers' tastes.
> >
> >Discrimination, therefore, tends to decrease in the free market system,=
=20
> >without harming the peculiarities of certain industries where the=20
> >consumers are "gender-sensitive".
> >
> Ay, there's the rub, "free market."  It's the ideal, but often not the
> reality in the U.S., just as elsewhere.  Not surprising in a country that
> has as one of its most profitable industries, an entire industry built on
> illusion...


The freedom of a 'free market' is a matter of degree. Too many times people=
 imagine the
 "free market" as some sort of *state of affairs* where there is "perfect=
=20
competition" (ie. no competition at all).  This is not at all what I=20
mean when I refer to the free market.  The market is a process.  The=20
*freedom* of the market refers to the interference by government in the=20
*direction* of the market.


Yours, etc.

jim




/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

James D. Doepp
University of Miskolc (Hungary)
Department of Economic Theory


"...if pleasure and liking, pain and dislike, are formed in the=20
soul on right lines before the age of understanding is reached,=20
and when that age is attained, these feelings are in concord with=20
understanding, thanks to early discipline in appropriate habits -=20
this concord, regarded as a whole, is virtue.  But if you consider
one factor in it, the rightly disciplined state of pleasures and=20
pains whereby man, from his first beginnings on, will abhor what=20
he should abhor and relish what he should relish - if you isolate=20
this factor and call it education, you will be giving it its true name."

Plato, Laws II

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