|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
The Paradox of Authenticity
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
The Paradox of Authenticity
Author: HRH
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 02:09 am |        | I think the reason for the controversy surrounding the Maybrick diary is because of what I think of as the 'authenticity paradox'.
This has nothing to do with whether the diary is genuine or not (I believe it's a very good hoax).
The problem is, when an artifact is presented purporting to originate with an extremely famous controversial and indeed mythical subject - the natural reaction is one of profound scepticism.
Consider what would happen if someone found the Holy Grail, or the True Cross, or even a crashed UFO.
Nobody would believe it. It would be considered too good to be true.
This is obviously a simplified example, but the point is clear:
Evidence and belief are subjective. |
Author: D. Radka
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 02:24 am | | Dear HRH,
I think you're getting to something that is important in the case. What you seem to be saying is that if you don't happen to start off with something that is both actually true and significant to the case, then many different true propositions may be advanced toward many different solutions for it. It is a kind of chicken-and- egg dilemma. Am I right?
Chicken-and-egg dilemmas, I think, cannot be solved by the terms and principles laid on the table to generate the dilemma--that's why you have a dilemma. Therefore they can only be solved by some kind of motion, some way of working all the terms around until they make up some whole thought that supercedes the dilemma, whether or not putting us on the horns of a new, greater one.
David |
Author: HRH
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 02:35 am | | David. R,
Phew! That was a quick reply.
Your message prompted me to take my thinking a little further.
In quantum physics, it's stated that although a certain particle is known to exist and you can physically prove that it exists, you can never say precisely where it will be at any point in time or space.
Although this is a bit extreme vis-a-vis JTR theorising, I think there is a useful similarity in trying to state unequivocally whether this or that is true - with no bombproof evidence.
HRH. |
Author: Caroline
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 10:45 am | | Dear HRH and David,
I have real trouble with Jack being thought of as a 'mythical subject'. He was a real person, albeit anonymous at present, committing real murders. The Maybrick Diary is real ink on real paper, whoever wrote it and when. And 'belief' to me is usually confined to things which cannot ever be disproved, like the existence of God, ghosts and The Loch Ness Monster.
This is all very reassuring for those who make money out of such things. Great for the landlord of the 'Spookiest Pub in England', wonderful for the Scottish Tourist Board as the next boatload of Americans arrive on vacation or research (cynical? moi?) I'll leave religion out for now, Sunday approaches.
JtR seems slightly different somehow, because it is within the realms of possibility that we will have closure one day. Perhaps on UFOs too, but that would be too scary for most of us to contemplate. (I liked The Simpsons episode with the alien cookbook!)
Quantum physics is not my bag at all. I failed physics at school for being extremely dumb. I copied the answers from a friend---who also failed. Doh!
Love,
Caroline |
Author: Karoline
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 11:19 am | | Caroline -
When we say 'mythic' in these circumstances we're not generally suggesting the individual or event is not real or is 'made up', but that it has acquired a legendary identity in the collective semi-conscious. Lewis Carroll is certainly mythic, though he was very much a man of flesh and blood. Marilyn Monroe is mythic, and so is JTR. It means their reality (whatever that was), has been contaminated or even superceded in the public mind by a largely invented persona that arises from some primal need to believe in things.
This creates its own problems for biographer and historian, in that it corrupts perceptions and creates a powerful fantasy-culture that exists beyond the reach of evidence and reason, induces states of mind closer to religious fervour than rational analysis, and produces nothing but confusion and fog. It is this difficulty (I think), that David and HRH are addressing here.
David and HRH -
As a peripheral observer, not involved in the research professionally, I do think sometimes that the subject of JTR has been so super-swamped with baseless theory and wild speculation, that the entire evidence-based ethos of historical analysis is in danger of being wiped out of the arena altogether. Too many more 'Feldys' and the matter will become an impossible subject for serious historical investigation. Another triumph for the forces of unreason
What should be done about it? Can anything be done about it?
Karoline |
Author: Yazoo
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 01:39 pm | | Hey!
The trouble with "myths" is two-fold: 1) some people believe them in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and 2) some people come to believe that everything tainted with "myth" is all false in spite of any evidence to the contrary.
Excluding areas like religious belief -- a volatile subject, best left unconsidered, that statement that "Evidence and belief are subjective" is false. Evidence and belief are subject to tests and can therefore be either proved or disproved. As this statement relates to all things Maybrickian, I bow out -- few want to accept science as an arbiter of the nature of the "Diary." Until they do, a plague on both houses.
But as this statement affects all things JtR, I think the difficulties surrounding the facts in the JtR series of murders are in a different category than the "Diary."
JtR is now a part of History, subject to the discipline of historians and researchers. But JtR was one or more murderers, alive and doing business in 1888. He was a criminal. As a criminal, he falls under the purview of criminal investigation disciplines.
The troubles begin when a historian or researcher thinks themselves qualified to conduct a criminal investigation; or the criminal investigator thinks themselves historians; the hybrid of the two (from Rumbelow to Evans to Hinton) produces a hybrid result. None of this is satisfactory. No one has found either a man or an explanation of the murders that satisifes more than just a small following.
The "real" world could care less about Jack the Ripper. If the cartoon figure provides fun, mystery, intellectual challenge...all well and good; if a little research can throw a thin mantle of credibility over one suspect or another...even better.
I always believed we were here, and stayed on here, for a better purpose. There is more to be gained from understanding the social-economic-political conditions, the growth of a popular and cheap media, and the advent of a moden plague (the stranger-to-stranger crime, especially murder), and a dozen other things than in finding the right name to fit to a creature called Jack the Ripper. Knowing his name or names only adds to our understanding of both the past and why we are the way were are now.
I'll use quantum physics to finish here, and leave it to you all to puzzle out the references, hoping you'll get the point without knowing the details.
Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein had difficulty agreeing on the principles or nature of quantum mechanics. They argued for decades. Einstein, as a theorist, would invent intricate problems to challenge Bohr's view of quantum mechanics. Bohr would work at the problem until he had an answer. Trouble was, the technology of the time didn't allow either men to "see" these thought experiments worked out. They would invent models, test them logically, but have to wait for experimentation to catch up, and there was a major concern that some of the ideas could never be tested, for the reasons HRH states regarding the nature of electrons. Einstein died before Bohr, but it's been said -- probably a myth -- that to his dying day, Bohr was still hard at work on some of Einstein's old thought problems.
There was a thought experiment named EPR that Einstein thought would baffle Bohr. It did for a long time until Bohr came up with an answer, incapable of being tested, that said -- greatly simplifying -- that under certain conditions electron-information can travel faster than light. Einstein had shown that nothing can travel faster than light. And there the argument rested. Two models of a quantum mechanics experiment that could neither be tested or proven.
Two men, Alan Aspect and J. S. Bell, came along in the 60s and 70s -- one an experimental physicist, the other primarily a theoretical mathematician-physicist. One wrote a theorem that explained how Einstein's speed-of-light barrier might be broken; the other built an experiment that tested it all: EPR, Bohr's answer, Bell's theorem. The experiments continue today in Europe, using fiber optic cables to increase the distance the electron's "message" has to travel. Still the same result. (You don't care how it all turned out, so I'll pass on.)
We must build models of the 1888 socio-economic environment, the crimes, everything we can. We have to salvage records and data we can use to test these models. The goal of building, testing, and "proving" these models is that we may get some valuable information on our version of Bohr and Einstein's little electron -- a man or men commonly called Jack the Ripper.
Never scorn a theory until you've proven it to be false. Never characterize someone else's ideas as wild speculation until you've proven it to be false. And once something has been proven false, does that make it exemplary: a warning that we have too much theorizing and speculation; a situation that makes "us" look silly to "them?"
I wouldn't mind twice as much theorizing if we had a corresponding increase in both attempts to find evidence/proofs and the acceptance that some things (like the Prince of Wales' travel agenda disqualifying him as a suspect) are indeed no longer subjective or interpretative.
Yaz |
Author: Karoline
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 02:28 pm | | Yaz -
Theories are fine, provided they issue from a proper regard for evidential accuracy and recognize the necessity that they sustain themselves with something more than unsubstantiated belief.
But - when you say 'never scorn a theory until you have proven it to be false', dear old Yaz, what DO you mean? The worlds of science and historical resarch are littered with all kinds of mad theories that will never be 'proven false'.
Can we prove Adamski never visited Venus? Can we prove Mark Twain didn't write' Alice in Wonderland'?
Can we prove the Nazca lines weren't built by Aliens?
Of course not. Do we therefore give these undisprovable theories equal weight with the theory of Evolution, or the theory of Relativity?
This is the argument that sustains historical 'investigations' long after they have reached the point of intellectual redundancy.
Maybe you didn't mean that? Maybe you meant 'don't be rude about any theory, however barren of reason and evidential support it might be'.
If that's what you meant, then I think youre right. We can dismiss an empty idea without being rude about its progenitor. But to keep on supporting a dead concept, just because it seems ill-mannered to bury it, would seem to destroy the whole point of being any kind of seeker after truth at all.
Let's face it, most of the theories about who JTR was are based on the 'no one can prove this DIDN'T happen' kind of reasoning, which is scientifically and historically nul. Given this as a starting premise (and maybe this is the point some of us have been trying to make with our dear old glove puppet), Sooty becomes a candidate of equal merit with Tumblety or Barnet.. He can't be 'proven false' any more than Maybrick's diary can.
Karoline |
Author: Yazoo
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 03:59 pm | | Hey, Karoline!
I hate these philosphical debates. I am obviously very bad at them, but...here goes.
The person making a claim has the burden of proof. Your examples of not being able to disprove something are common occurences in all arguments and discussions...but the premise is false to begin with and is ignored. In court, a suspect does not have to prove he did not commit a crime; the state has the burden of proof that he did.
As for theories, in my example, neither Bohr or Einstein could offer physical proof of their positions -- they could only offer counter-ideas and theories. Bohr might even claim it is physically impossible to prove what he asserts. Were Bohr and Einstein engaged in reckless and idle wastes of time; littering the field of Physics with intellectual gumbo soup?
Let's just be a little more cautious in labelling ideas and theories is all I wanna say.
And if people in this field put half as much effort into trying to prove something or develop an idea as they do complaining about all the "theorizing," this case would have been solved a century ago.
And if I was Sooty, I'd call my lawyer.
Yaz |
Author: Christopher-Michael
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 04:38 pm | | I might also add that part of the difficulty facing us in the "search" for the Ripper rests with the demands of the marketplace. Ripperology does not affect the "real world." To that world, the Ripper has long ago been pigeon-holed into his top hat/Gladstone bag/aristocratic myth, and the occasional suspect that manages to imprint for a moment on the larger audience (such as Eddy or Maybrick) generally fits into that myth. That is what the Casebook is fighting against.
So the thought of a publisher is "why another book? We know who the Ripper is." And should an author get past that initial hurdle, publishers (being capitalist creatures) want value for money. They want to exploit their offering. If they must spend money on yet another Ripper book, then there ought to be a payoff at the end. There should be a named suspect, and ideally, one who has never been mentioned before. That way, all the fanfare about "lost evidence" and "previously unknown suspect" and the Colin Wilson-esque "best candidate yet" can be blared out, and a audience generated to ring up sales.
Now you have book A, which says Maybrick did it, book B which names Hutchinson, book C - well, you get the idea. Dozens of books, many (not all) presenting vastly simplified versions of the case with suspects who "might" or "must have" had ample reason to be in Whitechapel during the Autumn of Terror. How many readers are trained in historiography? How many know the value of primary sources, and how many realise the importance of cross-checking all available documentation? Precious few. And when a "Complete History" comes along, the sheer length of the book is a turn-off to the casual reader, who will just flip to the final chapter and look for the new or familiar name of the latest suspect.
Yes, the burden of proof is on the person making a claim. However, the cow-like passivity of a reader is just as dangerous. It is not enough (as some posters seem to think) to parrot back "this book says" and "that book says." Every Ripper book is wrong somewhere, as every author (to the best of my knowledge) is only human. It is up to us who have a strong interest in this case and a committment to solid research to know why we believe what we do about the Ripper - not just know that Sugden or Rumbelow believe it - and to have the critcal judgement necessary to determine what is likely and what is not.
Yes, that's asking for a lot, but doggedly holding on to a theory just because you like the sound of it can be as dangerous as believing every writer who has a halfway convincing case.
A bit rambling, rather dotty and incoherent and probably wildly off-topic, but there it is.
As ever,
Christopher-Michael |
Author: Karoline
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 05:12 pm | | Yaz - don't be so self-deprecating. Go on - you can't fool me, I know you love philosophical debates, and practise them for hours in the bath!
Not sure your parallel with Einstein and friend is really applicable to historical research. They after all were working in an area that was at that time INCAPABLE of proof or refutation. It was, if you like a matter of pure theory, or mathematical guesswork about what might come to be known when the boundaries of their science were pushed back a little further.
But the boundaries of the science of criminal investigation or historical research are not fluid like the boundaries of quantum physics, where, almost by definition, all pre-existing Newtonian laws are broken.
The boundaries of investigation and research are bounded by the 'knowable', and by the available evidence.
Please don't be offended, but don't you think it's slightly absurd to to suggest that there are discoveries waiting to be made about Victorian England that can in some way equal the discoveries waiting to be made about quantum physics. Or that we should suspend all judgement in the same way that Einstein and Bohr did - because hey! even the craziest idea MIGHT turn out to be true.
Quantum physics is about the infinite complexity of the universe. The unknown is always going to exceed the known by an almost infinite amount. Of course it's legitimate to speculate wildly about what might be out there.
But Victorian London is a man made artefact, that is not infinitely variable, and what is possible within it is limited within pretty narrow boundaries. JTR almost certainly didn't vanish into a black hole for example. Or become first a wave, then a particle, then a wave. Or travel backwards in time through a wormhole in the fabric of space.
And we shouldn't forget that, neither quantum physics, nor historical analysis is about collating the merely possible. Einstein and Bohr wouldn't have wasted their time on anything so pointless. They were doing what all serious researchers have to do - assess the probable - based not on what can't be disproved, but on what can be shown to have actually occurred.
I'm afraid your last paragraph is a mystery to me. What do you mean by 'if people in this field put half as much effort into trying to prove something...as they do complaining about all the 'theorising' this case would have been solved a century ago?'
You're surely not suggesting there's a deficit of people tryng to 'prove' their various JTR ideas out there, are you? Because I don't think many people would agree with that view.
And who, exactly is 'complaining about all the theorising'? I can't think of anyone off hand.
Sounds needlessly perjorative of no one in particular, Yaz.
Surey if the sheer determination to 'prove' a given idea. however unlikely, could lead to the truth, then this mystery would indeed have been solved at least sixty years ago.
What's missing in JTR research is not a willingness to 'believe'. (there is no shortage of baseless ideas and their attendant devotees). What's missing is clear-headed and historically valid research, of the kind Alex Chisholm is trying to bring to bear.
Just a thought.
Karoline |
Author: Yazoo
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 06:09 pm | | Hey, Karoline!
I honestly meant no offense in anything I've said or been trying...very badly...to say.
I give up on the Bohr-Einstein analogy.
I basically just give up. I think I stated just my little "happy message" about not having knee-jerk reactions to theorizing.
I read: "And who, exactly is 'complaining about all the theorising'? I can't think of anyone off hand. Sounds needlessly perjorative of no one in particular, Yaz. "
When earlier I read: "As a peripheral observer, not involved in the research professionally, I do think sometimes that the subject of JTR has been so super-swamped with baseless theory and wild speculation, that the entire evidence-based ethos of historical analysis is in danger of being wiped out of the arena altogether. Too many more 'Feldys' and the matter will become an impossible subject for serious historical investigation. Another triumph for the forces of unreason. What should be done about it? Can anything be done about it?
Karoline
And that's just one immediate example, from this very topic!
Not all theorizing is bad or leads to harm or damages the "field" of historical research. Sometimes it's pointless; sometimes it's stupid; but sometimes, like Einstein imagining his trolley-car was a beam of light on which he was travelling...it leads to understanding.
Not always...but sometimes.
If Alex wasn't so busy I wonder what his opinion of an organized crime scenario involving JtR would be? Whenever I think of this case, his ideas are in the back of my mind...never represented as he would present them...but I'm workin' on it (I hope he's grinnin' if he reads this, or I'll get hammered, I know it!). I think he and the Slippery One (CM) have given up trying to reform or educate me!
I'm hopeless.
Yaz |
Author: Anonymous
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 08:19 pm | | | You are all missing the point, blinded by your own pseudo-intellectualism. |
Author: D. Radka
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 08:43 pm | | Let's reverse the antipodes and do a little gedonkin experiment for one minute. I believe I have the solution to the case. I think I know who dunnit, why he dunnit, and why the police missed him. Please suspend disbelief of my claims and consider the method that I used to actually solve the case, as I claim.
This was it: I started with the evidence as it was. Thought about the bodies, the sort of person the perpetrator must have been to chat up the women, the conditions of the era, the letters, everything I could imagine. I was looking for the one thing that HAS to be true of all the information in the case, so as to then generate my own motions through the evidence, doggedly pursuing this one thing, consciously looking for it everywhere I might find it, risking the whole thing in my mind, letting it take me wherever it would, letting all the conclusions it led me to, simply be. After 101 false starts, I seemed to have finally made a good guess on what the center of the case is, and now have a single theory that unites all the evidence and indicates a perpetrator. I can't prove I'm right, but based on my experience in reading the literature, what I've got is at least the equal of the Sickert theory in plausibility.
I believe my thinking on this is more shrewd than theoretical, more coalescing than diffusing, more inside than outside. It often felt like the closing of multitudes of possibilities for the sake of opening one new possibility, as if I was burrowing my own little worm tunnel through the evidence, inch by inch.
I'd characterize this as a kind of old-style metaphysical thought process grounded on the notion of the mystical One. Presocratic Greek philosophers, for example, would start out with Oneness and then proceed to link the rest of the universe together from there. "All things are water" began Thales, "All things are number" Pythagoras, and so on. All things are linked together under the One. Get the One, and then the links will begin to turn up for you. Pythagoras figured out if I remember, for example, that justice was 7, mankind 2.
This is what I mean by theorizing on the case. Start out with one thing that you feel totally confident has to be true, accepting all its limitations, and go from there. You have to start and stay inside the evidence for this epistemological technique to work; it's a kind of synthesising of the evidence. I think anybody can solve this case.
David |
Author: Yazoo
Saturday, 06 March 1999 - 10:40 pm | | Hey, David!
Thanks to your last post, I think now I can better understand your methodology, David, but I'm no philosopher. I can't pretend I can practice that methodology -- due to my ignorance. I will wait to see the results and then see if I can work backwards to catch how you worked it all out.
I never should have wandered in here. I go now.
At least I can take with me that busy little bee, Anonymous on Saturday, March 6, 1999 - 08:19 pm, to look for ole Anony-mouse's "point" -- which is growing rather nicely, no doubt, on the top of his/her head. We can put our pointed little heads together and see who's dopey-er, me or Anony-mouse. (I give the odds and the nod to Anon.)
Yaz |
Author: HRH
Sunday, 07 March 1999 - 02:36 am | | A deranged killer commits five violent murders and he's never caught. This should be the bedrock foundation on which all research ought to be based.
All subsequent research must radiate from this incontestable fact.
But wait: researchers aren't even agreed that he killed five women - it might have been more and possibly less.
They can't even agree on a solo killer scenario either.
So are there any UNQUESTIONABLE facts in this case?
That's the question that must be answered.
It seems to me, in the JTR mystery, everything is up for grabs, and everything is open to theorizing. |
Author: Anonymous
Sunday, 07 March 1999 - 02:57 am | | '...at least the equal of the Sickert theory in plausibility.'
Well that means it must be totally implausible then. (The degree of implausibility would then depend on which of the Sickert theories you have in mind.) |
Author: Peter Birchwood
Sunday, 07 March 1999 - 06:09 am | | Far be it for me to contradict Karoline but I do have in my possession pasports, travel documents, hotel reservation forms etc. for the late Mr. Adamski and he does indeed have documentation proving that he visited Venus, although for some reason his destination is always spelt "Venice."
And watch out in your sunday papers for reviews of Karoline's new book "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild."
Peter |
Author: Karoline
Sunday, 07 March 1999 - 06:29 am | | Yazoo -
Oh dear, I do feel confused. I honestly thought we were all having a very interesting debate. I had no idea personal feelings came into it. Yaz, dear why on earth do you think you've offended me? Not the stuff about the bath surely? - I wasn't serious. I don't really think you practise beforehand. It was a sort of joke type thing.
But anyway - I've obviously offended you. Ouch - I didn't know you meant me personally when you said that stuff about people complaining all the time. I really have upset you haven't I?
But look darling, don't get all steamed up. I just think good theories are based firmly on evidence that's all. And that too much wild baseless fantasy kills good scholarship. If that makes me a whinge in your view then that's a shame, but it is a widely-held scholastic truism, and not some wacky design-patent of my own.
I'm really sorry my contribution has upset you so much dear Yaz. But rather than huffing and puffing and talking a lot of stuff I don't understand about 'giving up' and being 'hopeless', why not just forget the personal thing and concentrate on the discussion.
I for one would LOVE to hear your (I'm sure very good) reason why you don't agree with my central premise.
Come on Yaz - you're not usually backward at coming forward. Stop sulking, and give us a good essay on Why Historical Theory Does Not Have to Be Based on Evidence.
And please don't worry about offending me. I leave my amour-propre for work and family. This is (for me) just a bit of fun. I really won't mind much what you say. I just think of you as a really nice chap who just tends to take all this very much to heart.
karoline |
Author: Yazoo
Sunday, 07 March 1999 - 10:17 am | | Karoline!
You haven't upset me. You haven't made me angry. Honest. So stop worrying about that. I'm not being coy or droll or ironic or whatever. I haven't even taken this to heart, as you say. I have no personal stake in this.
This conversation was getting beyond me...over my head. That's all I meant.
I'm not saying a theory doesn't have to be based on evidence. My dissenting opinion concerns the point at which the evidence needs to be applied to the theory. I believe a theory can be justifiably proposed based on little or no evidence -- evidence can then be applied to the theory to test it. This was the point I was illustrating with Einstein's trolley-car/lightbeam thought -- he had no personal experience or evidence of what it was like to be a particle of light. First comes the theory -- the idea of travelling on a beam of light and wondering what would happen -- then came the Theory of Relativity. However, the theory cannot and should not last long if no evidence can ever be used to support it or -- especially -- if evidence is applied that refutes the theory.
Perhaps using a scientific metaphor to illustrate a point about historiography was my mistake -- science allows for a hypothesis or an assumption; I don't think History is so accomodating. The two fields are probably like comparing apples and oranges.
I'm not a professional historian, historiographer, or researcher -- I can barely spell lieberry let alone find my way around in one (oops, something's odd with that sentence...it'll come to me). Most of the people who write here aren't professionals either. I ask for a little mercy to be shown on these boards to accomodate non-professional historians, is all.
One thing though: it does kinda worry me when people start calling me "dear" or "darling." I find that a sure sign I've made somebody mad. A friend of mine is fond of quoting Bennett Cerf's(?) definition of a gentleman: Someone who is only insulting when he means to be insulting. Not being a gentleman, I gravely fear I have insulted when I did not mean it. Sorry.
I go now...again.
Yaz |
Author: Karoline
Sunday, 07 March 1999 - 10:30 am | | Yaz, for heaven's sake, stop apologising. I do call people darling, it's my way (ask your friend Christopher Michael). So just revise your internal structures to accomodate this new paradigm.
And, you know what, I'm not a historian either, or at least I wasn't until I did that book. maybe I'm sort of one now. So no need to be scared. The theatre is my place of work. And you know what airheads and luvvies we are there. Anyway - surely you don't want to be let off lightly?
Karoline |
Author: Anonymous
Sunday, 07 March 1999 - 01:05 pm | | Karoline -
Best of luck with the book! |
Author: Caroline
Monday, 08 March 1999 - 05:35 am | | Hi anon,
I thought pseudo meant false. I see a whole lot of real intellectual thinking going on here, can almost hear the grey cells screaming out for some light relief (which you always manage to provide in the end, bless your little cotton socks).
I don't pretend to understand a tenth of all this, but I think I get the gist. I feel sorry for about 90% of the readership, though, if they are having anything like the difficulty I'm having in following, or limping, along, with discussions like these. We haven't all been to Oxbridge you know.
I like the idea that a theory can be put forward completely unhindered by evidence. Whether it would manage to go the whole road re JtR we will have to see. I think one would need more than a soupcon of luck, but I suppose anything is possible.
This might not be relevant here, but something in The Sherlock Holmes Illustrated Omnibus caught my untrained eye yesterday, and I thought I would share it with you here:
'Holmes was sunk in profound thought, and hardly opened his mouth until we had passed Clapham Junction.
"It's a very cheering thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high and allow you to look down upon the houses like this."
I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself.
"Look at those big, isolated clumps of building rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea."
"The Board schools."
"Lighthouses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules, with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future....."'
Mr anon, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Love,
Caroline |
Author: Nikki Dormer
Monday, 08 March 1999 - 10:54 pm | | Hello my favourite people!!
Can I just say (admittedly belatedly) that I really like Yaz's word for those...people who can't be bothered thinking up some, any, username for themselves. I really like 'anony-mouse', it's so cute...much cuter than the people I'm sure. But is the plural anony-mice or anony-mouses?
One more thing for...well anyone really, what exactly does the word paradigm mean? It seems that since I hit uni, everyone's been cramming it into every available sentance whether it fits or not and this is confusing my poor over worked brain.
Thank you all so much
Love Nikki. |
Author: Yazoo
Tuesday, 09 March 1999 - 06:44 am | | Hey, Nikki!
The term has been a fad in the U.S. business world for a number of years, and so has been stretched beyond its meaning from the dictionary.
A paradigm is a model or an example of something. The term has been slightly redefined by business gurus with a program or book to sell to large, wealthy corporations to mean the corporation's or it's employees' current or ideal business situation; the way they do business today; how they view their business or problem or whatever -- so think of it as "point of view" or customary (i.e., rigid) way of thinking about something.
The dictionary meaning of paradigm is still there, but the business gurus, corporations, and hence the universities that educate future employees have added different flavors and shades to the meaning, depending on their philosophies and ideas.
Hope that explains why you're probably hearing it a lot at school as well as what it's evolving to mean. Incidentally: since U.S. companies have found down-sizing (firing many employees to get a short-term rise in stock prices; followed by large re-hiring campaigns to replace the people they fired so the actual work the company gets paid to do can actually get done; until the stock price falls, at which point the company down-sizes again....this too is a paradigm!!)...they don't seem to need words like paradigm any more.
Yaz |
Author: D. Radka
Tuesday, 09 March 1999 - 03:17 pm | | I support Yazoo's view of corporate life. How well I know.
David |
Author: Caroline
Tuesday, 09 March 1999 - 06:48 pm | | Hey Nikki!
You've got more courage than me, girl. I was too scared of showing myself up in front of all these clever clogs to ask what paradigm meant. Goodonya, I won't be afraid to ask next time I have problems.
Love,
Caroline |
Author: Nikki Dormer
Thursday, 11 March 1999 - 06:15 am | | hey Everyone,
That's the advantage of being younger than the majority Caz - I can ask questions like that without feeling too dumb. However, I'm sure heaps of people out there weren't too sure either. I thought it was a science term. duh.
Thanks for the expanation Yaz...I do know what downsizing is though - my dad was a victim.
Hey Jules, did you notice? Caz has picked up our language!!
Love Nikki. |
Author: Caroline
Thursday, 11 March 1999 - 09:18 am | | Hi All,
I thought downsizing had something to do with making people feel small when their views don't coincide with others who will remain nameless (of their own volition in the main). Only kidding.
Thanks, Nikki. You paid me the best compliment yet. I like to think I could pick up most languages given time, Aussie, American, French, Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese (I used to know how to count up to ten anyway!), but mostly I pride myself on being able to identify that age-old English tongue called cobblers! I try not to speak it myself unless absolutely necessary to communicate with those who know no other language.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Anonymous
Thursday, 11 March 1999 - 01:16 pm | | | What about a dictionary? |
Author: Yazoo
Thursday, 11 March 1999 - 08:57 pm | | Dear Anonymous on Thursday, March 11, 1999 - 01:16 pm,
A dictionary is a compilation of words in a particular language, usually in book format but also comes as software and on CD-ROMs, sorted or listed in alphabetic order, that provides information on the words such as the pronunciations, etymologies, definitions, and usages or examples of how the word is used.
Unlike 'paradigm' -- which has some fairly idiomatic meanings not encompassed in many a modern dictionary (yet!) -- the word 'dictionary' could easily have been looked up in one. Try there first next time.
Hope that helps answer your question.
Yaz |
Author: Anonymous
Friday, 12 March 1999 - 01:20 am | | | Ira furor brevis est |
Author: Caroline
Friday, 12 March 1999 - 12:26 pm | | Ooh, wouldn't you like to pick his brains? Yes, that's right, bit by bit, out through each nostril. You wouldn't end up with a lot, though, would you? If his brains were dynamite, they wouldn't blow his hat off.
Love,
Caz
P.S. Yes, I know. GROW UP CAZ!!!??? There, I've saved him the trouble of referring to a dictionary for his next post. |
Author: D. Radka
Friday, 12 March 1999 - 11:16 pm | | Anonymous,
Carpe diem.
David |
Author: Anonymous
Saturday, 13 March 1999 - 03:43 am | | | gratias tibi ago |
Author: Caroline
Saturday, 13 March 1999 - 04:26 am | | Hi David,
Romans were civilised. You have to go a lot further down the food chain to reach this twollop.
Or maybe he is David Bowie's original Space Oddity. I still shiver when I hear that song. I saw David on telly last night (he ain't half wearing well, whooar!) He's losing his marbles though. He mentioned Croydon, and told Sooty to get his clothes back on---really! His lyrics were always hard to fathom out though.
Where were we? Dave Clark Five, I believe. I always wondered who Gladys was. You remember, surely? 'I'm feeling (boom boom) Glad all over....' And one for anon. 'I'm in pieces, bits and pieces'.
Love,
Caroline |
Author: Nikki Dormer
Saturday, 13 March 1999 - 05:46 am | | | Jeez, even I know what a dictionary is. |
|
|
|
|
