"latte-swilling costal elite"
As opposed to them intercostal, muscular folks. You know, from the heart land.
(not a cat pileon! only an irresistible pun!)
Robin,
It's just another way around the question of means and ends. It's a false dichotomy, and a useless question as far as guiding anyone's behavior. Or even more than useless; it's less of a spherical-frictionless-cow abstraction and more of a screwed mindset that leads to all kinds of evil in the name of idealism. YMMV of course.
Robin,
If you don't mind a bit of critique for your paper, I don't think placing the unreliability of the justice system last makes a great deal of sense. Yes, it's a pragmatic issue, but the pragmatic issue is a moral issue. If an entirely moral ideal can never be applied in a correct fashion leading to ethical ends, then I don't think it can be considered really moral.
In another thread on another topic entirely, Graydon said something to the effect of morality not being a worthwhile yardstick for societal setup (he put it better, "The best that can be said of being moral as an approach is that it doesn't scale."). I agree. It doesn't matter if in the abstract it is right or wrong to kill someone. It can't be done well, it can't be shown to lead to positive effect (as our resident troll seems unwilling to revisit), and therefore for any useful sense the discussion, it's wrong.
Initial caveat: I am absolutely sure this question has been asked, and answered, to the point that I feel like an idiot for asking.
Secondary caveat: I looked, both on the archives here and by googling, and found nothing. Possibly because I can't come up with a decent search string on google. "thing rules"? no.
So the question: are there rules for these games or variants (e.g. Werewolf) easily available online?
thank you, and I promise this question is being asked out of weak google-fu, rather than actual laziness.
Ok, I lied, I'm not quite done yet. Dave, I think your argument is based on a false distinction. You said:
I learned what I know about human beings (and God knows, that is little enough, compared with what there is to know) by living among them, by observing them to the best of my poor ability, and by being one myself. Not from books. Especially not from fiction books.
This assumes that books are fundamentally different from living among people, and that's just wrong. Books, writing, telling stories, going to art shows, listening to music (yes, even rock music!) are all part of living among people and interacting with them. It's just one form of communication versus another. Reading one person's perspective on people isn't all that different than talking to one person about how they feel about people.
You talk about this as if your experience of reality contains more truth than one that is gained in any part by reading, but I think what you're doing is more akin to (e.g.) the way that I reject all untranslated French literature, since I don't speak French. But that isn't a fault in the literature, rather a lacking in the ways that I can address the world, or as Patrick said a while back and probably on another thread, he doesn't always get modern dance. And there is a way of understanding and learning that I miss out on thereby.
Both, Varia. And what I have been reading is all sorts of stuff. I learned what I know about human beings (and God knows, that is little enough, compared with what there is to know) by living among them, by observing them to the best of my poor ability, and by being one myself. Not from books. Especially not from fiction books.
Well, righty then. I think you are deliberately misconstruing mine and several other people's arguments; no one has said fiction is the sole effective purveyor of truth, little t or big, and you seem pretty bent on arguing as if it is. But you do win, in the sense that like many people I'm concluding that it's pointless to continue discussing this.
Several people have at least referenced the idea of a more metaphorical truth, and as far as I can tell that discussion hasn't really gone anywhere. Dave, are you arguing that fiction is not an effective conveyor of factual truth? Or that it cannot effect insight? Or both? On the former, I disagree, but I also see it as relatively trivial. If you have not gained insight into humans--any subset of humans via any subset of the books you have read--if one brilliant piece of writing has not taught you the power of that author's vision, and that flash of understanding has never changed your relation to other humans, or your feelings about the world around you, or your understanding of how you fit into that world, what the hell have you been reading?
Mina,
Tom Waits might be one of my first crossover artists (might as well start with the best). I'd suggest his jazzier albums first (all of the ones adamsj & I have discussed, except Rain Dogs). The voice is likely to be startling at first and you have more typical material on those. I think I started listening to Neil Young & the Cowboy Junkies about the same time, and I have no regrets there.
It's all a matter of what you hit first, which might've been Dave's problem. If the first six people you try are too far outside your comfort range, it doesn't sound like music, it sounds like noise, and then there's no incentive to keep trying.
Are you into showtunes at all? Hedwig & the Angry Inch features some amazing introspective rock ballads (as well as some things you are guaranteed to hate) but if you're a fan of musicals at all it might be a good place to start with as well.
If you've ever been into opera or at least operatic-style singing, there's a local band (Portland, OR local) that, while I have a feud with them and will probably never pay to hear them again, I can wholeheartedly recommend just for fun (I'm mature and adult! Look at me step beyond my feud!). It ain't rock though, nor is it moody or introspective. Some of the tracks from their album are available on their website: www.vagabondopera.com.
adamsj,
I agree. None of those were suggested to Dave. I'm pretty much done with that conversation. Everything after the first paragraph is addressed to Mina. Sorry if that was unclear; I probably should have made those two separate posts or left out my largely pointless echo of the moody-blues comments.
I do think you're selling Tom Waits a little short there. Not only is it great art, but it's totally unclassifiable. Rain Dogs may be one of his best albums, but (e.g.) This One's From the Heart strikes a completely different chord with a number of my friends who find Rain Dogs too weird for words.
Dave, as several people have said, whoever told you the Moody Blues aren't rock was indulging in genre snobbery, not in any kind of actual criticism. Rock includes the good and the sucky and the sell-outs and the pop-bubblegum acts and Warren Zevon too.
Mina, here's a couple of bands I've been listening to lately and several more from the CD collection, some of which I listen to now and some of which I don't, but all of which don't yell too much. Disclaimer: this is really an off-the-cuff response. Not meant to fairly or accurately represent the world of introspective rock in any way.
Wilco (I think Summerteeth is probably their most accessible album, and oh do I adore it)
The Decemberists--weird structures, great lyricism.
Stereo Totale (that's pushing the rock definition, but if you are learning to like hiphop or electronica, give them a chance, they will at least make you laugh)
Modest Mouse runs the gamut. You will probably hate some of their stuff. You might hate all of it. But I hope you don't.
I have a weird fascination with the White Stripes' latest album, but I don't know if I would recommend it or not. It's sometimes interesting and sometimes makes me roll my eyes and walk away. But there you go. I don't suspect the fascination will last that long, honestly, but there's some decent material there.
Is it too cliched to recommend Radiohead? Their earlier material is more accessible, but definitely falls into Dave's "depressing and angry" category.
I like the Shins a lot, and they've been getting quite the radio lovin' lately (at least in the Northwest, not knowing where you live, YMMV).
For straight-up pop rock, Suzanne Vega's 99.9F isn't bad at all. I don't know if I'd call it contemplative, necessarily, but it's an album that I've liked consistently for several years so that's got to be some kind of recommendation.
Seriously, did the Beatles ever do it for you? How about blues-rock type stuff?
I got to rock through Baroque & Romantic period (classical, eck phaugh) and folk music, so I hear you. You like Tom Waits? How about klezmer? Devendra Banhardt?
Eh, it's not the world's ideal list, but it's a place to start, and if anyone else out there wants to get in on the gestalt, this could actually get fun.
Dave, I don't think the evidence you're citing there comes anywhere near proving your point. Why say you don't like rock music? Just say you don't like ultra-loud thrash metal. Or even ultra-loud anything. I can respect that, I love my eardrums too and want to get many years' enjoyment out of them. The point everyone is making is that that's not all--or even a majority, I'd say--of what the broad, sprawling, nigh-onto-useless-as-a-category term "rock" means.
I have to vote with the people who have never heard rage, gunslinger, or shouter applied to live music even once, and I have more respect for my own experience than I do for yours. Live music (and my band might be conceivably be called rock, should you wish to do so) is what I do, on a regular basis.
But even were I willing to concede these arguments, which is a mighty big if, you never addressed one big point that's been here, which is whether you like recorded rock at all.
And if you don't, if you've never even tried, you're missing out on a lot, is all.
I have to delurk for this.
Dave, a fair amount of live shows do depend on volume, intensity and the players' ability to "rock" out to make a good show. And I speak as somebody who loves (some) shows like that; the noise can be obnoxious. I wear earplugs for a lot of live stuff. And then end up dancing to the band anyway; if they're good, it's worth the noise.
What you say reminds me of something Milan Kundera says, either in Testaments Betrayed or Immortality. Essentially he decries rock because it's all about the explosion, the orgasm really, with no subtlety or buildup or volume control. And there are bands like that, but there are a lot of bands not like that too. I grew up listening to classical and folk, and have started to dive into other genres only in the last six years--at least judging by my own experience, you're missing some amazing music by dismissing it all.
Are you into recorded stuff at all? Even bands that can do introspective, contemplative, complex recordings simplify it for live shows, so recordings are where it's at for real listening (although even that is an oversimplification). I can list off six bands without even thinking about it that have records that never thrash out even once, I promise.
That's only if you really want, though. God knows there's plenty of music to enjoy & explore without going past 1900.
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