From: acm@Sun.COM (Andrew MacRae)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Subject: Re: Days of the Week
Date: 12 Nov 1992 02:27:59 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View CA
Distribution: world
Reply-To: acm@Sun.COM (Andrew MacRae)
NNTP-Posting-Host: grendal.corp.sun.com

In article <01GR0YNJE3VC8WWK8G@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU>,         Song Weaver <JULIE@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU> writes:
 > Personally, I don't _CARE_ what other people call the days of the week
 > so long as I can understand them, and I don't care what other people call
 > the centuries, so long as I can understand that.  I kind like the sound
 > of the "Common Era" so I may start using it, because I have trouble sayin
 > "in the year of our lord" when I am speaking about this "Lord" who does
 > not really exist to me.  So it seems kinda silly for me to refer to "our
 > Lord" when I do not have a "Lord."  If other people want to refer to the
 > year of THEIR Lord, I have no complaint with that.

Actually, it's been a loooongggg time since I heard anyone say "in the year
of our lord" when referring to a date.  I myself prefer "bc" or "ad" as it's
so much shorter.  Do you really say "in the year of our lord" as a general
rule?

 > So what happens is that when I ask someone if they only mean "men"
 > when they refer to "men" they accuse me of this "political correctness"
 > thing when I really just want to know what they MEAN.

I have no trouble with someone asking for clarification if the context
does not make it clear.  In fact, my rule is that if the context doesn't
make it clear then I use a better word or phrase.  On the other hand, if
you are asking just to make a point when you understood what the speaker
meant all along, then yes, you are being "politcally correct".

Case in point...  I gave a speech not long ago and concluded it by quoting
Robert Heinlein's phrase "Earth is too fragile a basket for mankind to put
all of its eggs into."  (For the picky, I may not have the words quite right.)
I was "corrected" by a woman in the audience who told me I should have changed
the quote to say "humankind" rather than "mankind" for it wasn't clear if women
were included in the original.  Now, she knew from the context of the quote
(and the speech) what I had meant, but she wanted to make a "political" point
by professing confusion.  Of course, then there is the whole issue of whether
or not existing writings should be re-written to be more "inclusive".
 
 > But I think the theory that there is this "plot" to eliminate white
 > males from all litereature is silly.  Most people I know of who are
 > what some would call "politcally correct" have no interest in eliminating
 > the works of Plato, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Copernicus, Faulkner, etc.
 > from Literature.  Instead they want to AUGMENT it with such authors as
 > Alice Walker, Chiam Potok, Niki Giovanni and Rita Mae Brown.

There is nothing wrong with the above, but what I complain about is the
silly extremes that people will go to in trying to achieve equality.  One
woman I know gave a long and impassioned speech about how unfair it was that
a museum of 15th and 16th century art contained only works by men.  She felt
that there should be an equal number of paintings by women.  Well, I
am sorry, but there are only a handfull of paintings in the entire world
from that era that are by women.  Sometimes it is simply not possible to
provide equality.

 > But when white males have been virtually ALL of the literature read by
 > University students for over a century, this is a challenge to that, so
 > rather than responding in an open manner, there is this "old guard" of
 > academia who have fought this inclusion tooth and nail because to them
 > it is a THREAT.

Again, I would disagree.  First of all, while it is true that *most* of
the literature read by university students has been written by white males,
it is not true that *all* has been.  (I know, I know, you wrote "virtually".)
Now, is this because there is some plot to achieve this or is it perhaps
because "virtually all" of the english language literature published in the last
hundred years has been written by white males?  Those few women who managed
to get published often did so by taking a male name - not to fool the publisher,
but the reader.

Second, those who object to the new assortment of books generally do so out
of alarm at seeing favorite classics of theirs dropped to make room for other
books.  This is not a reaction do being threatened, but rather a more simplistic
reaction to change.  I know that when I read that a major highschool history
textbook was dropping the account of Benedict Arnold from its pages so as to
make room for the historically questionable account of a woman who posed as
a man in order to serve in the revolutionary army I was upset.  Not because
I felt threatened, but because I felt it was the wrong thing to do.  I for one,
do not believe that history should be held hostage to politcal causes - regardless
how noble the goals.

 > I guess I got off of the "Days of the Week" track... Basically, the issue
 > I did want to address, is that I don't feel that Thursday is the Day of
 > Thor, but I don't mind paying Thor some lip service since he seemed like
 > a cool dude.  That's no real problem for me, since Thor has no power
 > base as far as I am concerned.  Saying "In The Year of Our Lord" enforces
 > Christianity, and I do find that to be a concern, since Christianity
 > as an ORGANIZATION (not really so much as a religion) holds too much
 > power in this Country and I don't want to give them more.  I will note
 > that someone might jump on me for reffering to Christianity as ONE
 > organization.  Well that would be fair, since it's not.  I am typing
 > in line mode otherwise I would have rephrased that sentence.  So I
 > don't mean to say that, ok?

Does saying "bc" enforce christianity as an organization any more than
"Wednesday" enforce paganism?  Giving the current state of our educational
system, how many people actually know what "bc" and "ad" once meant.

My own view is that bc and ad have fallen into the historical equivilent of
public domain and that their original meaning is long past having any effect
of "enforcing" a religion or organization.  Is there anywhere on Earth these
days where this method of dating years is not the standard in everyday life?

Sorry if I sound argumentive in the above.  I don't mean to, it's just that
I sometimes type that way.

						Andrew MacRae
						
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