another sign of eurocentrism

Eurocentrism (America's schools teaching a curriculum centered around European accomplishments/history) is very real. Think of all the famous paintings you know. What do you have, Sistine Chapel? Mona Lisa? The Scream? Do you know any famous art works from Asia or Africa? (No, visualizing a random Ming vase does not count).

A less obvious expression of Eurocentrism is in our language. When we want to sound elitist, old or funny, we talk in a mix of Old English, Shakespeare, and bible translations. Words like "thou" and "methinks" and "bless-ed is he who..."

This became obvious to me when I tried to explain the concept of "looking at the Buddha's finger". An accepted Asian/fortune cookie way of saying it would be "when the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger". I had thought up "Do not be he who looks at the finger instead of the moon" and "the finger points to the moon, but you are fixated on the finger".

Maybe I'm the only one that sees the difference between these. When I learned about the Buddha's finger, I heard it explained (in English) in a way that seemed very Chinese to me. After reading various English translations of Buddhist/Zen texts, I had started to think of these concepts in a different language style. "Do not be he who..." is a Biblical style of talking and "this does this; but you are doing that." is something an Asian sage would say in an American movie. That's why they felt so wrong when I tried to use them. This translation of "the finger that points to the moon" is in a style that is really familiar and comforting to me.

After reading a lot of bible translations, seeing
"You make a big fuss about all of the different ways and methods of acquiring something that you´ll never be able to gain. Zen Master Huang-po therefore says: "That there is nothing which can be attained is not idle talk; it is the highest truth." You seek something that you´ll never be able to find because you´ve never lost it."
just didn't sound classy enough to me

That's a big problem. The parables from the bible and the Ten Commandments have a very distinct style. Same with Shakespeare and Chaucer. When we hear something that's dogma or classic literature, we expect to hear it in that style. When it's not, it just doesn't seem classy or legitimate (unless you have a lot of experience with other styles of literature - which you won't if you go through the average American curriculum).
Just seems like a good thing to realize.


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does this make sense to anyone else?
does
"Thou shall not put to waste time spent thinking of ways to obtain that which can not be gained. For it is as the Zen Master Huang-po says: "There is nothing that can be attained on this earth". He speaks not gibberish nor false lies. You who seeks to find something that has never been lost will search until this becomes apparent to you."
sound a lot better? Oh god, you twinkie.

gender test results

(not for me, for Caster Semenya from the previous post!)

Internal male sex organs, no uterus or ovaries.


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when gender matters

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/news/story?id=4411235

I don't know how many people are aware of this, but Caster Semenya (South Africa), winner of the 800m race in this year's World Championships may lose her medal. It all depends on whether a gender test says she's actually female or not.

What the hell? I don't really agree with them dividing every sport into male and female categories, but if they didn't do that I know no woman could ever get to the top of any sport (due to a mix of social and biological reasons. Also, look at the numbers, it's pretty much a fact).

I just read in Time magazine that Ms. Semenya has "three times the testosterone as the average woman". Of course they neglected to mention how much more testosterone you need to have to be statistically significant. According to this sketchy site , women have 70 units (it's ng/dl) of testosterone while men can have from 280 to over 1000 of the stuff. Okay, so three times 70? That's only 210, still lower than what's normal for men. Shoddy jouralism there, Time.

Something else that's important - So what happens if you're not a man or a woman? Obviously they're not trying to prove that she's a man, just that she's not a woman. That's pretty much all that they CAN prove, seeing as she lacks a penis. What even happens if you fail a gender test? Do you have to run in the Special Olympics now? You can laugh off people thinking you're in the wrong bathroom, but losing a gold medal should really trigger some re-thinking of why sex and gender matters.