Collaborative Project Introductory Assignment

Love, Romance, Sexuality
Food
Education

Wittgenstein, the language connoisseur.

Wittgenstein questions the formation of language and basically says that anyone can make up a language for specific things. I agree with that because going back to discourse communities and how they make their own language between its members, the same goes for these people who make up a language of their own by pointing at specific things and uttering words to match the object. I also agree with the fact that he mentions that words often trigger a picture of an object and with that we act upon it because for example when your parents tell you to do your chores, it brings about pictures of lawn mowers, garbage cans, dishes, etc. However, it only brings about memories of what pertains to you and your parents' understanding of the word 'chore'. For other people, it could involve dog walking or whatever. These different understandings also ties in to what he says about different teaching ways may produce a different action. He also points out that teaching the words of 'this' and 'there' proves difficult since it uses the same word that is being defined. I agree since I can't learn what a 'connoisseur' is when I ask someone and they tell me: "a connoisseur is a connoisseur who knows many things about a thing". Many words may also mean the same thing, but have different uses as he points out with the example of handles. Another example could be using the word 'glass' since 'glass' is something that makes up a lot of things. One person saying, "pass me the glass" could mean that he wants a cup made out of glass that is sitting on the table or if he's a on a constructions site, something like a window that is made out of glass. Our language is also limitless as he points out since it has been forever and it is still constantly growing everyday with new sub sections, such as calculus and physics.

Reading Blog 1: Two cocks go at it for fun (in Bali)

The reading assignment this week was about a man, an archaeologist, who with his wife, also an archaeologist, went to Bali to study the culture of the people there. Apparently it was just the two of them on the trip as it does not indicate from the excerpt if they were part of a group that may have been mentioned in previous pages. They were also given land from the government and documents stating they were there strictly for research if they ran into trouble with the police of the villages in Bali. I liked that in the small villages the people acted as mentioned on page 1 in the second paragraph as if they were not there since the village was a close-knit community and it was hard to infiltrate their culture because they do not know the nature of the two outsiders. However, if the landlord of the house and the village chief spoke to them and knew of them, why did they not encourage the Balinese to talk to the outsiders? Were they given a translator for the trip? And if so, could not he have also encouraged the Balinese to talk to them? One aspect of the reading that I am not too fond of is the cock fighting due to the fact they fought to the death and the corpse of the loser would get mutilated in a way to gloat. Even though they pampered the cocks prior to the fight and during, they only did it out of self-gain since gambling also played a role into it. Gambling on the fights also did not sit well for me since they were already poor, but they still put their money in these expensive pools in order for a fight to happen. If the cock fights were there for spiritual reasons only, then that would not be a problem as it is integrated into their culture and somewhat required.