Everyone pretty much believes that
the way they do things is the "correct" way, and any other way is wrong, no matter how arbitrary.
This seems to start pretty early, almost as if it's inherent. Children will very quickly insist that others do things the "right" way. and call out alternative behavior they perceive as "wrong."
This sort of carries on through adulthood for most people. I am reminded of hearing some talk radio jackass berating Geraldo Rivera because he pronounces his name using the Spanish pronunciation in which the G sounds like the English H sound. "It's pronounced Jair-ALD-oh," the jackass insisted, defining the English pronunciation "correct" and anything else "wrong."
It's simply a curious behavior. How much of it is simply part of our genetic programming and how much is cultural? It seems that not accepting that others may do things in a different way, and that it really doesn't matter how something is done as long as the result is appropriate, would be a series detriment.
It sort of gives me the idea that many people believe that ideas and methods and behaviors are just out there in some objective reality, which they just happen to know and everyone else is doing it wrong, when pretty much everything in culture is a created thing, as much someone's or some group's invention as a cellphone.
Pretty much the entirety of how we perceive and behave in the world is an invention, and doesn't have any claim to external objectivity. How others do things isn't necessarily wrong and our ways are not necessarily correct.
Except for the pronunciation of .gif. The berks who pronounce it with a hard G sound are just objectively wrong.
This seems to start pretty early, almost as if it's inherent. Children will very quickly insist that others do things the "right" way. and call out alternative behavior they perceive as "wrong."
This sort of carries on through adulthood for most people. I am reminded of hearing some talk radio jackass berating Geraldo Rivera because he pronounces his name using the Spanish pronunciation in which the G sounds like the English H sound. "It's pronounced Jair-ALD-oh," the jackass insisted, defining the English pronunciation "correct" and anything else "wrong."
It's simply a curious behavior. How much of it is simply part of our genetic programming and how much is cultural? It seems that not accepting that others may do things in a different way, and that it really doesn't matter how something is done as long as the result is appropriate, would be a series detriment.
It sort of gives me the idea that many people believe that ideas and methods and behaviors are just out there in some objective reality, which they just happen to know and everyone else is doing it wrong, when pretty much everything in culture is a created thing, as much someone's or some group's invention as a cellphone.
Pretty much the entirety of how we perceive and behave in the world is an invention, and doesn't have any claim to external objectivity. How others do things isn't necessarily wrong and our ways are not necessarily correct.
Except for the pronunciation of .gif. The berks who pronounce it with a hard G sound are just objectively wrong.
61-69, M
