thoughts:

Tru Thoughts World Music MP3 Sampler
$0.00
This is flesh and blood music. These are real musicians working up a sweat by banging out some butt-shaking beats. This is world funk. These tunes are organic for the most part, with acoustic drum kits and unplugged strumming guitars, but there is some electronic spatter mixed into a couple songs. Of course the bass is plugged in, how else would you get those deep swells of sonic bottom end boom. A few of the tunes are punctuated with the right touch of horns. The grooves are up and the mood is even higher. Try sitting still...

American Atheist : a Journal of Atheist News and Thought
$39.50
American Atheist magazine is devoted to Atheist thought, news, and history, as well as critical thinking and criticism of religion. The magazine contains profiles of Atheists in the military, business and academia. There are humorous articles about religion and personal stories of Atheists.

A New Thought for Christmas (CD & DVD)
$19.98
Absolutely Wonderful Christmas CD & DVD. Original Melissa Etheridge Christmas Songs, Rockin' Songs, Ballads, & original twists of classics. Melissa at her best celebrating the spirit of peace & joy of the season. EXECELLENT! You will love it!

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why
$15.00
Is this book just crying Whorf? Or do modern investigation techniques help support the thesis that language structures thought? In this book Nisbett outlines the relationships between different languages and aspects of apparent perception using much new empirical support from a host of studies. Keep in mind that Nisbett later publishes his book "Intelligence and How to Get It" which makes use of much of the same work in building the thesis that fluency comes from immersion and fluent parents result in more fluent children. A main result - intelligence comes from linguistic fluency. So what kind of intelligence the fluency gives a person depends on the sort of intelligence the linguistic tools make possible. One focus of the book argues European languages lead more to an individualist perspective while Chinese leads more towards a communal one. Here I certainly wonder if the sort of study Charles Taylor gives us in either "Sources of the Self" or "A Secular Age" details a historical evolution that offers a different explanation of these differences in perspective - especially since the languages seem relatively persistent while the cultural focus changes. New vocabulary is created and meanings change with cultural developments but the logic of the language seems to remain the same. If so, this must certainly weaken the thesis, at least the strong Whorfian thesis, that Nesbitt seems to support. Can both be true? What if the logical structure of the language - especially the grammar - predisposes speakers to evolve a certain type of perspective? In this way ancient Greeks still had the grammar but the vocabulary evolves through cultural periods. Romantics emphasize individualism more than the Scholastics did. Perhaps? An interesting issue concerns the difference between compound bilinguals and coordinate bilinguals. A pretty clear conclusion follows this study: "There is an effect of culture on thought independent of language." (p. 161) and "There is also clearly an effect of language independent of culture - but only for the coordinate speakers from China and Taiwan. They responded very differently depending on whether they are tested in Chinese or in English." (p. 162) So tentatively "language does indeed influence thought so long as different languages are plausibly associated with different systems of representation." Both cultural groups tend to make logical errors but each shows light on the other. Perhaps the weakness of each can be enhanced towards the more logical by an appreciation of both? Would this also be reflected in an individuals maturation? An interesting point Nisbett makes regarding the globalization of American Culture is a description of Francis Fukuyama's point of view in "The End of History" that "everyone is really an American at heart, or if not, it's only a matter of time until they will be". (p. 220) But describing Huntington's views as the contrary Nisbett says "Westerners tend to confuse modernization - defined as industrialization, a more complex occupational structure, increased wealth and social mobility, greater literacy, ad urbanization - with Westernization. But societies ... have become modern without becoming very Western." (p. 224) Nisbett continues with the suggestion that convergence might be more likely. (This reminds me of Peter Berger's book "The Heretical Imperative".)