Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 0:00:13 GMT -5
It's an interesting list: www.express.co.uk/news/history/579021/World-s-most-hated-men-revealed-George-Bush-ahead-Stalin-Genghis-KhanI'm a bit disturbed by the fact that Stalin is ranked so low, and the fact that Bush is ahead of him is laughable. And while Saddam and Bin Laden may have been bad news, the only reason they are in the top 3 is because how "recent" they are. I wonder if these students know about the holodomor, forced re-locations, executions of religious leaders, destruction of historic churches and mosques, gulag camps, etc. It also amuses me how Bush made it onto the list over Lyndon B. Johnson, seeing as LBJ got the USA into a much deadlier war (Vietnam) under much shadier circumstances (Gulf of Tonkin incident) and the fact that biological weapons were used on civilians under his watch. What are your thoughts on the lists?
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Post by ziggy on May 25, 2015 7:56:53 GMT -5
The participants probably didn't even know who most of these people where... except for the recent ones. And Bush shouldn't have been there. He wasn't an evil bad man, just a dumb puppet. If they had put Spongebob Squarepants, he probably would have been higher than a few of those also.
In the same vein, a recent survey showed that One-third of American 8th graders think Canada is a dictatorship...
Anyway, surveys never mean much, because we never know if the participants answered truthfully.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 12:12:48 GMT -5
Very well said, on all counts. Sometimes people list recent figures as a knee-jerk reaction, and I know a lot of people just hate Bush so much that they'll throw his name up there for no real reason. Last semester, I hung out with this French girl who had a Middle Eastern background, so you can imagine what she thought of Bush lol. She was a very smart girl, but she didn't put thought into all of the things she said and I'm sure that was true for a lot of people taking these surveys as well.
I really hope that survey about the 8th graders isn't true.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 12:14:33 GMT -5
And as for the best people list, there were no real shockers there. I'm a bit surprised that Einstein was #1 over the likes of Ghandi and Jesus. It fascinates me that Lincoln is not only beloved by Americans but the rest of the world as well.
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Post by ziggy on May 26, 2015 8:36:01 GMT -5
On the best people list, I was surprised to see Mother Theresa at #2 I read somewhere that she wasn't that much of a nice lady...
These people are more iconic than actually idolized. They are symbols. Mr. Smart. Mr. Peace etc. It all depends on how you measure greatness. The best people I've met in my life were quite humble and simple.
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J.T.
"I have great faith in fools; my friends call it confidence."
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Post by J.T. on Jun 7, 2015 12:00:08 GMT -5
Interesting list. George Bush is on the list due to the age of participants and the regions of the world where the survey was conducted. Both delimitations are stated openly by the researchers so I disagree but do not take methodological issue with the study...this list more than anything evidences to me that humans have socially constructed ideas rather than their own unique ideas in regards to socio-cultural influences. The list contains individuals learned in mainstream education (e.g. politicians, powerful people, certain countries) but lack non-mainstream or less powerful people. So the limitation is that they are testing for things other than"evil-ness."
I would be curious to see someone, someday, build a morality model built on Foucaultian principles that can be quantitatively tested. I know it would be incredibly difficult and take a few years - but if a tenured faculty member with grant money does actually take on such a project I think we could garner great insights into how populations perceive politicians, transparency, ethics/morality, etc. Could be useful, or at least philosophically interesting!
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