Nails on a Chalkboard

[etherial]

I've been listing to Introduction to Judaism from The Teaching Company, and every time the Professor gives a date, the sound of the CE grates on my ears like nails on a chalkboard. Now, I understand that the whole point of CE is to make the calendar less "Christocentric", but not only do I feel it fails in that regard, I feel it perpetuates the supremacy of the Christian Calendar whilst smacking of Revisionist History.

It wasn't anno Domini, it was of the Common Era. Bullshit. Why do we use a Calendar where the months have an idiotically variable number of days? Why do we use a Calendar where half of the months are named after Pagan gods and the other half are named after numbers (that don't correspond to their ordinals)? Why do we use a Calendar that is neither absolute nor relative and crossing where Year 0 should be is a pain? Why do we use a Calendar with a Leap System accurate for only 4000 years? Why do we use a Calendar that has been moved several times over the course of the centuries? Why do we use a Calendar with 7-day weeks? Why do we use a Calendar whose origin is the (presumed) date of birth (or by some accounts conception) of the Christian God? Because it was divinely given to us by the Pope.

Replacing anno Domini with Common Era does nothing to change the Christian origin of the Calendar and serves only to perpetuate its (divine) "rightness". In its historical light, the use of "Common Era" can be seen as merely a shortening of "the common era of the Nativity of Our Lord" or "the common era of the birth of our Saviour". Ever since I got my very first checking account, I've been writing AD on my checks. Most people who notice it are bemused that I would put in the effort, but a few people, mostly Chinese and Jews, understand the point: The Christian Calendar is not the One True Calendar. Yes, it's the one used (nearly) everywhere right now, but not only could that change, but there are very good reasons to do so.

I've also, as an intellectual exercise, been keeping track of the date using the Calendar of the Illuminati that I devised back in 5999, after rereading The Illuminatus! Trilogy. If anyone's wondering, today is the second day of the month of A, 6007. For eight years, I've been telling time in my head using another Calendar, and it's been interesting. When we hit the next Leap Year (6011, for those of you who are counting), I'm planning on making some of the adjustments I've been thinking of, including adjusting the Leap System to remove some of its swing.

We haven't reached consensus on which Calendar to move to (I'm currently favoring the Tranquility Calendar with my Leap System), so I'm content at continuing to use the Christian Calendar. But I find it intellectually dishonest and disgustingly PC to call it anything but.

Comments

[bronzite.livejournal.com]

The nice part about CE is that it doesn't require rewriting and annotating thousands upon thousands upon thousands of written works that make up the Western literature to make them accessible to non-historians. It also, I think, more accurately reflects the calendar's present-day use; its the primary method of keeping time in almost all western societies, and in all international transactions, regardless of religion. It is truly the Common Era. Don't think of the calendar as trying to escape is Christian origin; think of it as having outgrown it.

As for the odd little behaviors of the calendar, that's just what happens when you're still learning how to measure time over extremely long periods while you need a workable calendar. Its true we could switch to a metric calendar and make the math a lot easier in the short-term, but over the long term it would be just as flawed; our revolutions will never match our rotations to an integer value for very long at all, and Luna's revolution will also never line up exactly. Unless you want to choose one unit of celestial time to supercede all others (such as a year, a day, a month, etc), you're going to have quirky behavior in trying to have a calendar that doesn't involve an absurd number of decimal places.

re: It is truly the Common Era.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Why did the Common Era begin with the (incorrectly measured) birth (or was it conception) of Jesus of Nazareth?

As for the odd little behaviors of the calendar...

I find Leap Systems to be an allowable quirk. I'd rather not see a 28-day month smooshed between two 31-day months.

Re: It is truly the Common Era.

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

Do we agree that if it never happened, then this constitutes an 'incorrect' date?

Re: It is truly the Common Era.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

It already is an incorrect date. In this context, "Jesus' supposed birth" and "the supposed Jesus' supposed birth" are nearly equivalent.

Re: It is truly the Common Era.

[bronzite.livejournal.com]

Why did the Common Era begin with the (incorrectly measured) birth (or was it conception) of Jesus of Nazareth?

Well, the Gregorian Calendar, which places Year 1 at the place we're familiar with it today, was spawned by Pope Gregory the Umpteenth in 1582. The Gregorian calendar was structurally very similar to the calendar that was dominant in Europe at the time, namely the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar was in use all over Europe because it was the calendar that was used by the Roman Empire from about 45 BC onwards. Gregory modified the Julian calendar to move Year 1 forward 750-some-odd years. This split is where the AD/BC split first appears.

During the 16th century, and for some time after that, the Catholic Church was a major player in the geopolitics of Europe. As their clergy had far-reaching influence in many of the nations of Europe, as well as a position in society as recognized scholars and, more significantly for these purposes, timekeepers, as many of the major clocks of the 12th-17th centuries were housed in churches or other major religious structures. Thus is was natural for secular society (such as it was) to adopt the church's time system, including its calendar.

From the 17th Century to the 19th Century, Europe began and ran through its major colonial period, colonizing, conquering, and making contact with all corners of the globe. Everywhere they went, they brought their time and their calendar with them. In order to do business with Europe, you dealt with the Gregorian Calendar for all records and scheduling. In addition, all of Europe colony's would end up using Europe's calendar, including the United States. We'll get back to that in a moment.

During the 19th Century we see the first emergence of a truly global superpower, namely the British Empire. Operating from their island off the European Mainland, Britain would dominate the world stage from the Napoleonic era up to the First World War, and even then the United Kingdom's power would be slow to fade. Again, the British were using the Gregorian calendar, and all the many nations of the world that interacted with Britain began using British systems not only for working with the Empire, but also with each other. Interesting, we still see the effects of this today in the widespread use of English between non-native speaking nations.

Britain begins its decline in power in the post-World War I years only to be surpassed by its former colony, the United States, which would continue to dominate the global economy until and through the end of the 20th century. The United States also used (and uses today) the Gregorian Calendar, giving that calendar an even more lengthy tenure as the calendar of commerce around the world.

The result? A calendar that was born out of religious decree, but has expanded far beyond its less-than-humble beginnings to become the world's most used calendar. From Rome to the Vatican to Europe to the rest of the World, there's a distinct train of events that lead to the particular Year 1 that is recognized and has been for centuries.

And that's my James Burke impression for the evening.

Re: It is truly the Common Era.

[bronzite.livejournal.com]

Preemptive note: I am aware of the resistance that Great Britain presented in initially adopting the Gregorian calendar and that they did not actually do so until the 18th Century, but trying to include that in the main text broke up the narrative a bit too much)

Re: It is truly the Common Era.

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

... and what does that have to do with the Common Era year 1/zero?

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

As for the odd little behaviors of the calendar...

You aren't familiar with a Tranquility calendar... it isn't a lunar calendar.

http://www.mithrandir.com/Tranquility/tranquility.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_reform

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

The idea of a calendar devoted to science-worship is just as disturbing to me as a religion-centric calendar. At least with the current calendar, the religious connotations (assuming you're using CE) are limited to dead religions.

And I'm amused that the science-worship calendar still appropriates the names for weekdays based on Norse pantheons. And that it's based around the moon landing, yet isn't lunar. How remarkably.. scientific.

Besides, the nice thing about a 12 month calendar is that it nicely quarters into chunks that roughly represent the timing of the seasons. It may not be practical from a business or science perspective, but I like having certain aspects of my life tied to something so physical, so inalterably real.

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

Worship? Unless you've bought the fallacious garbage about "atheism is a religion and Dawkins claims he's their prophet," I don't understand how you reached that conclusion.

As for 12 versus 13 months, 12 30 day months with 5 not-days-in-months is almost as smooth.

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

Science, as perceived in the mind of the majority of individuals who proclaim allegience to it, is just as often used for justification of fallacious beliefs as religion. Functionally, as a belief system, it is often the same as a religion. And nothing smacks of psuedo-worship more than using the names of scientists for our calendar months.


I could get behind a 5 not-days-in-months system, provided they were designated non-religious time-off holidays. XD

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

Science, as perceived in the mind of the majority of individuals who proclaim allegience to it, is just as often used for justification of fallacious beliefs as religion.

If you're claiming this on the basis of anything more than your own opinion, please cite. If not, then provide a counterexample to mine: belief in creationism in the United States is inversely correlated to education.

"This sounds like religion to me" isn't much of an argument, unless you have a higher degree in a relevant field of which I'm unaware.

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

I'm simply making a functional personal observation from my time at WPI. I've heard over and over ridiculous arguments made in the name of "science" from people who misunderstand it -- and many are supposed to represent those who specialize in it.

Now, if you want to play the citations game, feel free to cite your example -- even though I think it's an irrelevant argument. I'd like to note that I'm discussing science from a social and political perspective, where people seem to forget that empiricism forms the basis of scientific modes of thought. And "modes of thought" is the key phrase there.

And I'd like to quibble with your notion that someone needs to have a degree to have a reasonable argument or opinion. Trickle-down economics is dumb as all hell, but was espoused by economics PhDs. A degree is a nice two-second metric if you plan to not consider another person's thoughts, but hardly applies if you want to debate their words on their own merit.

After all, do you have a PhD in epistemology? The history of time-keeping? Sociopolitical philosophy? Sociology? Political Science? No? Then why are we talking?

That said, I assume you will continue to debate with me. I, unfortunately, will not likely have the time to engage you with as much effort as the discussion will deserve, as I'm finishing up an MQP as we speak.

Reply on or around May 6th

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

In bullet form, in deference to your MQP. Feel free to wait a week or so before replying and/or to poke me at my own livejournal re. this/these topic(s).

* WPI is a poor sample, even of 'people who believe in science'

citation: a blog entry (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/american_political_conservatis.php) about a survey from Science magazine (Mazur A (2007) Disbelievers in evolution. Science 315(5809):187.)



* You seem to be arguing from a post-modernist perspective... I reject post-modernism (when if you do reply, please clarify your stance on this point)

* If one has an advanced degree in a related area, I'm more willing to accept their opinion on a subject. I was basically saying "That sounds like &#(@ to me... but if you've got something to back it up, I'll reconsider." I agree such degrees are not a prerequisite for discussion... but if you did have one, say an IQP on the subject, I'd be willing to accept "from my 9 months of research on this specific subject, I draw the conclusion X" more readily than "I draw the conclusion X" with no preface.

Since you brought it up

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I've never had anyone give me a good, understandable definition of "post-modern." Can you?

Re: Since you brought it up

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

Well, since you didn't ask for -concise,- I'll try...

Like The Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernism, etc it is a name for a particular philosophical and artistic "movement."

Modernism advocated sweeping 'revolution,' and abandonment of the old ways (of society, of politics, of art, etc). Very 1920's "Progress!" as the pulps.

(Technically, any philosophy or movement after Modernism is postmodernism, but I'll construe it a bit more narrowly... as do most folk.)

Postmodernism is a rejection of all that. It entails a rejection of 'progress' itself. ("antiprogressives make dirk angry") Incorporating sociological perspective (the notion that all morals are relative to their environment), they are prime advocates of moral relativism.

They take another belief system, say... "Western Science," and say that it is just another 'cultural myth,' i.e. that it is a series of stories and ceremonies bereft of any more meaning than hunter-gatherer tribal dancing.

Postmodernists would have you believe there isn't a philosophy "after" postmodernism, that its deconstruction of other systems is the end of movements... rather like the Marxist notion of Communist Dialectic, the secret to history, and all of that.

---

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism)

he term postmodernism is often used pejoratively to describe tendencies perceived as relativist, counter-enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relation to critiques of rationalism, universalism or science. It is also sometimes used to describe tendencies in a society that are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of morality...

But don't the postmodernists claim only to be 'playing games'? Isn't it the whole point of their philosophy that anything goes, there is no absolute truth, anything written has the same status as anything else, no point of view is privileged? Given their own standards of relative truth, isn't it rather unfair to take them to task for fooling around with word-games, and playing little jokes on readers? Perhaps, but one is then left wondering why their writings are so stupefyingly boring. Shouldn't games at least be entertaining, not po-faced, solemn and pretentious?

– Richard Dawkins: Postmodernism Decoded

The criticism of postmodernism as ultimately meaningless rhetorical gymnastics was demonstrated in the Sokal Affair, where Alan Sokal, a physicist, wrote a deliberately nonsensical article purportedly about interpreting physics and mathematics in terms of postmodern theory, which was nevertheless published by Social Text, a journal which he and most of the scientific community considered postmodernist. Interestingly, Social Text never acknowledged that the article's publication was a mistake but supported a counter-argument defending the "interpretative validity" of Sokal's false article, despite the author's rebuttal of his own article. (see the online Postmodernism Generator[17])

Re: Reply on or around May 6th

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

* WPI is a poor sample, even of 'people who believe in science'

Fair enough. But it's relevant to my experience, as I explain below.

* You seem to be arguing from a post-modernist perspective... I reject post-modernism (when if you do reply, please clarify your stance on this point)

I'll avoid the smarmy comment of, "Well postmodernism accounts for that..." and just say that I don't fall in line with postmodernism either, though I don't wholly reject as do you. I see the tools of postmodernism as useful and essential to understanding the complex nuances of mixed-up meaning in the media-saturated first world.

That said, I believe that at some point analysis of any sort -- postmodernist or objectivist or whatever -- does not replace practicality when concerning most social and political issues. If you wanted to pigeonhole me, you could call me some breed of humanist or practical-minded symbolic interactionist.

On global warming, science as an empirical practice is very important and I wish it weren't glibly ignored when making federal and international policy.

On issues of human behavior and sociological issues, science becomes fuzzy, and in my mind you have to rely on a harder form of empiricism: what you observe. While statistically analyzing trends is important and necessary in those realms, when I see objectionable behavior, regardless of whether it's statistically significant, I feel the need to address it. And while many people use different logic to define objectionable, using science becomes an imprecise metric under these circumstances.

As you claim below, postmodernists claim "is just another 'cultural myth,' i.e. that it is a series of stories and ceremonies bereft of any more meaning than hunter-gatherer tribal dancing." And that's just silly at the level you're assuming it. Science, as a practice, is empiricism. But a lot of people forget that, and adhere to its trappings as a belief system.

Simply put, I have come across enough scientists who treat the trappings of science as vestments, and some of the associational tenets as a religion. While that doesn't make empiricism or science as a practice religion, it makes their practices so. And, echoing my statements above, while it may not be statistically significant, it is significant in my observation and leads to beliefs I take issue with, which is why I address it. On some level, I can't change anyone's mind -- I can't make anyone change religions. But what I object to is people spouting their beliefs at me and claiming some sort of psuedo-science backs it up as Truth, and thus blinding them to the real consequences of their words and actions.

* If one has an advanced degree in a related area,

I have no degree, but I feel I have put enough study into this area to not just spout what I've gotten out of an intro to lit crit book or the gospel according to the Bible or Science, and have used some of these ideas -- esp. the work of Charles Mills -- to draft a paper on race and racism from a biracial perspective in the South. For what that's worth.

Re: Reply on or around May 6th

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

so... you don't care about statistical significance, but are somehow empirical?

Frankly, I think you fail to make your case that Science is taken as a religion. "I know a few guys from a school of 7000 people" says nothing about people outside of that arena.

You conflate "science" with pseudo-science-- would you care to clarify your definition of what these folk who are worshiping science believe in? Pseudo-science is, (as far as I'm concerned), by definition not science.

[siderea]

Which fallacious beliefs have you found them often to use science to justify?

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

Hi siderea. Sorry I haven't responded until now, but I was doing MQP work until earlier this week, and forgot about this comment until now.

The fallacious beliefs I have found are often the purest libertarian ones. For example, hostility towards any policy aimed at promoting racial or gender equity. They cite that there is a lack of hard quantitative data that such disparity still exists, which smacks of willing blindness to me.

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

But their arguments aren't on a scientific level in the first place. A lack of evidence is just a lack of evidence and choosing whether to govern not at all or to govern by intuition is just political opinion. It's basically just a perspective switch on what the government's default course of action should be.

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Thus, it's a fallacy, and a really annoying one, because they're as unshakeably certain as any fundamentalist.

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

Science, as perceived in the mind of the majority of individuals who proclaim allegience to it, is just as often used for justification of fallacious beliefs as religion.
You REALLY need some backup for a statement like that.

This "science is religion" stuff is a lot of crap. It's seductive to say "hey man, everyone's got their own beliefs" so we can all get along and be friends, but one set actually has universally-testable support for their statements.

Science isn't a belief system. It doesn't dictate right from wrong or what our purpose here on Earth should be, but it does dictate that shit falls when dropped and populations change over time. The only real faith it brings to the table is faith that the scientific system of verification will work on the large scale and continue to work as the individual has seen it work on the small scale, and if they ever suspect that it isn't they can provably determine whether it has gone off-course just by checking the results themselves.

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

I agree with you for the most part, but for a more in-depth answer, feel free to look at my response to dirkcjelli above.

[siderea]

The idea of a calendar devoted to science-worship is just as disturbing to me as a religion-centric calendar.

"Worship" seems like an odd term to use; perhaps "venerating" was was you had in mind?

In any event, why is that? To what cultural group do you belong to? Myself, I think a culture venerating the people and events that that culture considers important and valuable is a lovely and life-enhancing thing to do, and since I value science more than religion and since science can belong to all people regardless of religion, I'd be delighted to see my society decide to venerate those who were important to science in this way. Do you object to all veneration of people, or just the veneration of particular parties?