FrankGol: "You ask", "I answer"

Um, Frank. You don't have to answer *rhetorical* questions.

"Which people of Vietnam, blah blah blah"

Does it matter?
The point is they're *not* Italians (Which Italians? YAWN!), racially or culturally.

Once again, you nitpick an irrelevant detail, and miss the forest for the tree.
You aren't impressing anybody.

"How many books...just a few on the topic for starters."

And which few, the ones that FrankGol agrees with, or the ones he disagrees with?

"Assessing the quality and quantity of the evidence used by the author, the quality of the author's logic, the book's internal consistency, its coherence, the proportion devoted to solid argument as against personal preference or ideology, etc."

So if the author's convinced of his own argument, so should I!

"I'm confident that "The Origin of the Species" is a better book than "Mein Kampf"."

Well, surprise, surprise. Who would have guessed?

I bet Hitler thought his book, a best seller, made perfect sense.
And Darwin's work was attacked in his own time and ours.

Again, judgement is *subjective*, so it doesn't really matter to anyone else what FrankGol thinks of any book.

"Knowledge is a pre-requisite to wisdom."

I'll leave this in the hands of my true intellectual superiors:

Albert Einstein: "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

Andre Gide: "Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."

Carl Jung: "Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."

Heraklietos of Ephesos: "Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected."

Robert Green Ingersoll: "It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense."

George Santayana: "Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it."

Leonardo da Vinci: "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory."

Groucho Marx: "A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."

Shockadelic

As a seeker after knowledge and wisdom, I mistook your 'rhetroical' questions for real ones. Silly me.

It may not matter to you which people of Vietnam you bestow the title Vietnamese race and Vietnamese culture on; but it may be important to the diverse people in Vietnam. Do they all look alike to you?

I don't know how you can convert my short list of criteria for objectively assessing the quality of books to the proposition that "So if the author's convinced of his own argument, so should I!" I think your mind is firmly locked into your fixed position and nothing's getting in (or out).

Feel free to choose your own books, Shocker. I'm sure you'd prefer the ideological truth of "Mein Kampf" to the scientific filth of "The Origin of the Species". That's your right.

Hitler may have thought his best seller "made perfect sense". But was he right?

And Darwin's work "was attacked in his own time and ours". But did it make an important contribution to our understanding of evolution?

Sure, if you believe that judgement of a book is "subjective", it follows that it doesn't really matter to anyone else what FrankGol - or anyone else - thinks of any book. Even if you think there are objective means of assessing the worthiness of an author, it may still not matter what I think. I encourage people to make up their own minds. And I'm delighted to discuss their opinions when they have an enquiring mind and want to engage intellectually.

I just don't think any reasonable person can claim that any book is as good as any other wihout using some objective criteria for discriminating between them.

The rest of your post - quotations from a range of authors, demonstrates that you, too, have a Book of Quotations - and it probably took you ten minutes to select their digested wisdom. Maybe one day you could take the time to read one or more of the actual books. Groucho Marx might suit you.

As I said: "Knowledge is a pre-requisite to wisdom."

FrankGol: "I think your mind is firmly locked into your fixed position and nothing's getting in (or out)."

"Mr Kettle, there's a call for you on line 2. A Mr Pot. Something about being black."

"It may not matter to you which people of Vietnam you bestow the title Vietnamese race and Vietnamese culture on; but it may be important to the diverse people in Vietnam."

There's that tree again!
Keep hitting your head against it, Frank.
The brain damage will be imperceptible.

"Which" Vietnamese makes no difference to my *argument*.

That "Vietnamese" (however you define that) is *not* "Italian" (however you define *that*).

Do Vietnamese and Italians look alike to *you*?
*They* know they don't.

"I'm sure you'd prefer the ideological truth of "Mein Kampf" to the scientific filth of "The Origin of the Species"."

Well, surprise, surprise. Didn't see that coming!
Could you be more predictable?

For someone who adores "objectivity" your ironic statement seems full of bias and prejudice.

"Hitler may have thought his best seller "made perfect sense". But was he right?"

Right? Wrong?
Are there no shades of grey in your world?
Just black, white, good, evil.
Nothing in-between.
No wonder you're deluded.

Ironically, Hitler would have approved of your absolutist classification of things as "Right" "Wrong" "Good" "Evil".
He liked things simple too.

"But did it (Darwin's book) make an important contribution to our understanding of evolution?"

But does evolution really exist?

It is a "theory" that *seems* to correlate to reality.
But all scientific theories are superceded.

When evolution is superceded, will you start saying Darwin was "stupid" or "evil"?
("But was he RIGHT?")

"I encourage people to make up their own minds."

Well, that's not "objective".
That's "subjective".

If 500 people read a book, you may get 500 different interpretations.
Where's the "objectively" verifiable opinion?

Even if they all formed the *same* opinion, this is just a sample of 500 specific people.
Choose *another* group of 500, and the results could be the *opposite*!

"Groucho Marx might suit you."
He does.
He's a genius.
(And a Jew. Shouldn't I "hate" him, Frank?)

Shockadelic

I'll spell it out: There is no such thing as 'the Vietnamese race' as a single entity. Therefore it will be problematic comparing them with the Italians. (I won't quibble about the Italians living in Vietnam.)

If my preferring "The Origin of the Species" over "Mein Kampf" is a sin, I'm guilty your Honour. If claimimg the first is a better book than the second proves me 'full of bias and prejudice', I'm also guilty of that.

However, my case is argued on objective merit.

Hitler's 'best seller' is incoherent, illogical and crudely ideological. He was simply wrong in many of his claims about racial superiority and Jewish conspiracies. His political schemes were ill-conceived. It's also badly written, in turgid prose and full of bile. You may find merit in it, but I can't.

Darwin made a systematic attempt to pull together contemporary knowledge available at the time to develop a scientifc explanation of the way species evolved. Of course, later scientists improved on Darwin's errors, but his book was a major contribution to knowledge in a field that is still controversial but developing rapidly.

Your question as to whether Hitler's book was right or wrong seems bizarre in the context of historical consequences. If that makes me 'deluded' in your eyes, I can wear that - proudly.

I'm not sure where you found that I engage in absolutist classification of things as "Right" "Wrong" "Good" "Evil". I thought I was arguing that we best judge things on their merits on transparent criteria. The fact that you berate me for encouraging people to make up their own minds seems to disqualify me from being an absolutist.

I won't bother with your specious argument about 500 different opinions or interpretations of one book among 500 people. I'll deal with realities.

But it's nice to know that Groucho Marx suits you. You tell me that he's a Jew. 'Shouldn't I "hate" him, Frank?', you ask. No, that's not a relevant criterion. But I know one man who wouldn't have allowed his books to be read. Now that's absolutism.

FrankGol: "I'll spell it out."

Are *you* talking to *me*?

No Frank, *I'll* spell it out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_people

"The Vietnamese people are an *ethnic* group, the *majority* ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising *86%* of the population, and are officially known as *Kinh* to distinguish them from other ethnic groups."

So the Kinh are the group who would generally be labelled "the Vietnamese race" or "the Vietnamese culture".

You are confusing nationality with ethnicity.

All the other peoples you mention aren't Vietnamese *ethnically*.
They just share the same nationality on their passports.

"I won't quibble about the Italians *living in* Vietnam."

I wasn't talking about location.
I was talking about identity.

Ethnicity is multi-layered.
But each group within any category has their own identity.

The Latin "race" includes the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian.

And the Latin people are part of the European "race".
And the Europeans are part of the Caucasian "race".

There are *multiple layers* to race just as there is to culture.
And not surprisingly they are *coincidental* layers.

Italian culture is related to the other Latin cultures.
These Latin cultures are part of the same "family" as the other European cultural groups: Germanic, Slavic, Greek, Baltic, Celtic, Armenian, etc.

But that's where it stops.
The European cultures are not related to *all* other Caucasian cultures, such as the Semitic, and ironically the "Caucasian" cultures of the Caucasus (Georgian, Chechen, Dagestanian).

They are distantly related to Indic and Iranian, but the separation was so long ago, little similarity remains.

So while "Italian" may mean many things (Latin, European, Caucasian), it certainly doesn't mean "Vietnamese" (and vice versa).

Why would Italians "need" Vietnamese culture?
Why would the Vietnamese "need" Italian culture?
(They already kicked out the French!)

You cannot separate the historical relationship between biology and culture.
They developed *simultaneously*.
To say it "doesn't matter" is insulting, not respectful.

Anthropologists may not use the term "race" anymore, but unfortunately for you 99.9999999999999% of the 6 billion people on Earth aren't anthropologists.

Just "lay" people with identities they create themselves.
That doesn't make them stupid or evil.

Shocka: "The Latin "race" includes the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian.

And the Latin people are part of the European "race".
And the Europeans are part of the Caucasian "race"."

You still don't get it, do you Shocka? You're talking through arse - there's no such thing as the Latin, European or even Caucasian "races", except in the tiny minds of racists.