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On Mon, 4 Aug 2003, John Cowan wrote: > Invent Yourself scripsit: > > > > Rather, CLL lo'e is about *characteristic* properties. It is characteristic > > > of lions to live in Africa, to have short intestines, and to eat antelope. > > > > Ideal? Prototypical? Definitional? Can you give us an algorithm for > > deriving the "characteristic instance"? Otherwise, I don't know how to > > distinguish it from a stereotype but for the potentially offensive quality > > of the latter. > > le'e stereotypes are subjective (not necessarily offensive); lo'e archetypes > are objective (meaning that all, or all reasonable persons, agree on them; > "it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent"). If lo'e is objective though, there must be an algorithm which we can apply to derive it. Such as, if not "inspect every 'Lion' and thusly compute an average", then "interview every member of your culture and compile a list of the features which a majority of respondents believe are characteristic"; in other words, an aggregate stereotype. -- The Pentagon group believed it had a visionary strategy that would transform Iraq into an ally of Israel, remove a potential threat to the Persian Gulf oil trade and encircle Iran with U.S. friends and allies...