RuKsaK

I’m reading a book by Umberto Eco slowly – I read only slowly nowadays.
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It’s a serious book and it’s hard to take serious because of his name. Call it onomatopoeic prejudice or just asinine, but his name just sounds a bit daft to me. Eco?
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Anyway, there was a quotation in the book I wanted to share, so I was looking for it to tell Natasha. I spent 20 mins looking for it and didn’t find it, so paraphrased:
‘Well, it’s like people are stupid, is what he’s saying. He says it better, but I can’t find it, can I? Anyway, it’s like, he’s talking about the Templars. These weird knights who had all these esoteric rituals like kissing each other on the arse in front of a cat called something beginning with ‘B’. But, anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that he talks about problems with human thinking – that we all try to understand life, which is chaos, but it’s the trying to understand which makes us kill each other. I mean he said it better, but I can’t find it. It’s like the Muslims though isn’t it? I mean like the issues with Islam, don’t you agree. I mean with perceptions and hate –what do you think?’‘I don’t know honey – shouldn’t you get some sleep.’
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It’s about how things are put.
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One guy, Stephen Krashen, is one the foremost scholars on language acquisition. He talks about the factors which affect the intake of language. He calls one of these the ‘affective filter’. If you do a Net search for his name or this term, you’ll find shitloads. If you click on any of those, and read around, it becomes apparent that the ‘affective filter’ means being shy and afraid to speak. So, he’s given an academic, smart name to ‘this student is shy.’ He’s minted as well as respected now – like anyone ever really needed both.
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Krashen probably has two-way conversations with his missus.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

The Templars