Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 September 29

= September 29 =

Aesthetics
Is high culture aesthetics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:7471:6C00:659B:E117:6033:4B6 (talk) 11:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:52, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * You master troll Gem fr (talk) 16:52, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The questioner behind the IP is writing a book on culture, one question at a time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:11, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * That word "aesthetics" is not likely to be used by commoners, but "looking good" is something appreciated by all strata of society. SinisterLefty (talk) 16:44, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * What's your definition of a "commoner"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:13, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * not sure about this one, some recent buildings, art pieces, etc. are definitively not "looking good"/"good looking"Gem fr (talk) 16:52, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * More importantly, "beauty is in the eye of the beer holder". --Khajidha (talk) 12:28, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Beauty is is in the eye of the bee-holder. Bus stop (talk) 02:52, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Booty is in the eye of the butt-holder. SinisterLefty (talk) 03:20, 4 October 2019 (UTC)


 * And looking good is only one consideration. If it's cheaper to make a butt-ugly building, then some will choose that. And speaking of butts, we have this giant suppository building, which even has some poo stuck to the sides. SinisterLefty (talk) 22:23, 1 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Aesthetics Gem fr (talk) 16:52, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * High culture --Shantavira|feed me 07:25, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Long books/long publications that compare and contrast two different countries in great detail?
In the past, I discovered this long publication from the US Census Bureau website from 1991 where the statistical agencies of the US and USSR extensively compared and contrasted various statistics for the US and USSR in extremely great detail:

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/1991/demo/ussr.pdf

Also, I discovered this online book from 1998 (though research for this book likely began in 1991 or beforehand since this idea was apparently already mentioned in an article from early 1992: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1992/02/16/ivans-real-face/ab48e7f4-d614-44ab-ba5d-0f90e7cdca13/ ) which extremely extensively compared and contrasted the geography of the US and the former USSR as well as the identities and characteristics of different regions in the US and the former USSR:

https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=works

In turn, this motivated me to ask this question--are there any other long books/long publications--preferably those whose research began in 1991 or beforehand--that compare and contrast two different countries in great detail? I'm talking about books and publications that try to create a sufficiently similar frame of analysis for both countries in order to emphasize their similarities--if that makes sense.

Anyway, any thoughts on this? Futurist110 (talk) 16:48, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * One thought is to look at books on war between 2 nations. They might very well include detailed background info on the two parties at war. For example, in the Iran-Iraq War. SinisterLefty (talk) 16:50, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * That's an interesting suggestion and I will certainly look into it. That said, though, as per my two examples above, I want the entire book/publication to focus on this rather than only a part of this book/publication. Futurist110 (talk) 18:25, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Aside from the obvious question of bias, the South Korean government regularly compares and contrasts the economies of north and south Korea.DOR (HK) (talk) 15:14, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Where exactly does the SK government do this? Also, does the SK government compare SK and NK in any other aspects as well? Futurist110 (talk) 19:53, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * See Ministry of Unification for sources. DOR (HK) (talk) 10:03, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Futurist110 -- You could look at "national character" books (on Wikipedia, the link National character redirects to "Ethnic and national stereotypes", which is not at all the same thing). For example, Salvador de Madariaga wrote "Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards: An Essay in Comparative Psychology", comparing three countries... AnonMoos (talk) 08:00, 4 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Very interesting; thanks! Futurist110 (talk) 20:48, 5 October 2019 (UTC)