Word: misunderstanding
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...original mission was negative. The word was introduced at the end of a book that otherwise must have seemed entirely devoted to extolling the "selfish" gene as the be-all and end-all of evolution, the fundamental unit of selection. There was a risk that my readers would misunderstand the message as being necessarily about DNA molecules. On the contrary, DNA was incidental. The real unit of natural selection is any kind of replicator, any unit of which copies are made, with occasional errors, and with some influence or power over their own probability of replication. Perhaps we'd have...
Well, Hitler appeared to be good for some Germans too. But the dimmest bulb in Hollywood could hardly misunderstand what the Taliban is about. Disagreement comes only from oil-hungry corporations and relief groups fearful they'll be kicked out for criticizing the regime. There are 130 human-rights and women's groups aligned against recognizing the Taliban. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared that "if the Taliban...wants international acceptance, they must treat women not as chattel but as people." There's no religious justification for the behavior: the 55-country Organization of the Islamic Conference refused to admit...
...create a broader awareness of the human condition, in a particular place or in every place. But to assume that getting kids to listen to hip-hop is the key way to bring about that awareness and that change is really to misunderstand the way both music and the phenomenon of social change work. And if you expect commercial radio stations to be on the front lines of political or cultural battles, you need to realize that commercial radio in Boston, like commercial radio everywhere, is not about black and white--it's about green. But good music is still...
...moralists misunderstand two things. One is that Starr's rejection by most Americans was itself an ironic triumph of conservatism. For the past 50 years the right has claimed that government can't perform most public purposes, whether those might be educating kids, caring for the poor or buying toilet seats for aircraft carriers at popular prices. This was an attack that started, of course, in the antigovernment rhetoric of the 1960s left. In the '90s Gingrich and his House revolutionaries consolidated that critique and focused it on Congress, assuring us that the place was a ship of fools...
Within this framework of upbeat and catchy music, it is often difficult to take the messages of the songs on Why Do They Rock So Hard seriously. Perhaps the inconsistency of the music and the lyrics is a failing, allowing listeners to willfully misunderstand or ignore the meanings that Reel Big Fish are attempting to express. But the inconsistency may also serve to highlight alternative music's disturbing acceptance of conflict. And besides, if Reel Big Fish set their lyrics to appropriately violent music, their songs would not be nearly as much...