To be more accurate, the embassy reflects the beliefs and values of just those tasked with building the embassy.

This takes literalism and individualism and empiricism to absolutely stubborn lengths. It also denies the possibility of metonymy -- that a part could ever represent a whole. And of course, given this kind of atomist logic, everything falls apart -- culture, science.

Naturally you suspect Dr Daniel Freeman's experiment, because for you it cannot say anything more than how an experimental subject feels about avatars in the lab. Nothing can ever be anything more than what it literally is. Nothing can represent. Language, for you, must be one big lie! And politics!

To clarify: you seem to be rejecting metonymic relationships -- the relationships that make representation possible -- based on the understanding that they're saying x = y, where x is just one thing and y is many. You mistrust that because you see -- correctly -- that x is not y.

But the metonymic relationship is much better represented by the formula Let x = y. In other words, the parties involved agree, contractually, to suspend their disbelief, and let one thing stand for another. That's why Dr Freeman's experiment works. The parties involved agree to act as if his lab decor is a real subway carriage and his video projections real passengers. Having suspended their disbelief, they can relate their feelings -- their projections onto the projections -- usefully to the psychologist.

That's the difference with science, though ... what is, is. Results must be replicated in experiments, etc--suggestions, implicity, etc., are just vague hypotheses. Psychology isn't considered a real science for that reason, it can almost never get past the hypothesis stage of the scientific method; neuroscientists and poets offer better glimpses into the human mind than psychologists today.

You can't apply humanities style elasticity to science, because then it would no longer be science. Post-modernism + science is what gave us creationism, global warming denial, and neo-conservatism.

Don't be silly. I don't doubt that a part can represent a whole -- I just don't assume that every part represents the whole!

I said that Dr. Freeman's experiment was unscientific because no matter how much the subjects think they believe "Let X = Y" (in this case "Let avatars = real human beings"), the subjects will naturally be affected differently by X than by Y.

However, I think I'm belaboring the point here. I found your original post meaningful and thought-provoking, so there is value in pondering these relationships. But just as we should be open-minded in tracing this path from architecture to cultural values, we must also be willing to identify and reject those parts of the analysis that don't hold up to scrutiny.

Well, I certainly don't think that embassy architecture inevitably succeeds in summing up the cultural values of the nation it represents -- "Dutch openness" or whatever. It's more of an aspiration to represent aspirations. And there's no scientific method that I know of to measure cultural aspiration. Not even in the so-called "social sciences". I think you're using the wrong set of tools here.

I'm glad you found it an interesting topic, though.

Your tone sounds like religious/Republican fanaticism, seriously, it's boggling my mind. My boss had an email open today that I quickly glanced at, it was from his father, that had the same exact tone as this and it was about the Vietnam War. Except you didn't write in huge, bold, red and blue font with billions of exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why do you get so worked up about America? It's understandable that there are some aspects of America that you despise, but come on, you clearly accused me of being part of those that skipped over Just as a person's apartment expresses how he or she feels about life, an embassy building projects the beliefs and values of the nation it represents. and it really bugs me when you lump a part as a whole as nedofbaker said. Remember that whole tirade I had a few months ago? That was spurned on by your ignorance and your immense generalizations to make a point in your mind that doesn't make any sense outside of it. I realize that you are a fortress yourself; you'll never change, no matter how much the outside tries to convince you that your points are flawed.

GOD, tl;dr version: I hate it when you make generalizations and jump to conclusions like this and I just hate you sometimes and wish you would admit that you make mistakes

Michelle, that was being said -- across your comment -- to Whimsy. You misunderstood it as being directed to you because your comment stood in between.

What was being said in the rest of the comment still stands.

as a faithful, yet anonymous, reader of this blog, i'm quite amazed by how momus never ever seems to be "wrong" about anything. for every single opposing comment, momus never admits even the possibility of him being a bit far out.

which is intriguing! momus, how come you are always so sure of being "right"?

Oh Jesus, purrlese don't start him off again!