Blue dress redux

[Vort]

Demonstrating that even a broken clock is right twice per day, MSN put up an article of value -- in fact, one of the most amazing and fascinating articles I remember reading in a very long time.

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/no-one-could-see-the-color-blue-until-modern-times/ar-BBi3GwP

 

We see (and hear, and feel) what we have been taught to see (and hear, and feel). We tend to think of things as "true" and "false" or as "right" and "wrong", but in fact our preconditioning determines what kinds of things we are able to sense. For example, feminism as a whole is an ugly disease, not because it contains no truths -- on the contrary, it contains many truths -- but because it teaches its adherents to sense things in an ugly way. In contrast, the gospel is as true at least as much for how it teaches us to view things as for what it teaches us to believe.

[Crypto]

I saw this article posted on facebook, I got a completely different view and feel from what was presented there. I REALLY like your take on this.

 

Also of interest is Gods ways are higher than our ways. I bet he knew about the color blue ;D Not because we couldn't see it, but maybe not notice it, didn't have the language to describe it, the thoughts for it.

Oh, as a side note, i've done color matching tests, and normally get 90%+ on them...but didn't on that green image circle, but when comparing the colors singly in a neutral background could tell the difference. Interesting to note.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Crypto

[lagarthaaz]

While I agree that much of what we believe is perception, the content of the article you posted is seriously flawed. Because it doesn't make much sense to me, I am finding it hard to make a comparison with gospel principles. 

 

Ok, inner history student coming out here on the problems with the article... it's really pointless to speculate on a practice merely by referring to 'the Greeks' since their culture spans thousands of years and multiple societies. Even if the name of the color 'blue' isn't identified as such, the color itself is evident in artwork all over the world dating from many thousands of years ago. The author claims that "It seemed the Greeks lived in murky and muddy world, devoid of color, mostly black and white and metallic, with occasional flashes of red or yellow" and "The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye."

 

Neither of those statements can be true - the ancient Minoans who were precursors of what we tend to think of as the classical Greeks, lived thousands of years before Homer wrote the 'Odyssey' in 750BC. Minoan art uses plenty of blue in their frescoes - blue dolphins, dresses, hair ribbons, as well as blue sky and water. Blue can also be found in the artwork of various eras of ancient Roman history. The oldest civilizations in Mesopotamia (4000BC at least) used blue in artwork as well: http://www.academia.edu/2026013/Colour_Symbolism_in_Ancient_Mesopotamia   I'm pretty sure if someone expert in ancient languages looked hard enough they would find a word that labels the blue dye and pigments used by ancient artists.  I don't know why anyone would write an entire article on the supposed lack of 'blue' in the ancient world - it's not at all a supportable hypothesis. 

 

You made the general statement stereotyping 'feminism' as 'bad' and therefore the antithesis of gospel truth - "For example, feminism as a whole is an ugly disease, not because it contains no truths -- on the contrary, it contains many truths -- but because it teaches its adherents to sense things in an ugly way."   Again, the term 'feminist'  (like the term 'ancient society') has many interpretations, and is certainly not an 'ugly disease' for ALL women. I don't need to tell anyone that if it wasn't for certain feminists who have gone before us, we wouldn't be enjoying the rights we have to education, work and the freedom to determine our own futures.  If it wasn't for those who believe in women's rights today (if that sounds less 'dirty' than the word 'feminists'), no-one would be fighting against domestic and sexual violence, the sexual exploitation of women and girls in western society,  and the terrible acts of abuse and mutilation that girls and women endure in third-world countries. Yes there are extremes in feminism, but let's not throw out the proverbial 'baby with the bathwater' since we have much to thank 'feminism' for. 

 

My understanding of early Utah history is not extensive, but I have read that women in the early church were no shrinking violets and the Suffrage Movement was alive and well in Utah. In fact wasn't Utah also one of the first states to give women the vote? The tenets of feminism were alive and well - certainly not 'ugly' and most definitely used to improve the rights of women. 

 

*steps off soapbox* 

 

"In contrast, the gospel is as true at least as much for how it teaches us to view things as for what it teaches us to believe." - and on that point I completely agree with you :)

Edited March 2, 2015 by lagarthaaz

[Jamie123]

It reminds me of when I was at school, in physics class, the teacher was explaining Newton's "experimentum crucis" - when a beam of light isolated from the spectrum produced by a prism was passed through a second prism to see if any further divergence would occur. (It didn't - thus proving that divergence or "splitting" of white light was caused by its containing many different colours. Light of a single colour did not have the same effect.)

 

Anyway, the teacher told us (incorrectly I now believe) that Newton wanted to see if he could split (for example) red light into other, hitherto undiscovered colours. A friend of mine said "That would have been great! He might have found turquoise! They didn't know about that colour back then."

 

What?!! Not know about turquoise? Really?

 

Had no one - ever - thought of mixing blue and green paint together until after the time of Newton? I didn't believe that for one second.

 

Looking back, I think my friend must have read somewhere that turquoise hadn't been "discovered" by fashion designers - or some such people - as a suitable colour for their products until some particular time - maybe the 1960's - and totally misunderstood the meaning.

 

As for blue though, what about the convention that the virgin Mary should be depicted in art wearing a blue headscarf? I'm no art historian, but I believe that idea goes back quite a long way!  

[Jamie123]

Something else has just occurred to me...

 

The brown uniforms that the Nazis used to wear (e.g. http://www.usmbooks.com/images/ORGbk/1936OrgBk/NSOB36-5.jpg) As a kid - even after seeing many WW2 movies - if you'd asked me what colour they were I'd have said "dark green". It was only years later when I read about the "brown shirts" that I realized my mistake.

 

I suppose it's because that's the colour I expected military uniforms to be, and that's what I thought I saw.  

[NightSG]

The brown uniforms that the Nazis used to wear (e.g. http://www.usmbooks.com/images/ORGbk/1936OrgBk/NSOB36-5.jpg) As a kid - even after seeing many WW2 movies - if you'd asked me what colour they were I'd have said "dark green". It was only years later when I read about the "brown shirts" that I realized my mistake.

 

Or possibly you saw color photos of the Ordnungspolizei, who wore pretty similar, but dark green uniforms.  If most of the other stuff you saw was black and white, it would be a logical conclusion.

[Vort]

While I agree that much of what we believe is perception, the content of the article you posted is seriously flawed. Because it doesn't make much sense to me, I am finding it hard to make a comparison with gospel principles. 

 

Ok, inner history student coming out here on the problems with the article... it's really pointless to speculate on a practice merely by referring to 'the Greeks' since their culture spans thousands of years and multiple societies. Even if the name of the color 'blue' isn't identified as such, the color itself is evident in artwork all over the world dating from many thousands of years ago.

Just curious if you actually read the article or just skimmed it. Do you understand the underlying point it was making? It was not suggesting that the color blue didn't exist or wasn't perceived in ancient times, only that it wasn't defined and therefore not considered a separate color.

 

The author claims that "It seemed the Greeks lived in murky and muddy world, devoid of color, mostly black and white and metallic, with occasional flashes of red or yellow" and "The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye."

 

Neither of those statements can be true - the ancient Minoans who were precursors of what we tend to think of as the classical Greeks, lived thousands of years before Homer wrote the 'Odyssey' in 750BC. Minoan art uses plenty of blue in their frescoes - blue dolphins, dresses, hair ribbons, as well as blue sky and water. Blue can also be found in the artwork of various eras of ancient Roman history. The oldest civilizations in Mesopotamia (4000BC at least) used blue in artwork as well: http://www.academia.edu/2026013/Colour_Symbolism_in_Ancient_Mesopotamia   I'm pretty sure if someone expert in ancient languages looked hard enough they would find a word that labels the blue dye and pigments used by ancient artists.  I don't know why anyone would write an entire article on the supposed lack of 'blue' in the ancient world - it's not at all a supportable hypothesis.

Again, did you read the article or just skim it? It was not a peer-reviewed treatise, more of a Popular Science-level treatment. Your example of the Mesopotamians and Minoans is irrelevant, since the Egyptian culture predates both. But I agree that the statement that Egyptians were the first ancient culture to develop a word for "blue" is silly -- even making such an assertion assumes that we have a profound enough understanding of history and philology to be able to make such a determination, which I don't believe we do. ("We" as in the human race and the current state of knowledge, not merely "we" as in those taking part in the present conversation.)

 

Do you understand what the authors were driving at? From my perspective, you appear to be getting hung up on irrelevant minutiae. Whether the Egyptians were the "first" to develop a word for blue (IMO a silly statement, as I have already noted) or the Greeks the "first" to invent a blue dye (an equally silly statement, if for no other reason than "blue" is ill-defined in this context; the authors cannot possibly believe that literally no one throughout history ever made a blue-tinted dye before the Greeks did, regardless of what color they might have identified it as being). Societies develop the idea of color with time, and blue is toward the end of the development chain. The very article you cite makes this clear:

 

Near Eastern scholars have identified five core linguistic terms for colour in Mesopotamian texts. These terms do not match modern notions of hue, but are relatively consistent with the theoretical model developed by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay in the 1970s. This model argued that cultures evolve a linguistic vocabulary for colour as social complexity develops. They established a clear seven stage pattern for colour word evolution which begins with the simplest concept, the notion of light and dark; the colours white and black. Subsequently a language then acquires terms for red, either yellow or green, green or yellow, to blue, then brown and so on until finally the more blended tints like grey, pink, orange and purple.

 

The point is, our language defines our understanding. This obvious-seeming point is forgotten almost immediately in almost every discussion we see. When you invent a term for something -- "autism", for example, or "ADHD" -- that thing suddenly becomes apparent. You can see it, not because it didn't exist before, but because you had no way to label and categorize it. "ADHD" children were simply inattentive jerks, and "autistic" people were mentally retarded. The existence of a term changes our understanding of what is represented by that term.

 

In Italian, they have a word, abbiocco, which refers to the drowsiness you might feel after a big meal. But the very fact that they have a word for that feeling normalizes the feeling, changing the Italian perception of that occurrence relative to what an English speaker's perspective might be.

 

What if we didn't have a word for "blue"? What if we looked at blue as just another shade of green, or maybe purple? How would that change our perception of the world around us -- the sky, the US flag, clothes we wear -- to say nothing of the meaning we invest in blue, such as nobility ("blue-blooded") or purity or sadness ("feeling blue") or other such things?

 

You made the general statement stereotyping 'feminism' as 'bad' and therefore the antithesis of gospel truth - "For example, feminism as a whole is an ugly disease, not because it contains no truths -- on the contrary, it contains many truths -- but because it teaches its adherents to sense things in an ugly way."   Again, the term 'feminist'  (like the term 'ancient society') has many interpretations, and is certainly not an 'ugly disease' for ALL women.

Oh, yes, feminism is indeed an ugly disease for all women, and all men, too, and for all chidren. Feminism is a pox on humanity. Because I control what I mean when I say "feminism", and when I say "feminism", I am referring specifically to that body of beliefs that define 21st century feminism and that are in direct contradiction to divine understanding of things like the central sanctity of family.

 

Granted, if you define feminism as "a profound appreciation of decency, puppies, and mother love," then you can't very well say anything bad about it. I realize there are any number of people who will say eye-rolling things like, "Feminism is the radical belief that women are human beings", and thus conclude that Jesus Christ himself was the first and ultimate "feminist". I suppose you could define "rapist" or "Nazi" in a like manner and conclude that Jesus was one of those, but I reject such dishonesty in labeling.

 

I don't need to tell anyone that if it wasn't for certain feminists who have gone before us, we wouldn't be enjoying the rights we have to education, work and the freedom to determine our own futures.

How do you possibly know this? Do you honestly believe that no one cared about women before the advent of modern feminism? Or are you among those who label as "feminist" any ancient personality who exhibited love and tenderness and concern toward women? If so, this conversation is doomed.

 

If it wasn't for those who believe in women's rights today (if that sounds less 'dirty' than the word 'feminists'), no-one would be fighting against domestic and sexual violence, the sexual exploitation of women and girls in western society,  and the terrible acts of abuse and mutilation that girls and women endure in third-world countries.

And if it weren't for those who believe in men's rights today, no one would be fighting against domestic and sexual violence, the sexual exploitation of women and girls in western society,  and the terrible acts of abuse and mutilation that boys and men endure in third-world countries.

 

In other words, decent people OF ALL AGES try to establish justice and humanity. This has nothing at all to do with "feminism".

 

Yes there are extremes in feminism, but let's not throw out the proverbial 'baby with the bathwater' since we have much to thank 'feminism' for.

Only if you define "feminism" in an untenable and useless way (which it appears you do).

 

My understanding of early Utah history is not extensive, but I have read that women in the early church were no shrinking violets and the Suffrage Movement was alive and well in Utah. In fact wasn't Utah also one of the first states to give women the vote?

True, demonstrating that "feminism" has little to do with advancing the cause of women. Those old Latter-day Saint women certainly were not feminists by any reasonable modern definition, and to a woman would doubtless have rejected the bulk of what current "feminism" teaches.

 

The tenets of feminism were alive and well - certainly not 'ugly' and most definitely used to improve the rights of women.

That is a tremendously naive view of the tenets of feminism.

 

"In contrast, the gospel is as true at least as much for how it teaches us to view things as for what it teaches us to believe." - and on that point I completely agree with you  :)

Well, at least there's that.

Edited March 2, 2015 by Vort

[Vort]

As for blue though, what about the convention that the virgin Mary should be depicted in art wearing a blue headscarf? I'm no art historian, but I believe that idea goes back quite a long way!  

In western literature, the philological development of "blue", both as a word and as an idea, vastly predate Christ himself, to say nothing of medieval-era art.

[mordorbund]

The gospel-related topic that came to mind in reading the article (especially with the color test) was the phrase "seeing they see not". I'm staring at the wheel trying to find the green that's different. Even when it's pointed out to me I still don't see it. Rationally I can understand that it may be different, but I simply lack the experience for that to be my view.

[Just_A_Guy]

In western literature, the philological development of "blue", both as a word and as an idea, vastly predate Christ himself, to say nothing of medieval-era art.

 

Yeah, it was weird to me to see the article say that the Hebrews had no concept of "blue"; because doesn't Exodus or Leviticus specifically state that part of the high priest's vestments are blue?

[Vort]

Yeah, it was weird to me to see the article say that the Hebrews had no concept of "blue"; because doesn't Exodus or Leviticus specifically state that part of the high priest's vestments are blue?

Maybe I should clarify that I thought the article was amazing because of the ideas it opened up to consideration, not because I thought it was particularly well-crafted. (This is MSN we're talking about, after all.)

[mordorbund]

Yeah, it was weird to me to see the article say that the Hebrews had no concept of "blue"; because doesn't Exodus or Leviticus specifically state that part of the high priest's vestments are blue?

 

Josephus says the blue color was used as a symbol of the heavens (his explanation of temple symbolism was largely grounded in nature).

[mordorbund]

Josephus says the blue color was used as a symbol of the heavens (his explanation of temple symbolism was largely grounded in nature).

 

For references, see Antiquities of the Jews 3.6-7, with a special nod to 3.7.7.

 

 

 

 

Now here one may wonder at the ill-will which men bear to us, and which they profess to bear on account of our despising that Deity which they pretend to honor; for if any one do but consider the fabric of the tabernacle, and take a view of the garments of the high priest, and of those vessels which we make use of in our sacred ministration, he will find that our legislator was a divine man, and that we are unjustly reproached by others; for if any one do without prejudice, and with judgment, look upon these things, he will find they were every one made in way of imitation and representation of the universe. When Moses distinguished the tabernacle into three parts, and allowed two of them to the priests, as a place accessible and common, he denoted the land and the sea, these being of general access to all; but he set apart the third division for God, because heaven is inaccessible to men. And when he ordered twelve loaves to be set on the table, he denoted the year, as distinguished into so many months. By branching out the candlestick into seventy parts, he secretly intimated the Decani, or seventy divisions of the planets; and as to the seven lamps upon the candlesticks, they referred to the course of the planets, of which that is the number. The veils, too, which were composed of four things, they declared the four elements; for the fine linen was proper to signify the earth, because the flax grows out of the earth; the purple signified the sea, because that color is dyed by the blood of a sea shell-fish; the blue is fit to signify the air; and the scarlet will naturally be an indication of fire. Now the vestment of the high priest being made of linen, signified the earth; the blue denoted the sky, being like lightning in its pomegranates, and in the noise of the bells resembling thunder. And for the ephod, it showed that God had made the universe of four elements; and as for the gold interwoven, I suppose it related to the splendor by which all things are enlightened. He also appointed the breastplate to be placed in the middle of the ephod, to resemble the earth, for that has the very middle place of the world. And the girdle which encompassed the high priest round, signified the ocean, for that goes round about and includes the universe. Each of the sardonyxes declares to us the sun and the moon; those, I mean, that were in the nature of buttons on the high priest's shoulders. And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months, or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the Zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning. And for the mitre, which was of a blue color, it seems to me to mean heaven; for how otherwise could the name of God be inscribed upon it? That it was also illustrated with a crown, and that of gold also, is because of that splendor with which God is pleased. Let this explication suffice at present, since the course of my narration will often, and on many occasions, afford me the opportunity of enlarging upon the virtue of our legislator. 

[Blackmarch]

I found the last bit about the relationship between defining colors and being able to recognise colors or differences in colors to be interesting. I thiunk theres quite a bit of truth to that- our brains actually fill in a lot of information gaps (which is why many illusions work), so I could see some colors getting shifted somewhat in a person's perception.

[lagarthaaz]

 

Just curious if you actually read the article or just skimmed it. Do you understand the underlying point it was making? It was not suggesting that the color blue didn't exist or wasn't perceived in ancient times, only that it wasn't defined and therefore not considered a separate color.

 

Again, did you read the article or just skim it? It was not a peer-reviewed treatise, more of a Popular Science-level treatment.

 

Of course I read it, otherwise I wouldn't be posting in response to your comments on it. I agree with what you are saying about how language can define our perceptions or reality - but I don't feel the article used well-supported evidence to make that point. In fact the historical examples are just plain inaccurate so I don't know why the author bothered using them. 

 

Your example of the Mesopotamians and Minoans is irrelevant, since the Egyptian culture predates both.

 

No way,  Egyptian culture did not predate the Mesopotamians, even if you refer to the beginnings of each society's culture. Mesopotamian civilization and the Sumerians emerged at by least 4000-4500BC and there is archaeological evidence that they may even go back to 10,000BC. The beginnings of Egyptian society began around 5500BC, but 'civilization in Egypt comparable to the Mesopotamians didn't begin until 3050BC. Anyway, you are right that none of this really matters if the discussion is only about language constructs. It does matter if examples from ancient civilizations are being used as evidence to support that idea.   

 

 From my perspective, you appear to be getting hung up on irrelevant minutiae.

 

How is giving inaccurate examples from history to support an argument -  irrelevant? How can the author make a credible argument when they apparently couldn't even be bothered checking even the most basic facts about the ancient societies referred to?

 

Whether the Egyptians were the "first" to develop a word for blue (IMO a silly statement, as I have already noted) or the Greeks the "first" to invent a blue dye (an equally silly statement, if for no other reason than "blue" is ill-defined in this context; the authors cannot possibly believe that literally no one throughout history ever made a blue-tinted dye before the Greeks did, regardless of what color they might have identified it as being). Societies develop the idea of color with time, and blue is toward the end of the development chain. The very article you cite makes this clear:

 

Near Eastern scholars have identified five core linguistic terms for colour in Mesopotamian texts. These terms do not match modern notions of hue, but are relatively consistent with the theoretical model developed by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay in the 1970s. This model argued that cultures evolve a linguistic vocabulary for colour as social complexity develops. They established a clear seven stage pattern for colour word evolution which begins with the simplest concept, the notion of light and dark; the colours white and black. Subsequently a language then acquires terms for red, either yellow or green, green or yellow, to blue, then brown and so on until finally the more blended tints like grey, pink, orange and purple.

 

 

The point is, our language defines our understanding. This obvious-seeming point is forgotten almost immediately in almost every discussion we see. When you invent a term for something -- "autism", for example, or "ADHD" -- that thing suddenly becomes apparent. You can see it, not because it didn't exist before, but because you had no way to label and categorize it. "ADHD" children were simply inattentive jerks, and "autistic" people were mentally retarded. The existence of a term changes our understanding of what is represented by that term.

 

In Italian, they have a word, abbiocco, which refers to the drowsiness you might feel after a big meal. But the very fact that they have a word for that feeling normalizes the feeling, changing the Italian perception of that occurrence relative to what an English speaker's perspective might be.

 

What if we didn't have a word for "blue"? What if we looked at blue as just another shade of green, or maybe purple? How would that change our perception of the world around us -- the sky, the US flag, clothes we wear -- to say nothing of the meaning we invest in blue, such as nobility ("blue-blooded") or purity or sadness ("feeling blue") or other such things?

 

Yes, I get it. Language constructs meaning for us. Thank you for sharing your understanding of this.

 

Oh, yes, feminism is indeed an ugly disease for all women, and all men, too, and for all chidren. Feminism is a pox on humanity. Because I control what I mean when I say "feminism", and when I say "feminism", I am referring specifically to that body of beliefs that define 21st century feminism and that are in direct contradiction to divine understanding of things like the central sanctity of family.

 

If that's how you define feminism, then you are right. 

 

Granted, if you define feminism as "a profound appreciation of decency, puppies, and mother love," then you can't very well say anything bad about it. I realize there are any number of people who will say eye-rolling things like, "Feminism is the radical belief that women are human beings", and thus conclude that Jesus Christ himself was the first and ultimate "feminist".

 

Feminism in its various forms has articulated the idea that women have the right to determine the course of their own lives.

 

I suppose you could define "rapist" or "Nazi" in a like manner and conclude that Jesus was one of those, but I reject such dishonesty in labeling.

 

Sorry, I can't even go there even for the sake of making a point on an internet forum. 

 

How do you possibly know this?

 

The historical record on the treatment of women and notions of womanhood in every known society on speaks for itself.

 

Do you honestly believe that no one cared about women before the advent of modern feminism? Or are you among those who label as "feminist" any ancient personality who exhibited love and tenderness and concern toward women? If so, this conversation is doomed.

 

It wasn't until the modern feminism movement that anything of substance began to change for women - so yeah, I would say that in general no-one in power really cared too much about women in the past. 

 

And if it weren't for those who believe in men's rights today, no one would be fighting against domestic and sexual violence, the sexual exploitation of women and girls in western society,  and the terrible acts of abuse and mutilation that boys and men endure in third-world countries. In other words, decent people OF ALL AGES try to establish justice and humanity. This has nothing at all to do with "feminism".

 

What a lovely, rosy view of the world.   And while the above statement may be true in some of  today's society  - surely you know that 'decent people' in ancient times had laws, rules and norms that treated women as chattel. Plenty of societies today do exactly the same thing to women - and who are the people agitating for change against those who oppress and exploit women? In the main - it's women.

 

Only if you define "feminism" in an untenable and useless way (which it appears you do).

 

And that's just rude and patronizing. Feminism has not been 'untenable and useless' for me in my experiences as a woman.

 

True, demonstrating that "feminism" has little to do with advancing the cause of women. Those old Latter-day Saint women certainly were not feminists by any reasonable modern definition, and to a woman would doubtless have rejected the bulk of what current "feminism" teaches.   

 

 I would love to have a chat back and forth about women and feminism  in the early lds church, but time is against me.

 

That is a tremendously naive view of the tenets of feminism.

 

Says you.