Thank you for your answer. 
What I try to express is that now that you become a sort of "same
civilisation" around the world, it's maybe important that people can
communicate, as I do my best to be able to communicate with you in an other
language than mine.

Measurement is something alike. Today we have an International Units System
which is based on relations between physics fundamental "laws". These laws
are the same for all, as a necessary "language" to be able to understand
each other, with all our cultural differences.

The meter when it is created in 1792, was express as The fundamental Unit
from all the others depend. That means (maybe) that the metric system is
based on hierarchy, from the top to the bottom. The meter has been a piece
of metal since 1889 until 1960.

Is our expression of an International unit "meter" the same then a peace of
metal ?

I wander if I think, with in mind Einstein or Poincaré points of views, a
representation of the world, is it the same representation as Newton or
Laplace expression of the world ? 
If I have just a classical mechanic point of view, can I understand and act
in our today's world ?

Science is international, measurement is international too. What about
shearing knowledge ? Is it normal than just few of us may understand on
which concepts our technologic and scientific world is going on ?

Condorcet wrote, that the laws can decree that every one is free, the
education is the only difference between the members of society. What
education in our world, I mean, as much as we built Europeans learning,
what about international learning ?

What knowledge to shear ? How to shear them ? Is it necessary to shear ?
Who is aloud to learn and who is not ... in the all world ? 

What common world are we building with what knowledge ? 

I haven't any answer, I just try to go far in our social symbolism of
measurement. I am not thinking that we must converge in a similar social
context. We are so rich of our differences, I mean that we might have to
shear a few concepts... science as culture for exempla.

Cordialement
Marie-Ange Cotteret
 
 

At 21:47 22/03/99 +0100, you wrote:
>I enjoyed the ideas in your e-mail.
>
>Your comment about globalization seemed to suggest that the 'unit' (the
metre, the mile, the kilometre etc) is more universally accepted as people
converge in their social context. I find it difficult to subscribe to this
postulation. Globalization seems to be a clear trend toward accentuating
the differences in context of the people in the cultures of the word - both
socially and materially. Globalization and social-stratification seem
fundamentally linked.
>
>Taking a couple of easy examples: to the Brazilian vagrant the perception
of a half-carat diamond is different to my perception of the stone in my
fiancees ring; equally, the pleasure of the marriage of a daughter to a
French parent must be fundamentally different to that of an Indian or
Chinese parent. I think that globalization is forcing a trend toward
individual standards where the measurements used by my neighbour to
quantify an aspect of existence may neither be relevant nor even
understandable by me.
>
>This relativism, in my opinion, is not a virtue. It is the undesirable
consequence of cross-cultural communication. Historically conflicts
propagated ideas across societies. Some cultural heritage perished, making
way for more vigorous cultural payload. We seem trapped in the cycle of
blending societies but being unwilling to let go of aspects of the
previously separated social orders. From this you get extreme reactions
expressed as ethnic-conservatism such as found in topical ethnic conflicts.
>
>In short, I think that the traditional quantitative educational assessment
of children disadvantages a few individuals of each generation. The
'contextual' educational assessment of children disadvantages society each
generation.
>
>Jonathan German-Morris
>
>---------------------------------------
>From: Marie Ange Cotteret <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Question about measurement and education
>Date: 22/03/1999 07:22:29
>---------------------------------------
>
>. . . . snip . . . .
>
>The measurement along our social history has something to do with science,
technology, and social organisation. Every time the politic and geographic
environment has changed, (Charlemagne and the revolution for what I know in
France) language and measurement need schools and learning.
>
>In the group, everyone supposed to know it, as a need to "talk same
languages".
>
>What about now, when our geographic, politic and social world is becoming
one on our planet through globalization ?
>
>. . . . snip . . . . .
>
>

--------------------

Marie-Ange Cotteret
Le village
81140 - Vaour (France) 
[log in to unmask] (Mime Iso latin 1)
http://www.ilink.fr/~mac/sdm/index.html