How Did You Say?
Recently reading sunsmogseahorse's entries on religion -- as well as reading clarkelane's entries about the importance of artists' engaging with critical discourse -- have lead me to think a lot about the roles of religion/spirituality, science, art, and politics/ethics. More than that, they've reminded me to search a seam that unites these discourse/disciplines
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I just have no idea what point you are trying to make in regards to the discussion at hand.
Outside of the "Religion vs Science" thing. I do think this kind of phiosophy has value. It's stimulating and forces one to think about their own opinions. The mistake people make with phisophy is that they tend to think it provides answers. It doesn't. It provides questions.
Here, in this discourse, it is very misplaced.
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I am not sure what you intend or don't intend, but this is what you did: This is all very cute: Immediately dismissive ridicule without any up-front justification. Later, you say how you see the quotes are unrelated to yours and Ted's comments/arguments. I never claimed it was in directresponse to either; I only said that Ted's posts had made me think about some things and that I felt these quotes were pertinent to several people's questions in their journals ... definitely not just Ted's ( ... )
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How can one denounce something as wrong without unnecessarily turning it into an ad hominem attack? I'd say that in general one should not but some people deserve it.
Is it ever wrong to call someone a bad person? (I'd say yes but this must be done carefully.)
Is judgment always wrong? I'd that to be overly judgemental is but sometimes it's engaging critical thinking. A total lack of judgement, an acceptance of all, doesn't work. Let's say your sister's getting the crap beaten out of her by her husband. Shall we not judge that?
Is judging something as wrong or stupid the same as not tolerating it? Not at all. I think religion is stupid. However I don't want to bar people from worshipping however they choose. I will speak my mind about it though.
I guess the question is how to do so without alientating them and bringing them over to the dark side with me, bwah hah hah. And seducing their menfolk, getting them addicted to heroin and all that good stuff. You know, the usual.
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I will say a couple of things, though. You have no idea how much I really admire -- groove on -- your move to re-win space for lively public discussion away from the poisonous "live-and-let-live" attitude that turns everything private. You've really given me a lot to chew on by pushing that issue.
So, I am fine with judgement. I think, though, that you often mix signals. In some of your posts, you mix an appeal to understand others with pure invective and the dismissal of judgement. And, really, at that point, there's no discussion necessary. And you seem almost resolutely unchanged by some of the really sophisticated, different arguments I've read in your comments section.
I think that the last part of what you say here is a good move, what I've seen you begin to ask recently. I think your purposes are hardly served by the kind of invective, abstract but ( ... )
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What you're promoting is a good public policy. But I'm not the Rand Institute or an arm of government. I am one pissed-off, secular faggot. I deserve to be able to hold a tirade.
On balance the progressive movement is not going to be advanced by using such tirades as its major form of communication. But their occasional use is cathartic and can be a source of truth.
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Maybe I'll post about this by the time this flap has cooled a little, but this discussion has made me look at the ways that I communicate when I am trying to have an intellectual discussion. I am noticing that I tend to use what I deem an "objective" tone while almost always emphasizing specific differences in the way I see things and the way the person I am speaking to sees things. I do this -- at root -- because I am actually turned on by little differences in folks' thoughts. But, it's pointed out to me -- in a lot of contexts -- lately that I rarely take the time to express the excitement I feel over some of those differences and that I even more rarely reach to find commonalities.
I've been told this penchant makes me appear to at least be exhorting others to take my view, if not judging them implicitly for believing differently -- even when our intellectual projects share the same goal. I always imagine I am just offering another thought- ( ... )
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It seems to me though that there could be a bit more resilience around disagreement. I want vigorous debate, not everyone making soft, cooing sounds to each other. It's not that I'm advocating hostility but what's wrong with a well-indended tussle?
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Respectfully, here's my take on some of these discussions of late, Ted.
Over time I've come to genuinely believe that the content of our arguments and the discursive strategies that we employ are of equal importance. So lately I've found myself in the weirdly dissociative position of feeling alienated from people whose arguments I'm pretty much in complete agreement with.
When the pounding, repetitive thrust of someone's argument becomes nothing but a dogged insistence that they are right, it's no longer discourse, it becomes mere self-aggrandizement and nothing more. To me, that's a real turn-off.
And I think it's a mistake to assume that the alternative is namby-pamby "let's all get along" wishy-washiness. To my mind, it's all about the value of self-interrogation in terms of determining the most useful and productive if admittedly not always harmonious ways we dissent with one another.
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There are things that people do and think that are stupid and toxic. Racism, violence, homophobia, perpetuation of poverty, and in my opinion, belief in the supernatural, which leads to thinking that one has divine authority to do whatever he chooses in the name of religion.
Tell me where I cross t he line. You'll have to be pretty specific because maybe I'm dense but I really don't see it. I'm open to you telling me something that I don't get already.
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There's a needed place for firmness, let's say, but I really do believe it should be qualified, necessary, thoughtful, and important when it comes along.
Hot chocolate, big sweatshirts, afternoon on your glider? ;)
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