WHAT ROUGH BEAST? America sits of the edge

perception wrote:

Do I detect a complete dislocation between visual perception and the end target in the brain?

Sounds to me like you need to re-boot your detector.

I'm at a loss to figure out what has made Craven decide to drop, as he has done several times now in the past couple of months, into vigorous but peaceable discussions and lay a trip on one or another participant. There's a personal aspect (the part I call sickening and embarrassing because I was sickened by it and embarrassed for him) which doesn't need airing here. To the extent to which these drop-ins dampen or narrow discussion, I find them sad and inexplicable. I think Blatham has been remarkably congenial about it. Where I would differ is in the importance given to whether we all like each other. There are a lot of enormously likeable people here, but for me the issue is trustworthiness, not likeability. I think the level of trust took a hit last night in this thread.

I'm at a loss to figure out what has made Craven decide to drop, as he has done several times now in the past couple of months, into vigorous but peaceable discussions and lay a trip on one or another participant.

There's a personal aspect (the part I call sickening and embarrassing because I was sickened by it and embarrassed for him) which doesn't need airing here.

I think Blatham has been remarkably congenial about it.

I think the level of trust took a hit last night in this thread.

First, that there is a style of rhetoric which has evolved in voices from the 'right' which is unique in its anti-intellectualism (the prime examples being Rush and Coulter). I've seen this style, and the cliches which attend it, arrive on abuzz and here (and in other boards and letters to editors) and it is carbon-copy stuff, and deeply unreflective, and uses fallacies with the zest of a pitbull. It's Rupert Murdoch, rather than Walter Cronkite. Though voices on the 'left' can do this too, I am certain that if one could devise some criteria for analysing text to measure this, my perception would be validated.

Second, I do think we are running up against what I and deb point to...a reluctance to investigate negatives about the US presence in the world. And a very deep polarization within America which more than a few smart and experienced polical observers describe as more pronounced than they have witnessed in their lifetimes. It's a critical time, and I think we all intuitively understand that.

It's an open board, which has a lot of positives, but negatives too. One big fat negative seems related to what you point towards...a minority voice can be relegated to a closet, while out in the main room, so many voices are yelling about such different subjects that careful investigation is hobbled by the chaos.

It's the human condition, you are right. Disorderly conduct, though most agreeable in love-making, is a dilemma in many human affairs.

And as to "distasteful activities" my post was focused more on inevitable (or nearly so) group dynamics in which there is an ideology outnumbered by another. "Distasteful isn't something I'd use to describe it.

and I always though Nixon's "I am not a crook" was the most complete example of deep denial of culpability. I guess brevity doesn't count. Although Reagan's explanation of Irangate "I don't remember" has to rank pretty high.

I don't know all the motives, not sure I'd want to.

I can guess at them, and that is what I have done. Any time someone speaks of the motivation of others it's ultimately a guess.

Seriously, I think it works like this: when you agree with me i'm brilliant, and when you don't I'm not.

And wanna know the twist? It can be no other way, unless you purposefully hold opinions you consider to be wrong.