@kennethamy,
Oh, Ken, i feel like a dog with a bone, i just can't let it go. i probably should, if i wanted value for my time. But i'm afraid that i feel compelled to answer you one last time in this thread. i'm not quite certain why you feel that "disagree" needs to be substituted for "argue", but i am going to take one last opportunity to disagree with you. If, once you conclude your reading of my post, you inexplicably feel that you have the upper hand, i encourage you to celebrate your superiority with silence. i'm afraid that the two of us have already occupied too much of this thread with our inappropriate exchange. However, even if you do not do so, i make you the promise that i will do so. This is my final post to this thread.
Heretofore, i have attempted to converse with you as i would another functional adult, i tend to be rather blunt, but that attempt does not seem to be particularly effective with you. i've noticed that you do everything in your power to drag people down to your own level. The following (in 2 parts) takes place on the level you have set:
Part the first (linguistic confusion):
kennethamy wrote:I never argue with (I think you must mean, " disagree with") anybody to says what is true, I disagree with those who say false (or silly) things like beginning is spelled so and so. That is just silly since beginning is not a word but what the word "beginning" refers to, and only words can be spelled either correctly or incorrectly. My criticism was nothing like the one you suggest it was. Indeed, I don't even understand what you believe my criticism was.
On page 2 of the thread, when Render made fun of RL for his title's spelling error, you responded by pointing out his punctuation error. When one wants to discuss a word rather than the object to which the word refers, traditionally one puts quotation marks on either side of the written word to signify that intent. Render failed to conform to this guideline, and you subsequently pointed it out. i cannot say what your ultimate intent was, but (given that your comment was unsolicited) it seemed to be a pointed comment directed at Render, highlighting his own linguistic deficiencies in order to curtail any pretense to superiority he might be gloating in. When Gosh (quite understandably) misunderstood your intent, and accused you of being a spelling Nazi, you did not refer him to the context of your own comment. I cannot imagine, unless you are completely daft, that you were unaware of the confusion, given that it was a confusion created by your own somewhat ambiguous post. Rather than backtrack, and indicate the point at which the confusion erupted, and thus ameliorate it, you took advantage of the confusion to start another argument. I am sure that all of these events have not escaped your notice; but given your profession of ignorance, i am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps these subtleties have escaped you. But after being presented with them, are you capable of admitting that they took place? i'm curious, do you even read the posts to which you respond?
Part II (
The Myth of Sisyphus):
kennethamy wrote:...you struggle with the language, and neither of you is successful. More attention to trying to make what you say clear may help. You might want to start with your understanding of Camus' MOS and explain to me why, my admittedly brief summary of his argument is wrong. Here it is again:
1. There is no good reason for doing anything.
2. Committing suicide is doing something.
Therefore 3, there is no good reason to commit suicide.
That seems (more than ever) a neat and accurate summary of Camus' argument in the MOS. But you might want to mention what it is you think is wrong with it. (After all, you did not reject it in your first post to me. Indeed, you comment on it was "sort of", which would indicate that you thought it was correct, although it needed fleshing out, which I readily admit it does.
Well, to be pedantic, which seems appropriate at the kennethamy level, i didn't say that your original
question was "sort of" correct. I made a noncommittal response to your summary by saying that it was "kind of" close to an accurate interpretation of the text. My intent was to signal that by making a few crucial corrections, your summary would not be entirely wrong. i take responsibility for that intent not being made clear. Clarifying it now, though, let me say that there was no unqualified affirmative component in any of the statements above, including the original one. And although i have take responsibility for the phrasing, i'm afraid that only an entirely inexperienced fumbler could deliberately read it otherwise.
Simply stated, your interpretation of Camus'
The Myth of Sisyphus is incorrect because i
t bears no relation or resemblance to the original text. It does not take cognizance of his crucial distinction between value and meaning. Nor does it appreciate the terms in which the original essay is couched. Let us take a moment, and look more closely at your simple-minded syllogism:
kennethamy wrote:1. There is no good reason for doing anything.
2. Committing suicide is doing something.
Therefore 3, there is no good reason to commit suicide.
Here are a few problems with your formulation as it regards Camus' text:
a) Your syllogism references living in a way that Camus clearly did not. He, rightly, did not identify living with doing.
b) Corollary--He did not identify "a reason for doing anything" with a reason for living, or the value of life.
c) Similarly, he did not deal with any wording as simplistic or reifying as "a reason for doing anything", which no one with any self-conscious experience could take seriously. (In part, because "a reason" implies a particular set of circumstances and a particular result. The very specific term "a reason" has no strict relation to the far more general term "any") The word "reason", in your usage of it, has been undermined from the start by the distinction he makes in the first few pages of the essay between meaning and value.
d.1) Your final statement: " there is no good reason for committing suicide" as a summary of the conclusion to Camus' argument is subject to several of the above criticisms, not the least of which is the disqualification of teleological determinations of living. Camus' conclusion seems far more akin to my summary (""The value of a human life exceeds the value of the meanings attributed to it.") than yours.
d.2) My entire defense of a proper interpretation of Camus'
TMOS has been presented prior to this post. You have not taken any trouble to address it, so i assume that you are incapable of doing so. Nonetheless, I challenge you to attempt it, otherwise your protests will seem like mere feeble gestures of faux-superiority (so much more embarrassing than actual inferiority). Are you capable of constructing an interpretation via actual (and significant) passages from the text, versus your own poor recall of it?
All of the above has been undertaken with an interest in my seeming even marginally "understand-able" to you. Unfortunately for me, most of the onus of proof remains on you. You have tried to belittle me for making unsubstantiated statements. However, on the matter of Camus' meaning, it is you that have made nothing but statements without substantiating them. If you would like to back your own summary up, i invite you to reference the text. Otherwise, it would appear that you are just expressing your own prejudices, with no apparent relation to the essay as written.
Have you ever read Camus' text or have you only read the Cliff-notes? \
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Ken, in my previous posts in this thread i have attempted to cut through your usual bullshit. You may not continence this frankness, but i detect, by your manner, that you might be lonely, and conflict is the only form of interaction that your substantial mental defenses recognize. (Perhaps i am wrong, and your posts are the excrescence of an unusually full life. If that is the case, i apologize for wounding your dignity.) If, on the other hand, you are lonely and want company (even on the interwebz), you could find it here. You and i could be friends, but you have to stop pretending that i am an idiot. i have found, both on the internet and off, that disagreement is not necessarily an impediment to friendship.
i am afraid that you are once again going to say that you find my post confused, unintelligible, and then go on to intentionally misconstrue the all-too-clear language of my post by saying that i struggle with my own mother-tongue. If that is the case, i feel sorry for you. i am sure we will butt heads again, given your rigid and self-limited understanding of a human's experience of language and reality. i hope you appreciate that our conflict is not something i find enjoyable.
