Is debate possible between ignoramuses?How is it possible

who is your fav goil, blatham? Some woman from Bath? ...........well, I never! <sardonic slap> he he he he

Hi Spendius. I'm back but I have a lot of work to do. I have two important reports to complete by Feb 15 and then an article to write, due June 1st. So I may not have as much time as I've had up to now.

The book did arrive and I'll keep up with it......whether I read it and report what it says or the other guy reads it and reports back to me.

It snowed here over the week end and it was a short lived blizzard. It was lovely and fun, however I was mostly indoors in meetings.......still the meetings were very interesting and productive. I've had a very good week.

Lola:-

What's the article about?

spendius.

Lola:-

Is that a smile or a satirical grimace?

And I have now to figure why the post vanished.But I remember it.

What is clinical experience as opposed to any face to face,or post to post,experience.Am I not doing a bit of psychoanalysis when I'm talking to somebody.Is a car salesman?
The difference might just come down to a cash transaction or a qualification certificate,which might be said to amount to the same thing.Education as business deal.

But even taken at face value is there not a danger of what Freud was accused of.That is of having a seriously untypical subject and then drawing general conclusions from the outcome.When the subject is a mental patient conclusions might only be valid not just for mental patients but for that specific condition which could be unique.And even then we are not absolutely clear as to which mental states are to be categorised as pathological.Veblen himself suggested 100 years ago that America was a psychiatric clinic and then there's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.And plenty more in similar vein.
If this war actually is "unnecessary" then what?Your Gov't must be mad if that is true.And you would be in bed with Veblen.
I do agree though that something has to be done about people who present socially unacceptable behaviour patterns and I am glad I am not one of those who's responsibility it is.

spendius.

Lola:-

Have you thought about education as business deal yet?

spendius.

Doing a reprise on Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.

He claims a "manifest difference between the idea of intellect and the idea of intelligence."
Intelligence is seen,by the Columbia prof,as praiseworthy,an excellence of mind narrowly focussed and predictable,manipulative,practical,animal and easily appreciated.

Intellect,he says,is critical,creative and contemplative.It may be seen as unreliable,superfluous,immoral and subversive.In addition,intellect examines,ponders,wonders,theorizes and imagines.It looks for "meanings of situations as a whole".It is a unique quality of human dignity.

He suggests that an educational system which is geared to the selection and development of intelligence is the agreed goal in our societies whereas matters pertaining to intellect are subject to "heated controversies".

Thus-is anti-intellectualism a function of intelligence?And isn't intellectualism what got us into this wonderful cornucopia of goodies?

Is debate possible between an intelligent person and an intellectual?The latter will take it for granted that he is ignorant.

spendius.

Lola:-

I think I will quote some more Hofstadter seeing as how he was professor of history at the university which validated your professional skills.

"We know...that all academic men (sic) are not intellectuals."

The heart of the matter.....is that the professional man lives off ideas,not for them.His professional role,his professional skills,do not make him an intellectual.He is a mental worker,a technician."

"As a professional,he has aquired a stock of mental skills that are for sale."

Hofstadter goes on to list more qualities of the intellectual as -disinterested intelligence,generalizing power,free speculation,fresh observation,creative novelty and radical criticism.

Do you think it is possible for a meaningful debate between an intellectual and a mental technician to take place.

The above quotes are in the chapter On The Unpopularity of Intellect in the book mentioned.

spendius.

one clarification before I venture an opinion......is it possible to be an intellectual without credentials?

I suppose that's what Hofstat is saying, but it's been a while since I read that book. If I weren't working on another paper with a deadline of Feb. 15, I'd go get it off the shelf and check it out.

Oh, did I tell you? I got the Goddess book, but someone else has confiscated it for the time being. He says it's great.

Allo Lola:-

Good to hear from you again.

Yes,of course one can be an intellectual with no credentials.In fact credentials may well as Hoffie says undermine the condition.Dante,Mozart,Picasso,Einstein,Juvenal,Shakespeare,Galileo (there's too many to list) had no credentials to speak of.

But don't forget how unpopular Mr H says intellectuals are.Veblen is a supreme example.An intellectual would refer to a suburban housing project as a neat arrangement of breeding hutches.
And the educational system as a child-minding operation.Nukes as advanced fireworks.God as a good sales gimmick.They are not very nice people really Lola except when they want to be.The prof likens intellectualism to religious piety and children playing.Veblen-the "idle curiosity".It is to do with education as business deal as opposed to high jinks.
I'm glad about your book being nicked.I like the idea.There's a hilarious footnote in it which gives Hughes's whole position away.Imagine him elaborating on that when sheeted.

PS.In your article avoid anything like "clumps of black iron grapes".

Best wishes

spendius.

Somebody just put You Belong To me on.The version from off Natural Born Killers.

Lola:-

The footnote mentioned is on p 11.

spendius.

What, you don't like "clumps of black iron grapes?" Where's your Faustian artistic sense? Humph!

But the article isn't likely to give me an opportunity to weave poetic verse. It's all about sales and tricky dialogue. It's about gettin down with folks. About sweeping the corridors and washing of hands. And there's a lot of sex and symbolism. I find that the spider, octopus and giant squid take up a lot of space in the dreaming of men.

The sow, on the other hand dreams only of straight lines.....as straight and as powerful.....like black iron as one can find. Horse power and girth is what women dream of.

Whenever you need me, just call .....souie souie. Oh, for the love of those Faustian horns.

Gotta go back to work. I promise to attend better to the Goddess and the symbolism of mythology when I'm past my evil deadline.

Power to the pub, sweet Spendulus!

How about a theological debate between muslimns and evolutionists?

Why Gunga.......how nice to see you enter the parlor. Come in, sit down.....we'll be right with you.

Hi Lola, How's things in NYC? You gonna join us in London and/or Lippstadt in May?

c.i.:-

A little dickie bird tells me you might have something useful to contribute to the CAN YOU EAT HEALTHY FROM CANS thread on the medical forum.
If so I'm all eyes.

Lola:-

No.I loved it.Very feminine.I only suggested not engaging in that type of literature in the article.I like the spontaneous outpop.Such things are very difficult to think up.

I can honestly say,as they say,that I never once had a dream with those items included.Does that make me abnormal?

I once read a book called Female Sexual Fantasies.I thought I ought to know about such things.I must say I was quite surprised.

Horns symbolise cuckoldom.

I hope to lock intellects again on Monday.

I'm only sweet when spooned into a cup and stirred.

spendius.

Well, we know you dream of dwarves and roses......
that'll do.

Hi there c.i. I was just saying the other day how I haven't seen you around lately again. Glad to see you're still surviving.

I'm afraid I can't make it to London and Lippstadt in May. I've finally started working a little bit and can't be gone that long. Otherwise I would love it.

I wish London and Lippstadt would come to me, however. The Prince is coming to New York in March. That'll be fun.

The thing about the RCC is that all this organising of barbarian tribes and feudal factions into a coherent structure is far too complex for us poor slave classes and they have spent a lot of time and effort in devising a set of rules and other subtle checks on our admitted animality with a view to civilising us into this fantastic lifestyle (us on here I mean) and it is easiest and less stressful to take their word for it on the proof of the pudding argument and just follow it as good as we can and when we can't we should just trot off to confess to a legitimised confessor and accept our penance of three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys recited at no given speed and get ourselves forgiven so that if we die before we do it again,which adds a frisson to doing it again,we go straight to heaven and if we don't die we eventually learn how to write every heretic out of sight who is culturally unable to appreciate a phrase like "a clump of black iron grapes" for it's sheer feminine majesty.

Forgive me Lola.I'm practicing emulating Proust.

If your dear daughters were scared by your fundamentalist friend's prediction about you going to hell if you persisted with all this sinning I suggest you show them James Joyce's description of the place in Portrait Of An Artist.That ought to cure them of any misgivings.

Lola:-

"The Prince is coming to New York in March".Would you have typed that had you known what was being discussed in BuckPal at the time you did so?
Of course He may still come.

Is this daft?Last night in the pub a l0 minute,six person strategy was deployed due to a cigarette machine failing to disgorge a unit item after having 4 pound coins inserted in it's slot.When you consider that the whole kerfuffle was posited on a half ounce of dried leaves could you stretch your undoubted imaginative powers to seeing some shamanistic magic at work whereby incantations of often repeated words actually did motivate the expenditure of a fair quantity of human energy and then proceed from this simple case to more difficult aspects of the art.From thinking about a spark mighty castles have been constructed and you work in the realms of social science.

All those involved,and the watchers and cheer leaders,were completely ignorant of the fact of the half ounce of dried leaves and thought I was insane to point it out.I presume their definition of "sane" is similar to the one OB used in the Asherman splottle.