georgeob1 wrote:Perhaps so, but I give a fair amount of importance to making clear distinctions between what I BELIEVE is true and what I KNOW to be true. With respect to future events I try to distinguish between what I HOPE happens, and what I FORECAST is most likely to happen (assuming I have analyzed the situation and made a forecast). If there is a conditional relationship in an assertion one wishes to make (i.e. if A then B, or if not ... etc.) then I believe it is important to make it explicit.
I don't know if that is what you been by "street language", or whether you have something else in mind. In any event stylistic differences don't bother me.
To me the language with which people express themselves is a reflection of the clarity (or lack of it) in their thinking. There are too many people who confuse their beliefs with verifiable, eternal truth and their preferences for the future with what they KNOW (or more accurately FORECAST) will occur.
With respect to the specific question you asked;
Quote: How's he any different from you in that respect?
Exactly in the terms I identified above, is my answer.
(I will readily concede that Cyclo is by no means the worst of the offenders here - indeed he is a good deal better than many)
As you undoubtedly know, it is very difficult to have a reasoned discussion with a person who routinely fails to make these distinctions; who routinely relies on ill-defined comparisons with vaguely described alternatives; or who regularly descends to insults and personal attacks whenever confronted with disagreement or challenge. I have my own failings in this area in that I frequently become impatient with what I regard as sloppy thinking or overinflated self-importance. However, I generally am very clear about the distinctions between what I KNOW, what I BELIEVE, and what I EXPECT.
Hi George,
I gotta chime in with Snood here - it's interesting to see how one's self-perception and outward impression can differ. (Though of course, every individual onlooker will also have his/her own impression, and Snood's and mine are just that of two guys').
I dont agree with his example - I got what you were getting at with Webb. You were simply telling of your own impression of the man through the ways you've interacted with him personally, and what you've heard from others who have.
But I have also seen you postulate too often about how the world just is as you think it is, to accept your protestations here. Your convictions are every bit as rock-ribbed in certainty, your confidence in the rightness of your conclusions every bit as self-satisfied as Cyclo's. There's a reason why in my "taxonomy of A2K conservatives" I put you in the circle of "dogmatists" - if close to the edge of "intellectuals" ;-).
You're not quite Asherman, I give you that. Much more willing to listen to the other side and acknowledge ambiguities or openings in the exchange; the pedestal isn't anything as high. But he's still the poster I most associate you with: the same unwavering convictions, laid out in solemn certainties, in grave confidence of your experienced wisdom on the matter at hand. Or maybe the Blatham of the Right - not that that's the worst thing to be. The certainties are every bit as carved in stone - or rather, to torture the metaphors, yours are carved in stone while Cyclo's or Diest's are .. I dont know .. singed in the sky with a light sword or something.
I'll give you the bit about inserting "I believe" ahead of your postulations, at least often enough. And that's laudable. But especially if the underlying, highly ideologised certainties are every bit as unassailable, is that really much more than just being more sophisticated in your wording? Rather than an illustration of any kind of substantive difference on this count, of being any more open to questioning your own assumptions, beyond matters of relatively marginal importance? I have seen any number of posts in which you certainly put forward your take on the situation, when it comes to the nature of (Old) Europe versus America for example, with the intonation of speaking the "verifiable, eternal truth".
The reason why I commented is that I see you and Cyclo, or the other day Diest, playing out this patriarch vs whippersnapper dynamic time and again that I find very distracting. So I comment on it, and of course therewith just exacerbate the problem, derailing the thread even more. Like this.
I guess I can't help myelf reacting because I'm in the middle. I am old enough to appreciate the way you are more polite and restrained in the way you express yourself, even in the face of cocksure stupidity and classless rudeness; and to find the brash and relentless young male's self-confidence of a Diest or Cyclo off-putting (and this is not purely about age, I have it with O'Bill too sometimes). You have class; and overall your patience and commitment to civil dialogue is admirable. But I'm also young enough to find the dismissive putdowns of the purported young bucks' foolishness, postulated with the often somewhat pompous self-satisfaction of a knowing patriarch, equally grating. I dare say that your "own failings in this area" are not necessarily limited to becoming impatient
with "overinflated self-importance", as rather engaging in it yourself too ...
Moreover, to digress a bit, the way you wisely dismiss much of the silly, ephemeral quality of the day-to-day political hypes (unless it's a hype that plays into your own prejudices, like "bittergate"), often also kind of leaves you up in rarefied air, where all that counts is the greater story, the overall sweep of history. Since all the little stuff that could potentially debunk one's ideologically inspired, broad judgement of an issue (details like polling numbers and such trivia) has been largely cast aside along with the day-to-day polit-drama, this risks yielding a stilted perspective, in which the big picture one discerns always just happens to end up confirming one's broad ideological vision. And where said vision is applied on pretty much every question, regardless of local or thematic quirks.
It's a tricky balance of course, and no doubt everyone is destined to fail. How does one rise above the hyped silliness of the day-to-day game and recognise the overwhelming continuity in historical patterns, without getting to the point where seeing only the 'big picture' just serves seeing only what confirms your world view? Just saying, I'm not
blaming you or anything. I am far too flawed myself, with my partisan gripes, my tendency to lose myself in detail no matter how irrelevant, my sentimental attachment to the ideologies of my childhood, not to mention my pathetic alternations between ridiculously pompous expositions like this and gleeful descents into the sarcastic Dems vs Reps tit-for-tats.
But when the patriarch vs whippersnapper dynamic here culminates again in one of you upbraiding the other for his dogmatic or partisan ideological certainties, or for the offputting way in which he demonstrates his rock-ribbed confidence that he knows exactly what's right for the country and the world, the lack of self-reflection just gets a little too much. I mean, you're each other's inter-generational mirror image, in that respect! The only thing - no, sorry, I
believe (;-)) that the only thing that differs is the style and sophistication in which it's expressed.
