Christmastime. There'll be gentle snow falling quietly on twinkling Vermont neighborhoods while guys in orange suits are driven to madness and some Iraqi kids loses his face to a cluster bomb fragment. Peace on earth and happy holidays to everyone.
george wrote:
Quote:Bernie, Do you believe there are groups in other parts of the U.S. political spectrum that have also, "been trained in a style of thought and discourse" ? Hofstadter criticized his target group only because he favored training in a different style of thought and discourse from that with which he criticized those he disagreed with. The question thus rests on the objective merits (or defects) in the styles in question, if they can be found.
The reference there was specific, george. It was to a particular essay by Hofstadter (linked for you to read). You likely won't have read it, nor will Tico, nor will foxfyre.
Quote:The contemporary academic & "intellectual" world has provided us with sufficient examples of slavish attention to fashion, group conformity, intolerance of opposing views, and blindness to the effects of preferred doctrines on even more fundamental principles (racial quotas for example) for us all to conclude that the self-styled priesthood of "intellectuals" (as Hofstadter called them) is just as prone to the human frailties as are the lesser mortals whom they (and Hofstadter) so scorn.
Yes, it is so. I've read Bloom's book and D'Souza's.
Quote:I suspect it would be more accurate to say that Foxfire and Tico base their views on values and assumptions that are different from those that you, Nimh and others employ. No doubt these values and assumptions are insufficient to encompass all that life presents us, and as a result they are undoubtedly wrong sometimes. Worse, like most of us, they are also occasionally inconsistent in applying their preferred values and assumptions. The difficulty here is that the same thing could accurately be said about you and Nimh. Gosh, even me !!
I believe the proper focus of the discussion should be on the incompleteness and imperfections in the competing sets of values and assumptions, and not on perjorative judgements about one group or the other. This was Hofstadter's failing - not an uncommon thing, but a bit worse for him precisely because he claimed to be above it.
Everyone sins. Sure. From which it follows that there is little or no reason to differentiate the bread thief from the murderer.
There/s a thread or two running now on the topic of Israel and the Palestinians where you are writing the finest commentary I've seen from you, george, and it is very fine indeed. You display impressive background knowledge (not unusual for you) along with balance, sophistication and nuance in analyzing the elements of the issues. That's the unusual part because we are commonly talking here about America, it's policies and politics, and on those topics you (and tico and foxfyre) go blind. Your investment in your party affiliations, and in mythologies related to America's nature and its effects on the world, and in a particular ideological apprehension of social matters, and in this president/administration is such that a discussion with you on any of these matters is starkly unlike your admirable discussion on Israel. I have, frankly, given up on all three of you as regards these issues. As I expressed earlier, the movement to which you three subscribe is now coming apart as a consequence of the realization, in policies and actions, of its extremisms. One can only pray that the damage caused won't be too deep or permanent and that's going to take a lot of praying.
You've got a fellow coming up the pike here who has the promise to be one of your truly great leaders. Whether or not your nation's internal pathologies cripple him or whether someone shoots him seems at best a 50/50 chance.
Quote:By the way, -- A wish for a very happy Christmas for you, Jane, Tico, Foxfire and Nimh.
Aside from my abiding anger at you three, I do wish you each peace and happiness along with the same for everyone except Walter.
