[lit-ideas] Re: Englehardt, Cold Warrior in a Strange Land

  • From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 15:38:40 +0900

Please read more carefully. I never praised Reich's recommendation. I
only praised his prediction, which appears to be coming true.

Allow me to add, since this is one of my hot buttons: The current fad
for all or nothing acceptance or condemnation of authors strikes me as
simply ridiculous. Of course, I have the advantage of having been
trained in anthropology by Victor Turner, who in one of his articles
writes,

"Although we take theories into the field with us, these become
relevant only if and when they illuminate social reality. Moreover, we
tend to find very frequently that it is not a theorist's whole system
which so illuminates, but his scattered ideas, his flashes of insight
taken out of systemic context and applied to scattered data. Such
ideas have a virtue of their own and may generate new hypotheses. They
even show how scattered facts may be systematically connected!"

Anyone who expects an author to be always right or always wrong seems
to me to lack, what shall we call it, a certain je'n sai quois, an
appreciation of human nature.

John

On 3/26/06, Eric <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  >>The strategy of preserving the American
> worker's edge through education has proved to be a
> paper tiger (plenty of highly educated Indians,
> Chinese, etc., out there).
>
> This is the paper tiger you praised when praising
> Robert Reich's views. Huh? He's one of the
> inventors of that con-job...errr paper tiger.
>
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--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd.
55-13-202 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku
Yokohama 220-0006, JAPAN
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