[lit-ideas] Re: SOS -- Autonomy and Influence
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 17:02:24 -0500
LH:
I agree that you have very likely done this with Rorty and I may very well
have done it with Ferry & Renaut, but this isn't all we "ever do." We
only do this in areas where we have spent time and formed opinions
(presuppositions). The Middle East was not an area I had studied to any
extent before 9/11. I began studying not knowing the difference between
Edward Said and Daniel Pipes. I didn't have any very elaborate
presuppositions <<
Yes, but this list is surprisingly middle-aged and older -- except for Paul
Stone (he's only 30, I think) and Erin (Christ, what is she? 15?) they're
both still kids and don't deserve to be heard from. There might be other
youngsters among us, but that doesn't matter, the point is that there are
few damn things in this world that most of us don't have pretty fixed
opinions about. You point to the Middle East and Islam as areas you had
little acquaintance with prior to 2001, and suggest that you read the flood
of essays and books about the Middle East and Islamism with an open mind.
Well, maybe you did. But please forgive me if I have my doubts. Not of
your veracity. I'm sure you think you read with an open mind. But I don't
believe there's such a thing. Not for you, not for me, not for any human
being. Unfamiliarity with a topic is not the factor x that makes the new
possible. You read Pipes and Said and all the rest with basically the same
mind that made you enlist in the Marines even before you could, you read
them with the mind that believes my country right or wrong, you read them
with the mind that believes that order should trump liberty. Those are (as
I read you) fundamentals with you. My fundamentals are almost opposite.
We filter all incoming information according to our fundamentals. Or so my
fundamentals say. How can we not? Them's us.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2006 4:09 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: SOS -- Autonomy and Influence
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