[lit-ideas] Re: Eric's hypocritcal wars
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 01:08:30 -0800 (PST)
--- Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Again, nonsense. This is an email list and none, or
> perhaps only a few,
> know each other in any meaningful way. There is the
> danger of
> developing a sort of misplaced concreteness to these
> relationships so
> that one has the illusion that we actually know each
> other well enough
> to make personal comments. We don't, so we
> shouldn't. If we held that
> people had to live according to what they say,
> 'Andy' would have been
> sent packing. This is only an email list and the
> rules of concrete
> relationships don't apply because the full range of
> social interactions
> is lacking.
*I agree that personal lives are better left out of
the pale. On the other hand, one does create a list
personality after years of posting, and that
personality may legitimately be challenged. For
example, it strikes me as inconsistent of Eric to say
that he is not a supporter of the Administration and
not a war advocate, yet constantly to post discussions
and articles that defend the Administration and
endorse war. (Lawrence has made it pretty clear that
he supports the Administration and the war, so this
does not apply to him.) Would this count as legitimate
criticism on the list ?
We should expect each other to be, at
> the very least, civil
> and follow the written and unwritten rules of the
> list. Making abusive
> personal references threatens the civility of this
> list. Perhaps some
> people are willing to sacrifice civility for
> ideology but I am not.
> Civility is the ground of all political and social
> discourse and to
> threaten it is to undermine the discourse itself.
> In short, if two or
> three people agree that civility can be dispensed
> with for some higher
> good, then this list cannot function as it was
> intended.
*You raise several issues here. First off, I don't
think that civility is the highest good. If insulting
Eric could save one Iraqi life, I would do it. But I
doubt that insulting him will help anything, so I
prefer to avoid it.
On another note, this is supposedly a philosophical
not a social list, and the highest good in this
context is truth rather than civility. Thus, we have a
right, even perhaps a duty, to vigorously challenge
and question each other's views and opinions.
O.K.
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