[lit-ideas] It's Not Respectable To Beg (Petitio Principii)

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2010 00:05:20 EDT

In a message dated 6/7/2010 11:06:03  P.M., RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx 
writes:
--*petitio* in the Latin has  nothing dodging about it: it simply means 
that the speaker requests that his  princip[al] point be well taken.  


-- Of course!
 
Truth to tell, I was VERY conscious that I was misusing 'beg the question'  
when I challenged McEvoy's anti-chauvinistic claim, "France is a land of  
defeatists".
 
"History is written by the winners"
 
This BEGS the question: "Who reads history, anyway?"
 
For surely McEvoy fails to answer the IMPORTANT question. Who cares who  
writes history. The point is who reads it. And surely the winners, if they 
also  write the history, why would they read it?

Surely Margaret Attwood, to  mention a favourite female scribe of Geary's, 
need NOT read what she writes.  Mutatis mutandi, history.
 
---- When Argentina won the Oscar for best-foreign language film, I usually 
 have a heart attack.

Last year, it was "The secret of their eyes" -- "El secreto de sus  ojos" 
in the vernacular. "Their", in English, fails to replicate the idiocy of  the 
vernacular.
 
Some time before, "The Official Story" got the same prize. In this case,  
"Story" fails to recognise the idiocy of the original: "La historia oficial". 
 The main character, played by Norma Aleandro, is a history teacher -- and 
she  teaches 'the official history', i.e. the history written by the winners 
--. Most  of the initial sequences, which were filmed at the National 
College of Buenos  Aires, are all about how the students -- sixth-formers -- 
challenge the history  teacher. They do not agree with 'history' written by the 
winners. These are  lah-di-dah students -- The National College, despite its 
silly name, is the  city's Eton of sorts --. So the script is pretty 
intelligent. As it happens, the  history teacher (a female) finds herself 
involved 
in the 'adoption' of a child  of a 'missing' one -- and so 'the official 
history' strikes back with a  vengeance. She ends up realising that, whoever 
WRITES 'history', it's who READS  _her_ that matters.
 
Or not!
 
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
--- Ref: The Whig Interpretation of History.
 
--- The application of 'petitio principii' here should apply to any  
principle that McEvoy was invoking when he claimed, out of the blue, and to  
provoke Veronica Molleo, only, that France is a land of defeatists (*)
 
--- Molleo and Ursula were arguing that the lands of Canada belong to the  
"Natives", as opposed to the Non-Natives, which heavens know who are. 
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[lit-ideas] It's Not Respectable To Beg (Petitio Principii)

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