On Oct 29, 2008, at 11:25 AM, William Conger wrote:
I've decided to lurk around on the list for awhile to see how things go. I do have a few comments regarding the sort of conversation that a list, any list like this one, can offer.
I welcome your return from your non-departure and appreciate your voting with your keyboard to endorse the value of this list.
Barzun in "The House of Intellect" says that a conversation is a thoughtful sifting of different points of view. (I don't have the book here, so I'm paraphrasing.) It's not merely a ping-pong game in which you wait for the other person to stop talking so you can insert your comments. And he wrote this in the early 60s, before the epoch of rants and umbrage (and their offspring, finicky argumentativeness) that we find ourselves in nowadays.
In the same book, in a chapter on "Casual Manners," he decries the then-emerging perception that all opinions were pushy and judgmental and that, in order to forestall giving offense, people began to preface their comments with "In my opinion," signaling that (a) they hope not to give offense, (b) the statements to come were provisional and possibly in error, and (c) even if the statements were well- founded, they weren't binding on others. He saw in this a false modesty that masked an incipient anti-intellectualism.
I believe it should be an unspoken premise that all opinions, evaluations, and even statements of purported facts initially be accepted on their merits, until examined; further, that their authors speak from good faith. Thus, as Barzun argued, we don't need the disingenuity of "In my opinion" when we offer a thoughtful comment or analysis, nor should we suppose that when another person doesn't tack the caveat onto the beginning, then he or she is speaking autocratically or with unfounded self-importance.
Nor even when a person suggests that X is the meaning of Y, as in "the meaning of Hamlet": It's sufficient merely to point out that there are other equally persuasive ways of discussing "Hamlet," so the claim that X is "the" meaning fails.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED]
