Excellent DMB.
The police officer upholding laws we agree as common sense, but branded fascist when they do .... is a great analogy for why democracy is more than an anarchic free for all. That does no justice to "freedom". Ian On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 10:06 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Arlo said: > It just struck me as coming close to the height of absurdity to declare that > the man who's ideas we are here (ostensibly) to discuss is the "least" > authority on what those ideas are. It would be like me saying, "Let's talk > about what John's ideas are, but the person who we can ignore the most in > that discussion is John". > > > > dmb says: > > Exactly. There are situations where the delicate handling of interpretive > issues would make sense. Say, if the work in question is written in a dead > language or if only fragments remain. Maybe it's a complex literary work of > art. People get real philosophical about interpretive theories. Not too long > ago, literary theorists operated on the premise that the author's intention > is irrelevant. The death of the author was proclaimed as the birth of the > reader. It is the reader who constructs meaning from the text, so that's > really where the action is, they said. > > But then hacks get their hands on these not very interesting ideas and before > you know it everything means anything anybody wants it mean and - presto! - > we're all swimming in sea of bullshit. It quickly turns into nothing but > sheer intellectual debauchery. And then anyone who protests against this > nonsense is Hitler. > > In this case the author is a contemporary, English-speaking guy who can and > has answered questions about how to interpret his meaning. He was presented > with Bo's idea and he has said quite plainly that he never agreed with it. > How much room for interpretation can there be in a case like that? > > It's like telling the traffic cop that he's wrong about the meaning of the > "stop" sign you passed without stopping. Somehow, that should earn you two > traffic tickets. Come to think of it, a person who can't rightly "interpret" > things like stop signs should probably not be allowed to drive at all. > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your > inbox. > http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2 > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
