Doug Henwood wrote: > > Michael Perelman wrote: > > > > True enough, but it's an odd model of dialogue that will admit only > people in fundamental agreement with each other. I guess it's the > left version of Richard Feinberg's wonderful comment that democracy > only works when there's fundamental agreement on the nature of > property.
I have no objections to Brad on the list, and it is silly to call him a troll. (I would say the border between trolldom & simple obnoxiousness is marked by Pugliese. Many of his fwds can have no purpose but to create disorder.) But you don't believe what you just wrote here. No one from Pericles, Protagoras, Plato, & Aristotle to the present has believed it. It is very close to the first principle of rhetoric that one can only argue with someone on the basis of some fundamental premise shared in common. See for example Cornford's introuction (or note, I forget which) to the Socrates-Thrasymachus episode in the _Republic_. Plato of course cheats there. In writing dialogue for Thrasymachus he has Thrasymachus express the enemy's fundamental premise disguised as his fundamental premise. But in any case, if the divide is fundamental, there cannot be fruitful argument. Neither you nor Lou seems ever to have grasped this fact, hence the extent to which you are contually turning secondary disagreements into antagonistic ones and treating primary disagreements either as deliberare evil (Lou) or as secondary disagreements which should be discussable (you). Lou is continually turning friends (or potential friends) into enemies, and you are continually trying to treat enemies as friends. It fucks up conversation. (Incidentally, it is possible for political enemies to be personal friends -- at least under present circumstances, since we're quite a ways from actual civil war.) Brad is an enemy, but one can talk to him just as Chou tried to talk to Dulles one morning during the Geneva Conference. (They both arrived early one morning; Chou offered to shake hands, Dulles snubbed him.) In the present case Lou is playing a marxist version of Dulles's style, enhancing my belief that Lou is more a moralist than a Marxist.) If one does respond to a post by Brad, one should think of the reader not as Brad himself but of lurkers on the list. Lou's post treats those potential friends as enemies by the style of his attack on Brad. (If Brad ever does change his mind, he'll do it on his own, not on account of what anyone on this list might say. If you enjoy arguing with him, fine. I have nothing against having fun. If you think arguing with him will have a political impact on bystanders, fine. That is a fairly important tactic that can take many forms. But not even in theory (principle) does it make sense to argue with him in order to change his mind. Carrol > > Doug
