I usually agree with Ragu, even when he disagrees with me. My only point was that we sometimes get swept up with bad ideas that we cannot see through.
I just returned from Turkey. We have a large Greek population where I was borne. As a child, I learned that the Turks were bad people, even though I had never seen a Turk. I am not defending eugenics, racism, homophobia, etc. I am only saying that good people can be convinced of bad ideas. Should we reject the good that such people do? I know that I am using good/bad in a simplistic way, but I just got back after a 20 hour trip & .... On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 10:46:30AM -0500, raghu wrote: > On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 8:38 PM, Michael Perelman > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Robert Leonard of Princeton has written about the "progressives", who > > supported eugenics. Eugenics fit right in with much of the prevailing > > "science" of the time. Many people become susceptible to the fads of the > > time. This is a defect of the people, not the movements to which they > > belong. > > > I disagree Michael. How else can an ideological movement be judged > except by the beliefs of its proponents? > > There are some ideologies that are too repulsive to accept as mere > foibles. E.g. I could never accept someone who supported slavery as a > progressive no matter how much slavery was in fashion at that time. > Besides I don't believe eugenics ever had the status of being accepted > in the mainstream. It always was highly controversial. > > > > > Should my own personal defects reflect on the pen-l community? Einstein > > was a bit of a womanizer, should we reject relativity? > > > It is not a question of personal defects but ideological beliefs. Any > ideological beliefs shared by a significant portion of PEN-L members > does and should reflect on the PEN-L community. > > Unrelated: is womanizing a "personal defect"? > -raghu. > > > -- > "As a matter of fact, no, I don't have a life." > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
