me: >> If my distinguishing between Ahmedinijad and Chávez is merely a matter >> of my using an ideological axe, does that say that the two regimes are >> substantially the same?
Robert Naiman: > You're being deceitful, and you know it. < Asking a question is "deceitful"? Questions about the real world do not imply unique answers. In any event, asking a question is better than being insulting. (And insulting me simply encourages me to ask sly questions like the one I did -- because it undermines my respect for the insulter.) In any event, Robert's response makes it clearer how our approaches differ from each other. > You just refuse to concede the > point that with respect to the provision of social services to the > majority, they could have something in common. Robert seems to be claiming to know my thoughts better than I do, so that he knows what "I refuse to concede" more than I. Among other things, I _never_ denied the fact that Ahmedinijad and Chávez could have "something in common." It's like a Venn diagram: there's a Ahmedinijad set and a Chávez set and they overlap. I simply think that the non-overlap part of the picture is quite important and should not be ignored -- unless we lower our standards and accept a merely partial story. And this non-overlap part includes the _form and methods_ of the provision of social services, which cannot be artificially separated from the social services themselves. That is, "provision of social services" can cover a multitude of sins (and good stuff too). Is it Mayor Daley #1, Mayor Daley #2, Hugo Chávez, or some other alternative? The medieval lords and Church delivered social services to the peasants, but that was quite different from an authoritarian/paternalistic welfare state, a political patronage machine, a rational/bureaucratic welfare state, or a more participatory/democratic system (going from right to left). In general, there's a big difference between top-down (paternalistic, bureaucratic, and/or theocratic) provision of social services and a more bottom-up (participatory, democratic) provision of social services. That was my point (or my "axe"). To make the contrast extreme (and more abstract), social services delivered at the point of a gun by theocratic thugs [*] are different from those voted on and partially controlled by their beneficiaries.Note that in the first case, the thugs delivering the services are likely to deliver a chunk of them to themselves. In the second case, the thugs are under popular control. > You're just exhibiting > a stubborn attachment to your own previously expressed position. I haven't noticed Robert changing his position, either. But I don't really care whether he changes his position or not. I aim my e-missives on pen-l not just at the person I'm responding to but also at the "third persons" who read them. They might learn something or have something to contribute. Because I am talking to third persons, I try not to use personal pronouns to refer to the person I'm discussing with. I can't say that I'm totally successful. By not using personal pronouns, I'm also trying to avoid personal insults: I address ideas, facts, logic, etc. instead. -- Jim Devine / It's time to Occupy the New Year! [*] As far as I know, I am not describing the Iranian method of distributing social services here. As noted, I am not an expert on what's happening inside Iran. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
