At around 27/2/06 11:03 pm, michael a. lebowitz wrote:
> Frankly, I don't understand why people on this list waste their time
> by responding to Shemano's pinpricks disguised as a sincere attempt
> to understand. He did this a while back and I answered below,
> suggesting he use his head rather than continue with his shallow
> provocations. His response? He disappeared from Pen-L until the coast
> was clear. So, I can't agree with Michael P's praise of him for
> hanging around. He obviously has nothing better to do, but others
> really should.
>
With due respect, I disagree, on two counts.
First a disclaimer or caution: I myself maybe a bit of an outsider on
this list (not just because I am fairly clueless on economics but also
because I do not seem to fit much into the American Left), so my opinion
should neither be construed as applicable to (or based on) the list
charter, nor should it be given as much weight as that of more
productive members.
Now to my disagreement with the above:
While some of Shemano's posts *seem* to be cleverly veiled "flamebait"
(an old Usenet term, the modern equivalent of which is, I believe
"troll"), even in those instances the veil itself poses questions that
are legitimate from a layperson POV.
Lakoff talks about the frame of the debate and how Democrats/Leftists
are losing the arguments (in the eyes of the public) because the
Republicans/conservatives frame the issues early. I think this is only
half the story. Every expert I have heard talk about the "framing" issue
has failed to provide an alternate framing that is half as interesting
or convincing. They trail off into lengthy paragraphs of liberal philosophy.
===== You can safely ignore the below rant and proceed to the end =====
Take abortion rights: the right frames it in terms of "life" and
"right". The "right to life". Throw in "the unborn". We frame it in
terms of "privacy" and "choice". A woman's right to privacy? What does
that even mean in this context? Choice? So you want to choose to kill an
innocent, helpless, baby? Because you had too much to drink and got
knocked up?
The only thing going for the left in this issue may be that the public
desires the same freedom (to abortion) that we theorize about.
I feel that the left is not entirely to blame for this. They (the right)
appeal to simplistic notions and instincts that have been built into us
over years of biological and cultural evolution. We have, it seems, no
tools but complex data and analysis, and counter-intuitive notions. (By
the way, this ties in, unintentionally, to the other part of this
thread: the discussion about left attitudes about certain pop science
reductionisms).
In what I call the old left (the humanist one, not the materialist one),
it appears to me we had some other tools like love, art, beauty, poetry,
community, morality... a lot of the mushy, sentimental stuff (often
built into us by the same evolutionary processes, for exactly the right
reasons, under consideration here) that the new left seems to find
embarrassing (sort of like teenagers about their parents: hence the Kos
world's attitude towards "hippie"s).
===== end of rant =====
Second, I found PEN-L, many years ago, through a web search... for this
reason, it is important that counter-arguments be presented even if they
are redundant for list members.
--ravi
--
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substituting "r" for "listmail" in my email address. Thank you!
