[Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate

Tue Nov 24 10:37:19 CST 2009

> A "value judgment" can be a recognition of a moral fact, not merely an 
> expression of opinion

A "judgment" none the less, regardless if it is about a "historical fact" or 
a "moral fact."  Moreover, one can legitimately hold - unless it is excluded 
from the realm of allowable discourse - that all facts are merely 
expressions of believed opinion in one fashion or another that are 
ultimately based on a set of presumed assumptions and presuppositions of one 
sort or another and typically that even the methods by which one argues , 
acquires evidence, supports or proves the factual status of a "fact" is 
grounded on the assumption of certain taken-for-granted suppositions.

> To condemn the Shoah is to recognize it as a vast objective evil, a crime, 
> not just to express a taste, like preferring chocolate to vanilla.

I am afraid that I do not know what the Shoah is; nor do I care.  So I do 
not think it or recognize it as a vast objective evil.  But even if I did 
know what it was, that does not mean that I would recognize or accept it as 
a "vast evil" nor that you could empirically or logically prove to me that 
it was objectively so and capable of existing as such apart from or 
independent of  any presumptions or theoretical framework of interpretation. 
However, I would guess that that would probably only mean that I would then 
be classified as being ignorant, blind, from Neptune, or some other 
dismissive name or description.

> As Wittgenstein said, "Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be 
> a condition of the world, like logic."

It is easy to quote philosophers or other so-called authorities from within 
an accepted collection permitted by the definitions of allowable debate as 
the proponent sees it (you do it frequently and very well); but a part from 
my not really seeing the relevance of the quote, you and I among others know 
very well that for every supporting quotation or person of authority being 
quoted one can find an opposite existing and available that could have been 
tossed into the mix.  However, just to play your game; what theory of ethics 
are we talking about as being a condition of the world like logic - and for 
that matter what theory of logic are we holding to be a condition of the 
world.  There are a number of different logics in use in the world - each 
based on different sets of assumptions - just as there are different sets of 
ethics.  Moreover, in the cited quote, the use of the notion of "must" 
suggests to be some sort of "imperative" in the sense of "ought" which 
stands as some sport of preferred alternative and not a necessary and 
sufficient constitutive requirement of the world.  Nevertheless, even if 
ethics were a constitutive requirement, the type and content of that ethics 
is still open to question and a matter of preference.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 10:49 PM
To: "LAURIE SOLOMON" <LS_64 at live.com>
Cc: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; "Stuart Levy" 
<slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate

> A "value judgment" can be a recognition of a moral fact, not merely an 
> expression of opinion.
>
> To condemn the Shoah is to recognize it as a vast objective evil, a crime, 
> not just to express a taste, like preferring chocolate to vanilla.

> As Wittgenstein said, "Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be 
> a condition of the world, like logic."
>
>
> LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
>> It is true enough  that if you control the scope and range of questions 
>> asked, you circumscribe the scope and range of allowable responses that 
>> will be regarded as legitimate meaningful answers. It does not 
>> necessarily limit the scope and range of responses which may be larger 
>> than that of legitimate meaningful answers that are allowed by the 
>> questions.   However, that is true for all sides  - yours, theirs, mine, 
>> etc.  Moreover, this is the case for everyone and a tacit unintended or 
>> explicit  intended strategy that all sides engage in via the mere framing 
>> of questions.
>>
>> What is a right or a wrong question is a value judgment and a matter of 
>> perspective - not an empirical "objective" value neutral fact.
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
>> Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 3:36 PM
>> To: "LAURIE SOLOMON" <LS_64 at LIVE.COM>
>> Cc: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; "Stuart Levy" 
>> <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate
>>
>>> "If they can get you asking the wrong questions,
>>> they don't have to worry about answers."
>>>
>>>
>>> LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
>>>> Not that any of these are actual (allowable, productive, or 
>>>> informative) debates between parties sharing a common set of 
>>>> definitions and rules of debate as much as sets of parallel one-way 
>>>> articulations. assertions, presentations of each parties point of view 
>>>> and interpretation of history and the way the world works, the 
>>>> policies, decisions, and actions that are taken in the world as they 
>>>> see it.  What I find most interesting and peculiar is that all debate 
>>>> or discussions imply boundaries and rules of allowable or legitimate 
>>>> interpretations, rules of interaction and argumentation, and 
>>>> conceptions of rationality and reasoning.  In a real debate, the 
>>>> parties share these elements; in parallel conversations, discussions 
>>>> and talks, they do not share such elements in common, although they may 
>>>> assume or pretend that they do.  Hence, they are talking past each 
>>>> other and more focused on asserting one's claims than on reaching any 
>>>> sort of shared agreement or common conclusions. Intellectually, in 
>>>> these parallel articulations, each party according to its own 
>>>> definition of legitimate and allowable rationality (i.e., rules of 
>>>> reasoning and logic), interpretations of activities and events, and 
>>>> acceptable definitions of the "facts" denies the other legitimacy and 
>>>> disallows what they have to say - often by personal attacks, ad homenem 
>>>> arguments, and/or declaring the logic of the argumentation to be fuzzy 
>>>> or irrational according to one's own definitions of the rules of 
>>>> rationality and logic, which they assert are the true, objective, and 
>>>> universal ones.
>>>>
>>>> While the notion of whether or not this is a debate or what the rules 
>>>> of what is or is not allowed in the discussion are questionable, what 
>>>> is not is that you obviously disagree with those who you derisively 
>>>> cite and with the arguments that they make.  However, this disagreement 
>>>> has little to do with the limits of allowable debate (except that you 
>>>> seem to want to exclude those you disagree with from the conversation 
>>>> and would presumably do so if you had the power to do so); what it has 
>>>> to do with is differing points of view.  It is more than likely that 
>>>> others who subscribe to the establishments limits of allowable debate 
>>>> might very well disagree with the assertions and conclusions of Wilentz 
>>>> (and even some others who you also disagree with) on either the same or 
>>>> other grounds as you.
>>>>
>>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>>> From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
>>>> Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 12:57 PM
>>>> To: "Stuart Levy" <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu>
>>>> Cc: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate
>>>>
>>>>> It's a positive review of a new book on James K. Polk and the theft of 
>>>>> half of Mexico (which even A. Lincoln knew was wrong).
>>>>>
>>>>> Wilentz thinks the Mexicans had it coming (cf. S. Hussein) on the 
>>>>> grounds that they were really Spaniards and Catholics.
>>>>>
>>>>> And it didn't have anything to do with slavery.  Nothing.  No way.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Stuart Levy wrote:
>>>>>> On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 12:31:58PM -0600, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>>>>> The same edition of the NYT (I really won't miss it when it goes) 
>>>>>>> includes a review by the awful Clintonoid pop-off Sean Wilentz, 
>>>>>>> justifying particularly speciously 19th c. US imperialism, with 
>>>>>>> obvious present-day implications...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Justifying as in US national interest?  White Man's Burden?
>>>>>> Societal Darwinism, as in, If we did it, it must have been
>>>>>> because we were Better?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> David Green wrote:
>>>>>>>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22wright.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print>
>>>>>>>>  The NYT brings in Robert Wright, a liberal heavy thinker known 
>>>>>>>> among other things for his contributions to the dubious field of 
>>>>>>>> evolutionary psychology, to define the LOAD for Hasan/Ft. Hood:
>>>>>>>>  "Conservatives backed war in Iraq, and they’re now backing an 
>>>>>>>> escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Liberals (at least, dovish 
>>>>>>>> liberals) have warned in both cases that killing terrorists is 
>>>>>>>> counterproductive if in the process you create even more 
>>>>>>>> terrorists; the object of the game isn’t to wipe out every last 
>>>>>>>> Islamist radical but rather to contain the virus of Islamist 
>>>>>>>> radicalism."
>>>>>>>>  As long as we discuss various perspectives on "terrorism," we 
>>>>>>>> can't consider that this was not terrorism as commonly defined as 
>>>>>>>> attacks against civilians. Whatever the pathology of Hasan, we 
>>>>>>>> might compare him to a black soldier from segregated American asked 
>>>>>>>> to kill Asians (and perhaps return home to enforce martial law in 
>>>>>>>> Newark or Detroit) in the 1960s. What the LOAD will not allow us to 
>>>>>>>> do is to think of this event in terms of rebellion.
>>>>>>>>  DG
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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> 