[Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at illinois.edu
Tue Nov 24 22:52:17 CST 2009
"The Shoah" is an englishing of the Hebrew word for the Judeocide or Holocaust,
the murder of Jews in Europe by the Nazis.
LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
>> 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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