Re: bad poetry?

Several days ago, Jim wrote:
<< Robbie --
<< Please go back and reread the posts. I've already defined the word
"generality." I think it was in the second response, if that helps. >>

I didn't remember this, so I went back and reread the relevant posts in the
digests (going through three of the digests). I found some talk about
generalities, but nothing that I thought would allow one who didn't already
know your criteria (like, it seemed it to me, some of us reading your posts)
to distinguish very reliably between the things you were calling
generalities and the things you were calling not-generalities. I inquired
of you when I became puzzled by your claims that several things were not
generalities which very much seemed to me to be quite exactly that.

It is certainly possible that I missed something, perhaps possible (?) that
the digest itself missed a post -- but this was my impression on my first
read and it remained so upon my second.

I was only ribbing you in a (probably perverse and certainly misapplied)
motion to suggest (however awkwardly) a bit more civility. I make no claim
to exceptional cleverness, but I am no slouch nor a stupid reader, and I was
wondering some of the same things as your interlocutor -- I thus didn't want
to see any rough-housing, nor any other treatment of said interlocutor
fitted to a slouch or a stupid reader. He ended up making the same point,
albeit with much more grace.

In any case, in the time between the message to which I am responding and
this response, Daniel chipped in and the conversation made some things clear
and I believe you acknowledged some things that I thought forcefully
pertinent (such as the occasional usefulness of certain sorts of
generalizations). Also, the conversation ended. So there you have it.
It's all over now.

And finally, Jim also wrote:
<< Aristotle wasn't a topic, really, just a reference point to contrast
different ideas that shouldn't be collapsed into one another. >>

I understood that Aristotle was never a topic, but was ribbing you again
(with the mention, which all have likely forgotten, of bonus points for a
meaningful fleshing-out of the reference) since I thought his name fell
abruptly without acting very well -- or at least not with great clarity --
as the sort of "reference point" you speak of.

I hope all remains well in New Jersey (on that other coast, where I will
soon be returning after an absense).

-robbie
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Received on Fri Jul 11 21:25:09 2003