Re: Responses to Robbie and Luke

Jim writes:
<< What is the difference between a "definition" and an "elaboration," and
why does what I offered as a "definition" not work as one? Be specific.
Give me reasons and not just assertions. >>

I think you misunderstood me. What I tried to say was that perhaps I ought
not to have asked for a definition, but an elaboration upon the definition
you already gave.

This is because the definition you already gave was not -- for me at
least -- serving its function in the conversation, because it made no
clearer, and in fact might have obfuscated, the distinction you were trying
to make. I read the relevant posts twice through and still was unsure how
it was that you were calling some things generalities and some things not
generalities (since it seemed to me that one could, perhaps on different
grounds, include them all under your definition or include them all under
one of your non-generality terms like "specific judgment" or "summary").
This curiosity was not enough to bring me into the conversation, but then
Luke exhibited the same problem and you started treating him poorly.

So, teasingly, I asked for a definition. You told me you already gave one,
I re-read everything, and I said that perhaps I should have asked you to
elaborate rather than define.

Jim writes:
<< If you think the word "computer" is a "generality" then of course you
would disagree with my statements. I don't think this is a very meaningful
definition, though -- if every word is a generality (this would apply to
verbs and adjectives as well as nouns, by your description), then the word
"generality" is synonymous with the word "word," and that's hardly common
usage either.>>

First and most important, I was not disagreeing with your statements. I
cannot disagree with them if I don't understand quite exactly what they are,
and at the time I opened this last message from you, I was no further than
trying to understand the basis of your distinction -- which stage makes
agreement or disagreement quite irresponsible.

Second, your capacity to see something you've never seen before, something
not even quite like anything you've ever seen before, and recognize it as a
member of a class you are familiar with (computer or otherwise) suggests the
presence in your understanding of some sort of generalization of the class.
Of course this is not the sort of generality you were talking about -- this
was very clear to me when I mentioned it, and I thought its clearness to me
was clear to you. I shouldn't have assumed that, obviously, and I'm sorry
for having done so.

I was not suggesting it as a replacement for your definition.

Jim suggests a provisional definition of "generality," similar to his last
but with a few more careful details, and then writes:
<< Now, the really pressing thing for this discussion is whether or not my
definition of generality fits Luke's statements that I called
generalities -- which, of course, it does. I believe I started this when he
provided a generality about "enlightenment" that supposedly held true across
different religious traditions (but doesn't). >>

I was not especially interested in the religious part of this conversation,
primarily because I wanted to avoid being in another such conversation. My
aim here was not to suggest that Luke was correct in his talk about
enlightenment, but, initially, to (quite playfully) tease you for your
treatment of him, and, if you were interested in my teasings beyond a smiley
or two, to suggest a more thorough explanation of your distinctions, which
were not clear to me.

 Jim writes, concerning my comparison of the Blake quote to a religious or
ethnic generalization:
<< Just like Luke, you have to misrepresent what you attack. >>

Again, first and most important, I am not attacking anything. No attack
here. Least of all am I attacking Blake. I am not insulting or dismissing
the quotation when I say that it can very well be called a generalization; I
had always read it as a very playful irony, generalizing the worthlessness
of generalizations.

And then:
<< Blake didn't say that "people who make generalities are idiots." He
said, "To generalize is to be an idiot." In other words, the _act_ is an act
of idiocy. Otherwise intelligent people can do stupid things, you know.
Since Blake was passing judgment on a specific act (which I called "habit of
mind" earlier), I would say this isn't a generality. He's not talking about
a "class" of people united by a set of characteristics (like, say, Jews),
but talking about a type of act people with all kinds of different
characteristics can commit (like, say, telling a lie).

<<So, if you were thinking clearly about it and really understood your
opponent's position, you'd realize that Blake's "to generalize is to be an
idiot" is really more like, "to lie is to be dishonest" than it is like,
"Jews are stingy" (to use your poor example).

<< Pay attention, man :). >>

I am paying attention. Maybe you mean the smiley to take the edge off
comments like that, but it doesn't really work, and it bothers people.

And so far as I am able, I am also thinking clearly; and I have been quite
forthright about not really understanding what you were saying, so no need
for the accusation. And I will quite adamantly insist that you are in no
meaningful way my "opponent."

Suggesting that I am not thinking clearly and, accusatorily, that I don't
really understand your position (while I was quite open about that) makes
this all a rather unpleasant affair, puts an enormous obstacle in the way of
its going anywhere worth the time of either of us, and it probably makes a
few people not like you so much. (And perhaps thinking of me as an opponent
is where it all comes from.) Holster your weapon. I surrender.

I must admit that in the example I gave I made Blake's infinitive into the
people acting because it made my point more clear, but the case remains that
even with Blake's words as you quote them the assertion rings in my ear as a
generalization. If you allow that an act can be an object (which maybe you
won't, though we can do this in our grammar and I think we do it, at least
in some sense, in our thinking as well), your acknowledgment to Daniel about
statistical generalities or things like them suggests an acknowledgement of
what seemed clear to me: that generalizations or acts of generalizing
compose a diverse class of objects. To use your definition, a descriptive
statement about generalizing -- whether of the people doing it or of the act
itself -- can still qualify, it seems to me.

Since you think the example I gave is poor (I guess because it generalizes
people instead of instances of an action?), we can easily change it. I
don't like "To lie is to be dishonest" because of Scottie's observation. It
is an unmeaningful assertion.

How about, to follow as closely as possible the grammar of the Blake
quotation, "To speak is to be a liar." I've got a diverse class of
"objects" (all possible instances of speaking) and I lump them into a single
category (lies, or, more precisely if you like, instances of being a liar).
Like the Blake quotation, one might even like this statement for some
glimmer of truth one recognizes in it, however exaggerated. Maybe because
one takes all speech to be necessarily an imperfect approximation, maybe
because of our constant politeness-lies, one might appreciate this
assertion. Still, it makes a sweeping generalization and one might just as
well say that, strictly speaking, it isn't true.

Even if we exclude the constant acts of generalizing that I referred to
before and maintain your common-usage definition, it seems to me that we
must admit that NOT all acts of generalizing are acts of idiocy. Some
generalizations are, in fact, true -- even if in some specifically limited
way. Many generalizations are useful, even indispensable. You insist,
perhaps rightly, on "problems inherent in" statistical generalities, but you
do acknowledge their usefulness, and, presumably, that their makers and
users and not necessarily being idiots.

Thus there are cases of generalizations that are not accurately represented
by Blake's generalization. Perhaps this is the nature of generalizations,
and Blake's generalization is one of those generalizations that is not
accurately represented by itself (useful, accurate-enough generalization
that is not an act of idiocy). Like I said, richly ironic.

Of course, you might insist that actions cannot be objects under your
definition or some such thing, in which case Blake's statement is not, by
your definition, a generalization (perhaps like all generalizations
sometimes inapplicable, as to itself perhaps). In this case it seems to me
an exaggeration -- a statement that, strictly speaking, is not true. To
generalize is not always to be an idiot. Perhaps often enough to make the
maxim worthwhile, but not always. Its being a generalizition, in my eyes,
saves it from being an uninteresting and, strictly speaking, untrue
assertion by imparting such a rich and layered irony: Frankly, if we deny
the generalizing of the quotation, it loses its irony and becomes quite
uninteresting to me.

But I expect that arguing about whether or not this assertion is a
generalization might be something like arguing about whether the many
situations described in Alanis Morrisette's song "Ironic" are in fact ironic
at all (I don't think they are, by the way, and I think it's a dumb song,
but people certainly argue this and, on at least the former point, I do
concede their understanding as valid with perhaps a bit of context not
provided by the song or a slightly different standard of irony -- I just
think it's a less interesting one). It could certainly be or not be a
generality, hinging only on a perhaps subtle distinction in the use of
"generality."

Jim then writes extensively to Luke, and says to him:
<< I think what really, initially annoyed me was a seemingly dismissive
attitude on your part toward your subject, a dismissiveness that was
communicated as much by your vapid generalities as by your tone. I responded
in kind.
So if you or Robbie are bothered by my dismissiveness toward you, Luke,
well, buck up. You earned it by sounding dismissive yourself. >>

I admit that before you started responding to them I was not reading Luke's
original posts very well, largely for the aforementioned disinterest in the
talk about enlightenment and also for some current disinterest in actual
talk about Salinger. So maybe I simply glossed over it, but it's worth
saying, I suppose, that of what I did gather I did not sense any
dismissiveness. Perhaps, as you suggested, Luke was flat wrong about almost
everything he was saying, but I wasn't reading his assessments -- factual or
not -- as dismissiveness of anything. I in fact sensed great reverence for
the ideas, whether his understanding of them were true or false.

If I had sensed such dismissiveness as you say, I'd probably not have ribbed
you for opening fire.

Then, out of nowhere and in an apparent haze of rage, Swiftfooted
Achilles -- er, I mean Jim, writes:
<< You classical liberal arts guys really need to learn that thinking
people don't give a damn how well you say something. I'm sure all this
nonsense goes over very well in your classroom, impressing the underclassmen
and maybe the TAs forced to listen to your vapid pontificating. Those
beyond that stage, though, care more about the content of what you're
saying.
It seems to be almost entirely lacking. >>

And a bit beneath:
<< God you two sound pathetically smug and self-righteous.
At least when I insult people, I don't lie to myself about it. >>

I'm not sure how to respond to this, probably because I'm not sure where
exactly it's coming from. I can only speak for myself and not for Luke, but
I should hope than in a few hours or days or a week, when its writing is a
bit dimmer in your memory, you don't feel this way about me anymore. But, I
suppose, if you still do, you still do.

If you continue to believe that what I wrote was all empty "pontificating,"
all I can do is ask you to rephrase your many chidings to Luke and I about
paying attention, et cetera, into more genteel terms and redirect them
inward, and I hope you'll change your mind.

And if that last sentence of yours is supposed to suggest that I insulted
you (maybe you only think that Luke did?), I can only insist that I never
meant to do anything of the sort.

-robbie
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Received on Sun Jul 13 19:39:13 2003