a civilised exchange of views

    '...as for scottie, i think the line hasn't been visible
    for quite a while...'

    I wonder what kind of discussion Kim has in mind.
    It sounds like recipe for milk pudding.

    A man's convictions - if they are truly his - cannot be
    taken out of the wardrobe in the morning & put on
    like a suit. To attack them is inevitably to touch him
    on the quick. And to embrace them publicly is to
    accept the possibility of damage to one's emotional
    home.

    We're told to 'support your position with arguments'.
    But most 'arguments' in favour of, or opposed to,
    a personal statement are essentially rationalisations.
    What 'argument' can support the faith that there is
    a Virgin Mary who will intercede on my behalf with
    a judging God? But if I dismiss this faith as primitive
    superstition I shall certainly hurt certain readers
    &, by implication, label them as emotional children.
    If an enthusiastic teenager tells me Salinger is the greatest
    writer of the modern age - but has never heard of Tolstoy
    or Proust - must I hold my tongue?

    It's also true that the style says as much about a man
    as his actual words. Doesn't a patronising bullshitter
    deserve to be called out? The inability to express ideas
    in clear, simple sentences (no names, no packdrill) says
    something about the cogency of the ideas being expressed
    & about the reliability of the mind holding them. Should we
    pass it over in tactful silence?

    Scottie B.

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Received on Tue Mar 4 04:10:17 2003