Re: Before the Law

So much as I appreciate the dignity of this sudden shift to referring to me
strictly in the third person, John, I will still allow you the second.

You seem to have made up your mind about this conversation and all of its
participants a long time ago. For all your talk of respect, I think you are
being nothing if not impatient, disrespectful, and dismissive. You were
never asked for "philosophy for t-shirts or slogans to replace thought," nor
to put anything into a "convenient catch-phrase" for people too lazy or
disrespectful to give it what it deserves. People on this list are just as
busy as you -- some, no doubt, much busier than you -- and you were asked to
assist their coming to understand something you appear to be the resident
expert on in any possible way that doesn't require more time than they (or
you) have to give. This is not disrespectful of the ideas. More
satisfactory understandings of them can come later. A fledgling
understanding fostered here can in fact undermine the notion (the undeniably
pervasive notion) that what you're talking about is so much bullshit and
pretentious posturing. I have suspected that it is NOT merely bullshit and
pretentious posturing and have hoped that you would help dispel the notion
by some plain-language talk, some provisional and makeshift definitions,
some patient explanations, and perhaps some cordiality. Instead I find that
you have done a disservice to the ideas by being a condescending and
difficult representative.

Neither does such a thing speak poorly of the "scholarship" or "intellectual
habits" of people who are simply devoting their scholarship and intellectual
habits to things that, at the moment at least, they take to be more
important or interesting. It's a big world full of profound and important
ideas.

Your list of things you "stand in favor of" is empty. You might as well
have declared your endorsement of love, goodness, and puppy dogs. Standing
in favor of "bothering to read" and a list of others that are similarly
uncontroversial doesn't tell us something we don't know and it doesn't put
you in opposition to anyone. It sounds -- to my ear anyway --
self-superior, condescending and not much else.

As you say, you have given two helpful morsels (and a third several years
ago) but have been an ass every step of the way. Those two were helpful to
me, and I appreciate them. What you said in the last email, too, beginning
with "'Deconstruction,' insofar as it names any 'thing,' names. . ." was
also helpful to me and of all you've said comes closest to what I was
talking about. It seems ironic to me that for all of your superior talk of
refusal, your last few posts have nevertheless included closer and closer
approximations of exactly what I was talking about. Of course, you have
introduced all of them by belittling what I was talking about (in confused
and misleading ways). In this last, you said that deconstruction refers to
a series of texts, and my next question (asked sincerely and cordially and
with only good intentions) would be what sorts of things, as you see it,
those texts have in common. But since you've given me every reason to
expect some patronizing comments with a refusal to answer the question and a
belittling of the request (before answering, or half-answering, the question
anyway), I will give up further discussion with you as a vain endeavor.

All the best,

Robbie
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Received on Sun Mar 9 04:30:01 2003