Solving a Puzzle-- Understanding Some People's Reactions

[Brant Gaede]

Do you know how difficult it was for Pasteur to get his ideas across when the Discourse pooh-poohed them? Or S...........to convince gentlemen doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies. What? Is he implying gentlemen have dirty hands? They ridiculed him, sent him out of the profession and he died crazy in an asylum. The Discourse kills.

Well, maybe you should exit OL before you die crazy in an asylum. You are already over halfway there, and you probably should not push your luck.

Ghs

Bye.

Really? Phil's still here! Xray too!

It all goes back to calling George out on Foucault. I warned you.

--Brant

[seymourblogger]

Do you know how difficult it was for Pasteur to get his ideas across when the Discourse pooh-poohed them? Or S...........to convince gentlemen doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies. What? Is he implying gentlemen have dirty hands? They ridiculed him, sent him out of the profession and he died crazy in an asylum. The Discourse kills.

Well, maybe you should exit OL before you die crazy in an asylum. You are already over halfway there, and you probably should not push your luck. Ghs

Bye.

Really? Phil's still here! Xray too! It all goes back to calling George out on Foucault. I warned you. --Brant

Tell me why. Why would he care.

[caroljane]

Do you know how difficult it was for Pasteur to get his ideas across when the Discourse pooh-poohed them? Or S...........to convince gentlemen doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies. What? Is he implying gentlemen have dirty hands? They ridiculed him, sent him out of the profession and he died crazy in an asylum. The Discourse kills.

Well, maybe you should exit OL before you die crazy in an asylum. You are already over halfway there, and you probably should not push your luck.

Ghs

Bye.

WHAT? Bye? She actually exited, just because you told her to?

Goshdurn you George, you druv her off afore the rest of us could get a good tasty bite out of her. Dang it.

[seymourblogger]

Heart of Darkness time...

Lawrence of Arabia...

Paul Muadib

The tao of immersion...

“I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.”

Oh I just loved the first Dune book. All the rest went downhill. I could tell he was using a word processor on them. I have always been afraid to read it again, that I wouldn't like it so much, that I would be critical of it.

[Brant Gaede]

Do you know how difficult it was for Pasteur to get his ideas across when the Discourse pooh-poohed them? Or S...........to convince gentlemen doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies. What? Is he implying gentlemen have dirty hands? They ridiculed him, sent him out of the profession and he died crazy in an asylum. The Discourse kills.

Well, maybe you should exit OL before you die crazy in an asylum. You are already over halfway there, and you probably should not push your luck. Ghs

Bye.

Really? Phil's still here! Xray too! It all goes back to calling George out on Foucault. I warned you. --Brant

Tell me why. Why would he care.

He likes the sport. Like hunting humans on a private island. He knows the terrain, he's got the dogs and the guns. Run, run, run.

--Brant

if you don't know why you're a guest here, you'll soon find out

OL Island

The

Most

Dangerous

Game

[seymourblogger]

Do you know how difficult it was for Pasteur to get his ideas across when the Discourse pooh-poohed them? Or S...........to convince gentlemen doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies. What? Is he implying gentlemen have dirty hands? They ridiculed him, sent him out of the profession and he died crazy in an asylum. The Discourse kills.

Well, maybe you should exit OL before you die crazy in an asylum. You are already over halfway there, and you probably should not push your luck. Ghs

Bye.

Really? Phil's still here! Xray too! It all goes back to calling George out on Foucault. I warned you. --Brant

Tell me why. Why would he care.

He likes the sport. Like hunting humans on a private island. He knows the terrain, he's got the dogs and the guns. Run, run, run.

--Brant

if you don't know why you're a guest here, you'll soon find out.

OL Island

Ooooooooohhhhhhh! Dangerous and fun. Risky business eh.

[seymourblogger]

Do you know how difficult it was for Pasteur to get his ideas across when the Discourse pooh-poohed them? Or S...........to convince gentlemen doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies. What? Is he implying gentlemen have dirty hands? They ridiculed him, sent him out of the profession and he died crazy in an asylum. The Discourse kills.

Well, maybe you should exit OL before you die crazy in an asylum. You are already over halfway there, and you probably should not push your luck.

Ghs

Bye.

WHAT? Bye? She actually exited, just because you told her to?

Goshdurn you George, you druv her off afore the rest of us could get a good tasty bite out of her. Dang it.

Yup.

[George H. Smith]

On the assumption that you did not understand my point, I will repeat it: How is your distinction between Sacred and Secular Orders anything other than yet another bit of cultural bias, a prejudice that you picked up from western academics, such as Foucault? In other words, it has no objective status whatsoever. Got it now, hon? Or do I need to make it even simpler for you? Ghs

Orthodox Hebrews hold Saturday sacred. They do not work or use electricity from sun up to sun down. Or any utilities. (I wonder if they turn their heat off in the winter or the air-con in the summer.)Are you gonna try to get one of them to help you start your car or change a tire. Try explaining that it won't matter if they do. How about the Jews in the concentration camps that were starving, observing fasting on holy days. Doesn't make any sense. The secular orders and the sacred orders are not just between countries or cultures.

Do you really not understand the philosophical point I am making about relativism? Have you never studied philosophy or the philosophy of the social sciences at all? Can you really be that dense?

Ghs

Of course I do. Does that mean I have to agree with how you spin it?

I merely stated a standard problem with relativism, one that you can find (in some form) in many introductory texts on philosophy and the social sciences. You don't even understand the basic problem. When I posed it twice, you went off on irrelevant tangents without showing any awareness of what the problem even is.

Here is how I envision a warning ad:

This is Foucault:

[picture of Foucault}

This is your mind on Foucault:

[picture of Janet]

Ghs

[BaalChatzaf]

Orthodox Hebrews hold Saturday sacred. They do not work or use electricity from sun up to sun down. Or any utilities. (I wonder if they turn their heat off in the winter or the air-con in the summer.)Are you gonna try to get one of them to help you start your car or change a tire. Try explaining that it won't matter if they do. How about the Jews in the concentration camps that were starving, observing fasting on holy days. Doesn't make any sense. The secular orders and the sacred orders are not just between countries or cultures.

Saving a life takes higher priority than observing the Sabbath. An Orthodox Jewish doctor will immediately do his medical thing if he is the obvious person to save a life. Assume it is his special skill that is required. Then he will treat his patient first and worry about the Sabbath second.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[seymourblogger]

Orthodox Hebrews hold Saturday sacred. They do not work or use electricity from sun up to sun down. Or any utilities. (I wonder if they turn their heat off in the winter or the air-con in the summer.)Are you gonna try to get one of them to help you start your car or change a tire. Try explaining that it won't matter if they do. How about the Jews in the concentration camps that were starving, observing fasting on holy days. Doesn't make any sense. The secular orders and the sacred orders are not just between countries or cultures.

Saving a life takes higher priority than observing the Sabbath. An Orthodox Jewish doctor will immediately do his medical thing if he is the obvious person to save a life. Assume it is his special skill that is required. Then he will treat his patient first and worry about the Sabbath second.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Good to know.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yup.

Good to know.

Seymourblogger,

Did you know you posted about 120 posts since a few hours before yesterday? As of now there are 90 just within the last 24 hour period.

Compared to the participation of the other posters, this is an imbalance that will drive our audience away.

So I need you to post less.

I suggest you forgo the one-worders and one-liners without any real substance of value for readers, like the two I just quoted. That won't solve the problem, but it will help a lot.

The interest of OL's readership is more in the direction of quality, not quantity.

Thanks.

Michael

[Philip Coates]

> What post are you quoting from? I've searched but I cannot find it. This is very annoying. If you will not use the quote function, you could at least give a post number, especially when posts have been appearing at a rapid rate, as they have tonight on this thread. [GHS, 157]

Sorry. I almost always give a post number, unless it was just above (one of the one or two posts the reader has just read). I forgot this time.

[Philip Coates]

Subject: being patient and pleasant and diplomatic and tactful

In #161, WSS reposts something from OWL of mine in which I'm in the middle of a debate on the rights of children. What's notable is how irritated debating with 'academic' types made me. I can certainly see how my crankiness and disrespect for the 'academic style' would piss them off. [WSS helped me see it just now by bolding the cranky or condemnatory parts].

Maybe there is a more diplomatic way I could have made the same points I did, but my style is not as diplomatic as it could be...especially as frustration builds up over time. I guess that's a flaw of mine. (I know there are many admirers of my writing style on this board who would be shocked because they thought I was perfect... )

The thing I need to think about is when I ruffle feathers with a side comment on bad writing or bad thinking or too much needles-on the-head-of-a-pin academic minutiae style, the reader who is angered will be distracted from *actually carefully considering* my serious points or insights.

It's the old catch more flies with honey than vinegar principle. And I'm hardly the only person in the Oist movement who needs to learn it.

[Philip Coates]

Subject: being patient and pleasant and diplomatic and tactful (people and teaching and conversational and debating skills)

Related to this is the question of when irritability and lack of tact occurs. For me and for most people, obviously when you are personally attacked as opposed to having your ideas treated with precision and respect. But in the OWL case WSS quotes, while the whole back story was not snipped, it seems as though it was the overall style of discussion that was an irritant for me - "academese" and nit-picking have always annoyed me.

Where I'd like to improve is in dealing with these latter kinds of issues -- annoyance with the method or tenor of conversation. (When it is personal attacks and uncivil, there I don't have any desire to improve my style of response - when kicked in the teeth it's appropriate to kick back.)

(Like many others, I'm a lot more patient, benevolent, less irritated, "in a good mood" in person. Usually repetitiousness of dealing with the same issue over and over and getting nowhere has not set in and there is no memory of past incivility or missrepresentation and so on. I've been told that as a teacher I'm very thoughtful, very accepting, very patient, a good listener, non-hectoring. And when people meet me and have a conversation or disagreement with me and sit down for a cup of coffee, I think they think they also have a thoughtful or pleasant and friendly interaction.)

[George H. Smith]

It's the old catch more flies with honey than vinegar principle. And I'm hardly the only person in the Oist movement who needs to learn it.

I have a lot of writing to do over the next few days, so I am going to leave Janet in your understanding hands. You can persuade her of the error of her Foucauldian ways, even though she refuses to discuss Foucault's ideas in any serious way; you can point out that Rand did not agree with Burroughs that something does not exist unless it it is perceived, which of course is a minor error about Rand that anyone could make; and, best of all, you can encourage her to teach us more about Foucauldian Readings. (You may need to get a crystal ball for this, but I'm not sure.).

Be kind, be patient, be gentle. Then go out there with all you've got and win just one for the Gipper.

Ghs

[Reidy]

Another point about the Burroughs quote is that Berkeley said it 200 years earlier. It's not even original.

Anyone could make the mistake, but Janet did.

[George H. Smith]

Another point about the Burroughs quote is that Berkeley said it 200 years earlier. It's not even original. Anyone could make the mistake, but Janet did.

I hope you understand that I was being sarcastic with the "anyone could make" that mistake remark. Even people who have never read Rand know that she was not a subjectivist. Maybe it was the label "Objectivism" that clued them in. 8-)

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

> What post are you quoting from? I've searched but I cannot find it. This is very annoying. If you will not use the quote function, you could at least give a post number, especially when posts have been appearing at a rapid rate, as they have tonight on this thread. [GHS, 157]

Sorry. I almost always give a post number, unless it was just above (one of the one or two posts the reader has just read). I forgot this time.

You almost never give a post number.

--Brant

simple fact

[seymourblogger]

Yup.

Good to know.

Seymourblogger,

Did you know you posted about 120 posts since a few hours before yesterday? As of now there are 90 just within the last 24 hour period.

Compared to the participation of the other posters, this is an imbalance that will drive our audience away.

So I need you to post less.

I suggest you forgo the one-worders and one-liners without any real substance of value for readers, like the two I just quoted. That won't solve the problem, but it will help a lot.

The interest of OL's readership is more in the direction of quality, not quantity.

Thanks.

Michael

From now on you will get quality. I started out here with quality. Some people couldn't keep up with me nor did they want to learn from me, except on their terms, and so they attacked. A bunch. Now when I zapped back I zapped each of them, so I ended up with far more posts than each of the pack members. They knew the rules here and I didn't. Gotcha!

They used to do this on the ultra liberal site the dailykos, only they had the software hacked on their side. Well it's a metaphor for a gangbang. I did it, but so did he, and her, and x and y, not just me sir. It's a clever way of getting rid of someone on a site who changes the Discourse. A way of "killing" someone. A rather primitive strategy that unevolved people and animals use to pick victims and scapegoat on them.

Well you do not have the sanction of the victim here with me. I did learn that lesson from Rand. The hard way, but I did recognize it because she taught me to recognize it.

Are you aware of your participation in this charade? This bunch knows how to suck you in to make you do the dirty work. They are clever,eh. I didn't push her out. Michael did. You are willing to do this because I didn't suck up to you. Is that really what you want here?

I can do that. Just tell me to and I will.

As I said, you will get quality, they won't be able to keep up, they won't want to learn how to keep up, so they will attack. And, I will return the attacks. But this time I will make a collage of all of them and respond only once in a long one that will cover each one of them. That way I will only have one post instead of 250. This is for those who are bean counters. We all know another bean counter and his name is NObama.

Will that work for you?

[Peter]

See more buggers wrote:

Will that work for you?

end quote

You sound like a crank, crank. Seek treatment for your methamphetamine dependence. Speed kills.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[caroljane]

Actually I thought Michael was being tongue-in-cheek, echoing Phil's eloquent pleas for "balance".

[George H. Smith]

From now on you will get quality. I started out here with quality. Some people couldn't keep up with me nor did they want to learn from me, except on their terms, and so they attacked.

You probably won't listen to any advice from me, but I will give it anyway.

I don't know how many Internet forums you have joined, but it is customary for a newbie to hang back and observe for a while, in order to get a feel for the list, before barging in with grand oracular posts of the sort that kept appearing in your signatures (and which is now posted in your pofile.)

There are many highly knowledgeable people on OL, so whether they have anything to learn from you is an open question, one that will be decided over time. But one thing is certain: You are not very familiar with the writings and ideas of Ayn Rand, so you have nothing to teach OLers in this regard. Some of the comments you made about Rand (now on your profile) are first-rate howlers that no one will take seriously. For example, about a conversation in The Fountainhead, you wrote:

The typing rolling on is linear time. The cut or stop is the Event, when time stops, a discontinuous "cut". This is the position of post modernism. Time is no longer linear, progressive, historical. Time is discontinuous, filled with Events that come from elsewhere (seen again in the Cortland dynamiting), unpredictable, without causes, and having consequences spiraling out into the world that astonish.

You can call this a "Foucauldian Reading" or whatever you like, but it is nonsense, pure and simple. To attribute to Rand the view that "Time is discontinuous, filled with events...without causes" directly contradicts everything that Rand ever wrote and believed. So unless you are going to engage in some Derrida-like Deconstructionism -- according to which contradictory meanings can legitimately be assigned to the same text -- you need to do your Rand-homework first before writing anything more of this sort.

Foucault, to his credit, opposed Deconstructionism. My memory is a little hazy, but I recall that Derrida once took an isolated passage from one of Foucault's books and interpreted it in a wildly inaccurate fashion -- a procedure that pissed-off Foucault so much that he stopped talking to Derrida for many years. So take your cue from Foucault and don't do to Rand what Derrida did to him.

You are free to ignore my advice, of course, but if you do don't expect to be taken seriously on OL.

Ghs

[Xray]

Do you know how difficult it was for Pasteur to get his ideas across when the Discourse pooh-poohed them? Or S...........to convince gentlemen doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies. What? Is he implying gentlemen have dirty hands? They ridiculed him, sent him out of the profession and he died crazy in an asylum. The Discourse kills.

Well, maybe you should exit OL before you die crazy in an asylum. You are already over halfway there, and you probably should not push your luck.

Ghs

Bye.

Really? Phil's still here! Xray too!

I've always been a long-haul type.

But kidding aside: I'm really disappointed if a debate opponent, after making some loud 'trumpet sounds', then does not have the guts to step into the ring.

It all goes back to calling George out on Foucault. I warned you.

Janet did not get what she bargained for (= recognition/appreciation), no question.

For all she has fired off so far is blank ammunition, and I think it begins to dawn on her that this might not be enough to get an epistemological foot on the ground.

[Xray]

Yes. Islamic countries are within the Sacred Order not the Order of Production, not a Secular order. You cannot judge them from within ours, tempting as that may be. I presume you are talking about genital cutting among other things. Stoning because of adultery, etc.

They are a culture that has a great fear of women. And women are the cornerstone of their culture /religion. Exchange and property. This is a total belief system. And I think you know about beliefs. You may suppress the behavior but you are not going to get rid of it. You may punish and try them as we do in the US, but thaat still is only going to suppress it, the belief will still be there. Maybe here after a few generations it will not happen. Ousmane Sembene's last film was on genital mutilation. He is a filmmaker, educated in France, from Somalia and has always done films on taboo subjects, exposing hypocrisy. It shows that other women in the village are the most adamant on the cutting, and the young girls want it as a ritual of feminine adulthood, otherwise they will not be marriageable and then what do they have if they cannot marry. It's complicated. Mothers often try to spare their daughters, but other women undermine them, grab their daughters and do it anyway against her wishes. Human rights belong to secular orders not sacred orders.

Then why do they judge our culture?

--Brant

Whaaaat! What kind of question is that? How would I know the thousands of reasons they do. They do because they do, just as we judge them.

A question well asked is one half the answer - Bacon

Really if you ask questions like that you can never find out anything or know anything.

Janet,

It looks more as if you believe answers like that ("They do because they do") qualify as an explanation, you can never find out anything substantial.

But questions like the one Brant asked above are exactly those that lead you to find out more. Do you want to find out more about the issue, Janet?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and go by the premise that you are (correct me if I'm wrong) an inquiring mind.

From this premise it follows that you do have specific and concrete answers to the "why" Brant asked you about.

Do you agree with this inference?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Are you aware of your participation in this charade? This bunch knows how to suck you in to make you do the dirty work. They are clever,eh. I didn't push her out. Michael did. You are willing to do this because I didn't suck up to you. Is that really what you want here?

Heh.

You've got some things to learn about how OL works. You have no idea how I have handled the many trolls and crazies and bullies and preacher types, including a few nasty people purposely out to destroy this forum, who have appeared in the past. (And other problems, of course.)

Yet look around. We have a pretty good thing going with a very high-quality audience. Before telling the owner why that is, I suggest you do some observing first. To put it politely, it ain't the way you speculate. I know what I'm doing. I learned it the hard way at the college of hard knocks, Screw U.

That's why I'm glad you say you are opting for quality. (Let's see if you do what you say, but only time will tell.) And yes, that will save me a headache. But if not, no worries. I've dealt with people who have tried to hog the forum before so I assure you I can handle it without a whole bunch of "howling."

Look at how you were received. I can almost guarantee that you have not had the treatment elsewhere that you have had so far here. There are reasons--and some of them are the reasons you want to post here. But I'm not going to teach them to you. All you have to do is observe and you will find them out for yourself.

Actually I thought Michael was being tongue-in-cheek, echoing Phil's eloquent pleas for "balance".

Carol,

I've had to deal with several machine-gun posters in the past (including one serial plagiarist). They actually do make the audience leave. The first day or three there's a surge in interest since people like to gather to see the train wreck, but as the show gets monotonous, people move on. That's what the stats backstage have always told me (in addition to my own eyes, of course).

Nowadays I try to nip things in the bud instead of waiting for the audience to leave.

And it's always a treat when someone like that finally "gets" the spirit of the forum. (I'm thinking specifically about one who knows who she is and she ain't you or the current newcomer.)

I keep an eye on these things because I like to make a comfortable, but challenging, environment for highly intelligent people to explore ideas--using our shared interest in Objectivism as a starting point, not an end. If you build it they will come. That's what's happened so far.

Like I said above, I think we've got a pretty good thing going here. And there's something else. Over the years, I've noticed that many things posted here end up being raised and discussed at other intelligent places soon after.

Come to think of it...

Yo!

You lurkers!

Yo!

Give yourself a hand! I mean it...

You guys rock.

Stupid people don't read OL too much. Intelligent people do.

So guess what that makes you?

Rock on...

Michael