Email from a non-SadGeezer
Spoil Sport Alert
Tony, I’ve read your amendments to my reply, and so would like to amend my own reply by way of reply to your amendment [img]images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]
End Spoil Sport
A lovely poem by your Dad – clearly you’re very proud of him, and the sentiments are quite inspiring.
Consequently,, I want to ask you not to take offense to what I’m about to say. I’m not trying to antagonise you or start a flame war.
I’m a little troubled by the (sudden) desire to impugn Jen’s motives or character. Its almost as if the support has given you the courage to take it more personally than you originally intended. Despite the fact that she was obviously rude, it is also equally apparent that she found your reviews offensive. Although we don’t have to agree with her, we don’t need to agree to recognise the integrity of her concerns. I think thefrey put it best when she said that Jen sounded vexed, and reacted accordingly. The only thing I would disagree with her about here – and by inadvertent extension, agree with you – is the notion that there might be such a thing as uniquely fe/male perspective. A cult sci fi site may be the place to encourage the belief that ‘men are from mars, and women are from venus’, but I think frey would be the first to dispute such nonsense. My experience is that there are as many variations within the sexes as there are between them.
An important point that you might want to consider though – now that women have greater access to educational opportunities, etc, they have statistically revealed themselves to be more intelligent than men (irrespective of the background). If this statistic is replicated in the graviational pull towards sci fi, you might need to be wary of speaking in just the one ‘voice’, and not invariably disallow a woman like Jen her ‘say’, however she says it. Following you’re Dad’s example, I think she deserves the benefit of the doubt – if only because it is us who really benefits from such doubts.
The second – and more personal point – is you’re remark concerning winning philosophical arguments. Speaking as a philosopher, we don’t win or lose arguments. We try and preserve the integrity of the problem/s that give rise to them. More often than not, we invariably fail and so find ourselves arguing with each other. Some people decide to fight on, others realise that trying to win is part of the original problem. There is a famous dispute within philosophy concerning its status as a disipline involving Wittgentein and Popper. Wittgenstein – the allegedly open minded one – resorted to threatening Popper with a red hot poker because Popper wanted to keep the question/s open. Bertrand Russel is notorious for screaming ‘put down that poker!’ Most importantly, there is a debate about what ‘really’ happened that night, and no one can get the ‘facts’ right. What is clear, though, is that the dispute is divided along partisan lines, indicating that people only believe what they want to, and argue according to personal need. There is a point to this – namely, in philosophy(as in anything else), life is like a game of poker, and we can only play with the cards we’re dealt. Jen played her card, we’ve played ours – no point in believing that she isn’t playing fair, cause she is convinced that she has – and who are we to begrudge her conviction?
Finally, if philosophy were able to settle its disputes or answer its own questions, it would have stopped playing the game the day of its own inception. The history of philosopy is (and will remain) old whines in new bottles. Arguments are never lost or won – old solutions appear as new problems, and these new problems go on to reappear as variants of the very questions that vexed everyone in the first place.
[ 15-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]