4.0896 Responses Part II: Humanist, War, and Metaphor (10/183)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 15 Jan 91 19:34:35 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0896. Tuesday, 15 Jan 1991.
(1) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 1991 9:05:43 -0800 (PST) (8 lines)
From: Art Ferrill <ferrill@u.washington.edu>
Subject: re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
(2) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 1991 22:29 EET (15 lines)
From: "Markku Lonkila, p. 191 2707" <LONKILA@cc.Helsinki.FI>
Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
(3) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 00:01:52 EST (16 lines)
From: "Marc A. Smith" <SMITHM@DUVM>
Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
(4) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 15:00:01 EST (22 lines)
From: Stephen Spangehl <SDSPAN01@ULKYVM>
Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
(5) Date: 15 Jan 91 11:02:08 EST (15 lines)
From: Wesley Smith <WSMITH@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: do humanists discuss war?
(6) Date: Monday, 14 Jan 1991 23:26:08 EST (31 lines)
From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM>
Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
(7) Date: Monday, 14 Jan 1991 22:29:35 EST (31 lines)
From: "Patrick J. O'Donnell" <U1095@WVNVM>
Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
(8) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 19:55:20 EST (20 lines)
From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: The War in the Gulf
(9) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 09:15:47 EST (15 lines)
From: brad inwood <INWOOD@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: lakoff, metaphor and war
(10) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 91 03:32:59 PST (10 lines)
From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 1991 9:05:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Art Ferrill <ferrill@u.washington.edu>
Subject: re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
I agree with those who want to keep the Gulf crisis off the Humanist
discussion list. There are several LISTSERV groups available for that
discussion. HISTORY, for example.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 1991 22:29 EET
From: "Markku Lonkila, p. 191 2707" <LONKILA@cc.Helsinki.FI>
Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
I found Prof Lakoffs article most interesting both in human and
academic terms. I want to express my gratitude to the people who
published it through HUMANIST: the article was then published as
a full page story in the biggest Scandinavian daily.
Markku Lonkila
Researcher
University of Helsinki
Finland
INTERNET: lonkila@cc.helsinki.fi
BITNET: lonkila@finuh
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------23----
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 00:01:52 EST
From: "Marc A. Smith" <SMITHM@DUVM>
Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
I, for one, would like to support the idea that discussion of war and
peace and the events surrounding our impending conflict do have a role
within the editorial philosophy of HUMANIST. What could be more
pertinent to a discussion with such a name?
Even in the light of five months of talk, talk is what we need so that
well developed ideas may inform action, whatever that action may be.
Marc A. Smith
Department of Sociology
UCLA
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------31----
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 15:00:01 EST
From: Stephen Spangehl <SDSPAN01@ULKYVM>
Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
Particularly for <humanists>, war is, without doubt, an appropriate
topic. To whom else would you leave the discussion? To technologists,
politicians, accountants? Even with its flaws and biases, Lakoff's
piece stimulated my thinking about the power of figurative language, and
I am surprised that anyone would describe as "disgust" their reaction to
his analysis, even if the reader does not share his assumptions. His
analysis may turn out to be all wrong, but he shouldn't be faulted for
having attempted to analyze, interpret, and explain what strikes most of
us as a totally inexplicable series of events. Must humanists use their
talents and techniques solely for the exploration of issues no one
really cares deeply about? I vote for more discussion of current
issues, so long as they are carried out seriously and draw upon the
methods of the humanities.
Stephen D. Spangehl +---------------+
University of Louisville | SDSPAN01 @ |
Louisville, Kentucky 40292 | ULKYVM.BITNET |
(502) 588-7289 or (502) 245-0319 +---------------+
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------25----
Date: 15 Jan 91 11:02:08 EST
From: Wesley Smith <WSMITH@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: do humanists discuss war?
I found interesting the collocation of Bob Werman and Timothy Reuter,
Werman saying from Jerusalem that giving opinions on important things
like life and death and war is bad manners in humanist discussion, and
Reuter saying from Munich that he knows that we already have our
opinions, but can't we share our humanity? Personally i am grateful to
Lakoff for his observations on metaphors in the current movement toward
war. His subject is important to all who care about language and truth.
I had not formulated the subject so well. I don't think his formulation
was perfect, but he moved us along. Furthermore, the mode of
dissemination was excellent. The reader had to ask for the paper to
become a reader. Werman just didn't like what he got.
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------39----
Date: Monday, 14 Jan 1991 23:26:08 EST
From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM>
Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? (2/65)
Timothy Reuter is right; if we don't discuss the impending war here on
HUMANIST, where will we discuss it? I, too, have been worried about the
consensus of silence, for the same reason Timothy is worried: I almost
never know what I think until I hear it discussed, and I've yet to hear
a good discussion of this war by people I really respect -- people whose
opinions I won't dismiss as inescapable for them, given their
ideologies, but irrelevant to me, given my own. (I continue to ignore
most pronouncements by media commentators on this basis.) While I can't
countenance Saddam's annexation of Kuwait under any circumstances, I'm
also convinced that Bush is still trying to beat the `wimp' image of the
campaign, that he suspects (and, God forbid, he's probably right) that
American voters will repay victory quickly achieved via death with a
larger mandate in the next election than they'll give victory achieved
slowly via diplomacy and other means. And he's betting that he can
achieve it quickly, and too many of us here are secretly hoping he's
right (the CBS poll to the contrary indicates that people are hedging
their bets, and not that they really think the war will last a long
time, because if they thought that, more of them would be out in the
streets.) I suppose that's cynical, but I suspect that very few
societies have actually abandoned blood sacrifice, the claims of
Christianity notwithstanding. I'm just not sure what this sacrifice is
supposed to achieve; probably nothing, since behind it there is a
brain-fevered Agamemnon and an inarticulate Achilles manque, who is
incapable of understanding that, in this life here above ground, we are
all held in a single honor, the brave with the weak.
--Pat Conner
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------39----
Date: Monday, 14 Jan 1991 22:29:35 EST
From: "Patrick J. O'Donnell" <U1095@WVNVM>
Subject: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist? (2/65)
Heaven forbid that humanists turn aside from their scholarship
to discuss a war which threatens the lives of thousands and may well
dash any slim hope for a new world order that may have come out of
perestroika! Yes, indeed, let us stick to our books in these
imperiled times! My apologies for the sarcasm, but the question about
whether war is appropriate matter for humanist discussion is so
off the mark that it scarcely deserves better than a sarcastic response.
In fact, those of us who study literature, art, music and history and
who, supposedly, have learned something about the human from these
enterprises better raise our voices in times like these, lest we allow
the politicians to imagine that they speak for everyone. As for myself,
I detest Hussein and what he has done to the people of Iraq, but I
detest even more the thought that many Iraquis and many Americans will
die in a conflict which could have been avoided had more humane
values prevailed. As the pop lyric goes, how can we dance when the
earth is burning? I hope my colleagues on humanist--whatever their
views about the coming war--will express them and talk to eachother
over the networks about them. In ordinary times, one might well be
more concerned with Greek fonts, but these are not ordinary times--
or rather, they are so extra-ordinary that the veneer of ordinariness
and civility which allows us to carry on business as usual is clearly
rent, if not altogether destroyed. Let us hope the war is short-lived
so that the learned professor can get back to his scholarship!
Patrick O'Donnell
West Virginia University
U1095@WVNVM
(8) --------------------------------------------------------------30----
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 19:55:20 EST
From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: The War in the Gulf
My admiration goes to Timothy Reuter, who has followed through on an
earlier posting and continued the topic of the Gulf War. I cannot agree
with Bob Berman that this is an impermissible topic for a network of
humanists; quite the reverse. I did not send to the Listserver for the
long article which was posted because it has always seemed to me that
networks like Humanist are for conver- sation, not for formal articles.
The difficulty is about what to say. One of my earliest memories as a
small child is of August, 1939, and the whispered conversations of the
adults, all of which centred on the terrible thing that was about to
happen. And it happened, as we all know; by the end of the war I was
old enough to be aware, in fully adult terms, what was meant by Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Is the silence of the network on this topic the electonic
equi- valent of those whispers? I oppose the terrible prospect of this
terrible war with all my heart. If the only thing I can do about it is
to say so now, then I say so, and I'm not whispering. Germaine.
(9) --------------------------------------------------------------23----
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 91 09:15:47 EST
From: brad inwood <INWOOD@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: lakoff, metaphor and war
For my money I am glad to have seen Lakoff's piece on the metaphors
behind the war propaganda. But not (or at least not primarily) because
of the political content. The essay was an extremely good piece of
philosophical analysis and makes with some force the non-trivial point
that the tools of scholarship can be put to use in the real world and
can handle the messier features of public and political discourse.
This, I think, makes it an important academic contri- bution and not
relevantly similar to the sort of first-order political writing which we
have seen on Humanist in the past and which we should continue to
discourage.
(10) --------------------------------------------------------------21---
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 91 03:32:59 PST
From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 4.0888 War: Is it an Appropriate Topic for Humanist?
Despite my colleague George Lakoff's appeal, there are other and more
appropriate channels for the discussion of issues of war and peace
than HUMANIST.
Charles Faulhaber
UC Berkeley