Mark Bunster wrote:
>
> I wrote:
>
> Instead, it's Gitlin who gets this silent treatment, despite the fact that his
> commentary is calmly and thoughtfully delivered. It's disheartening to see him
> dismissed with a wave, rather than engaged and debated. It's HIS positions that
> deserve discussion, even if you disagree. Horowitz's babble is best left to
> it's natural asphyxiation of intellect.
>
>
I have been objecting to the fundamental principle here for nearly a
half century. For every book or article the most well-read person on
this list has read (or will read during the remainder of his/her life)
there are several hundred at least as important. In other words, all of
us are going to die long before we could possibly read all the books and
articles and email posts that we ought to read before forming an
opinion. So the practical effect of accepting Mark's argument would be
that none of us would ever again in our life form any opinion
whatsoever. We would stay in our homes with the shades drawn trembling
in fear that our every tentative opinion or decision would be reversed
were we just to read that one more article. I have never read Dante in
Italian; it's 20 years since I read the whole of the _Comedy_ even in
English. I've only read about 5 of Chomsky's books, and I really need to
reread one of them at least. I really need to read about 1000 pages from
the works cited in Damasio's _The Feeling of What Happens: Body and
Emotion in the Making of Consciusness_. I've only read the _Grundrisse_
twice. I've never read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. I've
never read Hume. I've read _Paradise Lost_ only about a dozen times
straight through. And with all that reading I haven't done at the age of
71 I should waste some of my remaining hours of life reading a shithead
like Gitlin.
And I _have_ ignored Horowitz completely. I even filtered into the trash
any post that had his name in the subject line. And I intend to go on as
though neither HOrowitz nor Gitlin existed.
Carrol
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Nov 18 2001 - 21:37:49 EST