Jesus wept. Do you think that he's worried that if he started to pull his head out of his arse he'd get it stuck somewhere halfway between re-emerging from the top of his neck and his rectum, and no longer be able to speak at all? It's a pity, because I understand his stuff on Marx and justice is pretty compelling.
"He has failed to see that someone who thinks that both A and B satisfy the requirement for applying a certain term is in a position to apply it where A is the case or where B is the case (as well as where both A and B are the case)."
I couldn't follow a word of it, to be honest. And I'd had coffee.
Now it seems to me that what was on display was a hissy hit. All right, it happens, we all do it. And senior, respected academics probably do it as much or more than most people. There's often an arrogance there which may derive from being used to a relationship whereby one talks and others listen with appreciation. Or just from a heightened sense of one's own importance. Or maybe it's just the way in which professionals don't like being contradicted by amateurs.
But it does seem to me that there's not much point in being a philosopher unless one can put one's point across coherently. I'm not too bad at following an argument but I had no idea at all what was going on here. Not because the terminology was unfamiliar, nor because the concepts were difficult to grasp. It was just a mess.
I'm not too bad at following an argument but I had no idea at all what was going on here. Not because the terminology was unfamiliar, nor because the concepts were difficult to grasp. It was just a mess.
I think he was trying to mull what would have been a straightforwardly testy retort in a bit of avuncular ludicity, but it doesn't work. If he really had such contempt for the argument and the person putting it, he wasn't absolutely obliged to try and respond to it; and having tried, he might have put more effort into making the point comprehensible.
I must say his repertoire of rhetorical techniques could do with an upgrade. The cunning use of hypothetical situations, ironic understatement and the occasional set of inverted commas doesn't quite cut it in the vital blogosphere.
"the case on which I was basing my argument for a right of humanitarian intervention: conditions in which it is agreed (...) that there is urgent need for intervention to stop something appalling and ongoing, a genocide, or something else of humanitarian-crisis proportions"
he didn't really mean that this was the case on which he was basing his argument. We should understand that he is actually resting his argument on a much weaker case, and that this much weaker case is completely valid, even if he doesn't want to actually make that argument in front of anyone who might not agree with it. And anyone who doesn't understand that is an annoying bastard, not worth talking to.
Incidentally, when it comes to incoherent pieces from people with NLR connections, can I recommend Tom Nairn's latest in the LRB? I've not got the foggiest what point he's trying to make and he fails to make it at some length.
That Nairn piece is from the school of "this changes everything, and here's what we should think about it" - but with the novel twist that he never really gets round to saying *what* we should think about it. Or defining 'this' - or 'we', for that matter.
Something to do with nations, though. There were definitely nations in there.
I didn't find Geras's argument particularly obscure, but I did find it astonishingly weak. He's essentially arguing that to say "All sex offenders should be locked up" in January and "Serious sex offenders should be locked up" in March isn't inconsistent and doesn't suggest a change of position, since after all serious sex offenders *are* sex offenders. And with one bound...
A more suitable name for your circle-jerk blegh would be:
"An Abomination of Pederasts"
Instead of wine-related handles, use ass-hole references, such as: Kaptain Keyster; Bungholeattaboy; Roidhole Kid; The Roidhole Kid; Wiener Greco; Shardupmyass Chafes; The Coozcooz Kid. The last one's a bit of a stretch, as it were, but you get the idea.
16 Comments:
Jesus wept. Do you think that he's worried that if he started to pull his head out of his arse he'd get it stuck somewhere halfway between re-emerging from the top of his neck and his rectum, and no longer be able to speak at all? It's a pity, because I understand his stuff on Marx and justice is pretty compelling.
Norm:
online he is just - how can I put this?... well, not very loveable.
That's you told. (And he's a philosopher, so that's the truth.)
On the plus side, at least it didn't include any fatuous cricketing analogies.
Re: Norm, I don't want to blog-whore by quoting my own stuff, but debauched times such as these demand it...
http://decentpedia.blogspot.com/2007/08/kamms-gimlet.html
Come on man, give us some excerpts. Don't make us click on the link.
Here's an excerpt:
"He has failed to see that someone who thinks that both A and B satisfy the requirement for applying a certain term is in a position to apply it where A is the case or where B is the case (as well as where both A and B are the case)."
Gripping, no?
Marc Mulholland
Well, I admit, I did click in the end.
I couldn't follow a word of it, to be honest. And I'd had coffee.
Now it seems to me that what was on display was a hissy hit. All right, it happens, we all do it. And senior, respected academics probably do it as much or more than most people. There's often an arrogance there which may derive from being used to a relationship whereby one talks and others listen with appreciation. Or just from a heightened sense of one's own importance. Or maybe it's just the way in which professionals don't like being contradicted by amateurs.
But it does seem to me that there's not much point in being a philosopher unless one can put one's point across coherently. I'm not too bad at following an argument but I had no idea at all what was going on here. Not because the terminology was unfamiliar, nor because the concepts were difficult to grasp. It was just a mess.
I'm not too bad at following an argument but I had no idea at all what was going on here. Not because the terminology was unfamiliar, nor because the concepts were difficult to grasp. It was just a mess.
I think he was trying to mull what would have been a straightforwardly testy retort in a bit of avuncular ludicity, but it doesn't work. If he really had such contempt for the argument and the person putting it, he wasn't absolutely obliged to try and respond to it; and having tried, he might have put more effort into making the point comprehensible.
I must say his repertoire of rhetorical techniques could do with an upgrade. The cunning use of hypothetical situations, ironic understatement and the occasional set of inverted commas doesn't quite cut it in the vital blogosphere.
What a humourless twat.
His post says that when he said
"the case on which I was basing my argument for a right of humanitarian intervention: conditions in which it is agreed (...) that there is urgent need for intervention to stop something appalling and ongoing, a genocide, or something else of humanitarian-crisis proportions"
he didn't really mean that this was the case on which he was basing his argument.
We should understand that he is actually resting his argument on a much weaker case, and that this much weaker case is completely valid, even if he doesn't want to actually make that argument in front of anyone who might not agree with it.
And anyone who doesn't understand that is an annoying bastard, not worth talking to.
Incidentally, when it comes to incoherent pieces from people with NLR connections, can I recommend Tom Nairn's latest in the LRB? I've not got the foggiest what point he's trying to make and he fails to make it at some length.
That Nairn piece is from the school of "this changes everything, and here's what we should think about it" - but with the novel twist that he never really gets round to saying *what* we should think about it. Or defining 'this' - or 'we', for that matter.
Something to do with nations, though. There were definitely nations in there.
I didn't find Geras's argument particularly obscure, but I did find it astonishingly weak. He's essentially arguing that to say "All sex offenders should be locked up" in January and "Serious sex offenders should be locked up" in March isn't inconsistent and doesn't suggest a change of position, since after all serious sex offenders *are* sex offenders. And with one bound...
Hey wankers,
A more suitable name for your circle-jerk blegh would be:
"An Abomination of Pederasts"
Instead of wine-related handles, use ass-hole references, such as: Kaptain Keyster; Bungholeattaboy; Roidhole Kid; The Roidhole Kid; Wiener Greco; Shardupmyass Chafes; The Coozcooz Kid. The last one's a bit of a stretch, as it were, but you get the idea.
Thanks Anthony.
Wiener Greco?
Wiener Greco?
wienerwurst up the arse
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