[MD] Ham unlike you I will not create false idols

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
Nowhere have I suggested that making a profit guaranteed quality. What I have
suggested that the profit motive for making goods and services available is
better than alternatives that require coercion at the point of a gun....
Finally I don't think I've accused anyone of being stupid,. just lacking in
good taste, like those who think Mick Jagger can sing as well as Frank Sinatra.

[Arlo]
Well, you can use euphamisms for "stupid" all you want. "Lacking in good taste"
means an inability to choose wisely, which means making a stupid choice.

What's telling, however, is the way you apply the label "undiscriminating" to a
population when its choices reflect differently than you feel. Hence, because
you find Sinatra a better singer than Jagger, when others don't it is because
they are "undiscriminating", a.k.a. "stupid".

But, when their choices reflect YOUR views, well, you taut this as evidence in
support of your belief. When Bush won the election, it couldn't have been
because people are "undiscriminating"? No, you affix this label to whomever
disagrees with the superior sensibilities of Platt. When they agree, they are
wise and discriminating, when they disagree they are stupid and
undiscriminating.

[Platt]
Glad you mentioned Larry Flynt because he represents the victory of biological
forces (sex) over social forces, supported by intellectuals who take his side
in defending his his right to rip apart social stability by peddling his porn.
Have you checked out of wedlock births lately?

[Arlo]
But Larry Flynt is only trying to make a buck? What's wrong with that?

I think its funny, the way you turn all your battles into "sex versus society".
With "Hustler", you are half right, though. Porn is consumed because of it
satisfies biological quality on the part of the consumer. But is PRODUCTION has
nothing whatsoever to with biological quality. It has to do with money and
profit.

Larry Flynt does not produce Hustler because it satisfies biological quality for
him to do so. He produces it because he values "money" more than the effects.

What I find sad is how you rail against the "consumer" for purchasing the stuff
that is made when a desire for "profit" outweighs other concerns. Your
justification of the producers activity, because it is done for "profit",
continues to be the blatent example to my charge that "profit" is the Greates
and Best Aspiration in this country.


[Arlo previously]
I've been with the University for over a decade, in undergraduate classrooms and
graduate. I've never seen a "conservative" position denied, but I have seen a
demand for support beyond "Rush Limbaugh says so".

But since you are concerned with political ideology being undiscriminated in the
academy, perhaps you'd like equal time for Nazism, Communism, Tribalism,
oligarchists and monarchists? What about holocaust revisionists? Shouldn't we
give their "theories" equal time in the classroom?

[Platt]
So you compare conservativism to Nazism? I'm not surprised since you've been
"acculturated," .i.e., brainwashed by so many years in the academy. Maybe 
you're right about being a victim of culture after all.

[Arlo]
Read that again. See. It's these Limbaughian rhetoric tactics that you try to
pass for intelligent argumentation that don't work in the Academy. No where did
I say, or even insinuate, that "conservativism" was comparable to "nazism". I
merely used a list of ideologies I knew you found repugnant (with the exception
of oligarchy), and wondered if your desire for "academic equality" extended to
these ideologies as well? But, again, you offer brilliant proof of why kids
have a hard time getting "conservative" views expressed. All they can do is
parrot Limbaugh's attack rhetoric, which flies on a controlled radio program,
but in a culture where support and a demonstration of critical reasoning, not
devious rhetorical tactics, garners acceptance.

On a side note, for your information, I know several "conservative" students and
professors. One told me last semester that he, in making a criticism of foreign
policy in class, got a response from an outraged "brother conservative" who
angrily shouted, "how can you say that, we have to stick together!". His
response... "Staying onboard a sinking ship may be a noble gesture on the part
of the captain, but it won't do anything to fix the shipping industry". In
other words, in the academy, there are higher things than "party loyalty"...
something that is heresy in the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative
Studies.

[Arlo previously]
Oh right. Wanting to talk about Pirsig's notion of identity and care in labor is
"following me to Utopia". You are really something else sometimes, Platt.

[Platt]
Pray tell us how you will get people to identify and care?

[Arlo]
I think the discussion in ZMM is a good place to start. Getting everyone to read
that book may be a good step. I don't think you can "get people to identify and
care", all you can do is begin a dialogue that values identification and caring
in labor, and as people respond to these values, rather than giving priority to
material profit, things will improve.

Arlo