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

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
Like your opinion of fundamentalist Christians and Archie Bunker? Perhaps you
might want to look at your own discriminations to see if they fit the label you
want to pin on me. However, I do think it’s stupid to play the game of "I’m
more tolerant than you are." To put me down is an obvious attempt to puff
yourself up  --  a classic Rigel tactic.

[Arlo]
I am not attempting to "put you down", and the "classic Rigel tactic" is your
continued tactic of accusing others of your own tactics. Since this is all they
teach in radio-talkshow world as "dialogue", it is no surprise to me that the
acolytes of such dialogue perpetuate it. This is what's saddest about
"conservativism" garnering University acceptance. Rather than present a cogent
argument, the kiddies resort to crying the professor is "biased", or
"hypnotized". And when their views are challenged, as are all views in the
academy, all they can do is try to make it "ad hominem" in a way to deflect the
criticism.

[Arlo previously]
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.

[Platt]
How do you know? You are always assigning motives to others when you really have
no idea of what those motives are. Not that there's anything wrong with making
a profit.

[Arlo]
You mean the way you assign motives to the consumers? I thought you said they
were all driven by sex? So we can assign motives to the consumer but not the
producer? 

[Platt]
I know. We are all well aware by this time that you consider profit to be a
naughty word, and that those who seek to make a buck are bad people, whereas
your motives are as pure as the driven snow. Shades of Rigel again and again...

[Arlo]
Just more deceptive rhetoric, Platt. I have said several times that I don't
consider "profit" to be a "naughty word", what I continue to see as problematic
is an over-fixation with material profit, as if earning money trumps all other
concerns. I've said only two posts ago that "those who seek to make a buck" are
not "bad", and such a goal is understandable in our economy. But it serves
rhetoric to condemn me for stuff you know is not true, to deflect away from the
argument. Just more examples of the stuff that won't fly in the academy.

[Platt quotes Rigel]
"Full of great ways for others to improve without any expense to themselves.
There's an ego thing in there, too. They use the morals to make someone else
look inferior and that way look better themselves. It doesn't matter what the
moral code is— religious morals, political morals, racist morals, capitalist
morals, feminist morals, hippie morals—they're all the same. The moral codes
change but the meanness and the egotism stay the same. (Lila, 7)

[Arlo]
This coming from the guy who just called everyone who doesn't accept his
sensibilities "undiscriminating". No egotism there, eh?

[Arlo previously]
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.

[Platt]
I know. I’m stupid. So is Rush Limbaugh. So are conservatives. That’s "critical
reasoning." Yeah, right.

[Arlo]
See... you did it again!

I did not say anyone was "stupid". I said, from firsthand and repeated
experience, that a major obstacle student conservatives face in bringing their
views into the classroom, is an inability to formulate a cogent argument, and
this stems from (and again, I've talked to a few about this) their confusing
the rhetoric-tactics they hear on talk radio (the largest media outlet for
conservative views) with intelligent argumentation. It is like the Chairman
encountering a Sophist for the first time. "What?! Aristotle says it is the
Truth!".

I've also seen firsthand, and through dialogues with professors, the effects of
"party loyalty" and the dichotomization of American politics in to
"conservatives=All Good" and "liberals=All Evil". This makes for good talk
radio, but it woefully inadequate in the academy.


[Arlo previously]
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.

[Platt]
I see nothing wrong with material profit since it supports you and your fellow
academics, even if you’re blind to the fact that your liberal ideas amount to
biting the hand that feeds you.

Sad to me Arlo that you’ve descended to the level of personal attacks. But not
totally unexpected. Liberals tend to fall back on ad hominem tactics when their
beliefs are challenged -- as blatantly demonstrated in the Judge Alito hearings


[Arlo]
I'm not blind to what profit does, I'm also not blind to what an overvaluation
of profit does. See, though, your last paragraph is just more evidence of
exactly what I am telling you is a hurdle to conservatavism in the academy.
This Grand Dichotomy, and deceptive rhetoric... what do you want me to do with
that? "Liberals tend to...", what a joke. Not those glorious conservatives,
boy, "they" would never "tend to...". And as for personal attacks, Platt, I'm
chagrinned. I've been likened to Pol Pot and Chairman Mao in how many of your
posts... likened to Stalin and other mass murderers because I challenge the way
we elevate the Almighty Dollar in our culture. And in return, I liken you to
Archie Bunker. Pol Pot... Archie Bunker... which is the biggest "personal
attack". Poking fun at someone who wants to go back to the Sinatra days with
the opening theme from a show devoted to the same... or accusing someone of
supporting gulags and gas chambers because they have the audacity to think that
we are fixated on social level value... which is worse... But, I accept your
criticism. It was wrong of me, and I apologize. 

As for the Alito hearings, all it demonstrated was hypocracy on both sides of
the interview. And the fascination we have with theatre, rather than with
boring, ol' truth. My personal opinion... Alito should be confirmed, the
republicans earned that right with the election.

Arlo