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

[Platt Holden]

> [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.

Note the logic. The University is the sole determinant of what is and is not a 
cogent argument. Conservatives do not make cogent arguments. Therefore, 
conservatives do not belong in the University. How laughable is that? Ask the 
Nobel prize winner Milton Friedman.

> [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? 

All driven by sex? Another hyperbolic statement. What I said was intellectuals 
have taken biology's side against society, repeating what Pirsig said. The 
major values of biology are sex and violence. You deny this?

> [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.

You have yet to demonstrate any "over-fixation on material profit" or that 
earning money "trumps all other concerns." You have offered no evidence other 
than your own assumptions about why people do what they do. And you call that 
sort of argument one that "will fly in the academy?" Please. That won't even 
fly in the 8th grade. 

> [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?

And you don't discriminate regarding what will "fly in the academy and what 
won't?"  Talk about ego.  

> [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!

Did what? Exposed your lack of critical reasoning, accusing all conservative 
kids of devious rhetorical tactics without a scintilla of evidence?.  
 
> 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.

That sort of evidence is called hearsay which is weak because it is so easily 
made up.    

> [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.

Oh? What does "overvaluation" of profit do that's immoral?

> 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.
 
What was the hypocrisy on the conservative side of the interview? And what was 
not true other than liberal accusations of bigotry? But, glad to see you 
approve of Alito's confirmation. :-)

Platt