[MD] BBC documentary 'the trap'

[John Carl]

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 8:08 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:


dmb says:
> If you have not see the documentary, then how could you possibly know if
> Craig's explanation was clear or logical?



Because although I did not see the documentary, I read Craig's explanation.
 I cannot assert whether his argument was correct, but I can see that it was
clear and logical.



>
>
> John continued:If you disagree with his logic, you should address that.
>  But you don't.  You attack instead of argue.
>
> dmb says:
> His "logic" is exactly what I addressed. The substance of it, where I said
> "The Trap merely explains the suspicious, paranoid historical context (the
> cold war) in which a suspicious, paranoid theory of human behavior was able
> to take hold", was apparently a no-brainer for you even though you didn't
> see it.


Well, I wouldn't say "no" brainer.  But very little brain:  Suspicious
paranoia breeds more suspicious paranoia.  Yup.




> If you'd "come to that conclusion myself just based on the plain
> relationship of fact, but I suppose having a talking head confirm it for me
> wouldn't hurt" , then what are you complaining about?
>
>
Well just the tone, Dave, sometimes your tone of "evil right wing
conspiracy" seems to me a bit like spreading suspicious paranoia.



>
>
> John said:
> Everything can be framed as  syllogism.  Everything is an argument, with
> parts.  It is the classic  process of philosophical debate to re-frame
> english into logical construction and base conclusions on that.
>


> dmb says:
> Didn't you JUST say that my refutation doesn't count as making an argument?


Nah, I said any argument *can* be reconstrued syllogistically so I was
arguing with your statement that the documentary wasn't intended to be such.
 And I didn't mean your refutation "didn't count".  I just meant that it
seemed pretty weak.




> And now everything is an argument? You can't have it both ways. But yea, I
> suppose just about anything can be framed any way one wants. But converting
> historical facts into a syllogism is dubious at best.


Well that's philosophy for ya.  A great deal of it is dubious.  But at it's
best it is enlightening to consider the actual logical structure of any
piece of polemic.




and Craig's conversion simply did not reflect the claims made by the film.
> It NEVER made the case that cold war theories are bad, which was the main
> premise in both of Craig's bogus syllogisms. (ZAMM was written during the
> cold war, by the way, and that book complains about the same amoral
> rationality that the documentary goes after.



Really? That documentary  addresses the metaphysical shift away from the
good?  Maybe I will watch.  bit skeptical about that claim tho.



> I mean, the film only adds specific details to what Pirsig says, as Arlo
> spent so much time explaining.) And by saying that the film just made an
> "observation of what occurred. It only connects the dots in a complex
> cultural situation, which has very little to do with any kind of logic", I
> did not mean that the film was illogically but simply that complex cultural
> situations are not given to treatment by simple logical forms. He reduced a
> three hour explanation, filled with historical facts and examples, to a
> couple silly premises that the film never asserts.



But Dave, that's the whole point of metaphysical speculation and philosophy.
 When you're looking for a clean cut of the analytic knife it is so you can
make  complex experience into something a bit more simple to understand and
hold on to.


As to his accuracy, I'll let Craig defend his own words.  But I shake my
head at your "observation of what occured".  Objective Journalism is a myth.
 There is always an underlying argument to be pulled out of the presentation
and whether that argument is valid or not, the attempt to analyze the
argument is  valid.  You seem to have an aversion to logical analysis of
your own pet peeves.  That is, you seemed to me to heap invective simply
because it's "the other side", the dirty right wing nazis at the door.


>
>
> John said:
> Ah if only life were like tv, and the good guys and the bad guys were so
> easy to distinguish.  You've got this nice meaningless cliche all  set up in
> your head and you attack it constantly. My advice is more time with a good
> basic logic text and less with HBO.
>
>
> dmb says:
> You can wax philosophical about a roller coaster but then get all snobby
> about an historical documentary from the BBC? Yea, that's fair. That's cool.



Snobby?  Moi?  Excuse me for a moment while my wife laughs her ass off.
But yeah, I do have a problem with the video transmission of intellectual
content.  That's one of MY pet peeves.  One of my favorite moments in Lila
is when Pirsig says no to Bob Redford for the exactly right reason - film is
an entertainment medium of social-pattern - intellectual quality comes from
books.  It is immoral to subjugate  the latter to the former.

>
> I saw his other documentary too (The Power of Nightmares) and you really
> should see them before you jump on the bandwagon. Unless you're a complete
> zealot, you'll probably change your mind. They're both excellent and I
> learned a few things from them both.
>
> Have you seen Entourage? Deadwood? The Sopranos? Big Love? Say what you
> want, man. HBO airs the best TV I ever saw and I'm not ashamed to admit that
> I love it, love it, love it. Technically, however, I watch this stuff on my
> computer now. We don't have HBO anymore and I haven't watched actual TV in a
> while now. It just costs too much.


You'd made a Deadwood reference once and that was what I was referring to
with my snide comment about HBO.    Snobby no.  Snide yes.

And no, I've never seen any of those things.  TV rots your brain.  Even on
your computer.  It make you think in simplistic black/white; us/them ways
wherein you jump straight to defensive ego struggle and make careful logical
analysis seem goofy.

But then, some of us don't mind so much seeming goofy.  At least it ups our
entertainment value.







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