[MD] a-theism and atheism

[Platt Holden]

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 6:14 PM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:

> [DMB]
> But the anti-intellectual crowd turns that on it's head, as if Ant and I
> didn't
> go to Oxford to put ourselves into heart of the lion's den.
>
> [Arlo]
> Right. And this is precisely the move to expand rationality rather than
> condemn
> it that is the power of Pirsig's ideas.
>
> A short while ago I saw an interview with one of the "Loose Change"
> proponents,
> who was condemning the same "walls", criticizing the Academy for not
> including
> its "interpretations" of 9/11 into history classes. Flat-earth proponents
> are
> likely also offended by the "walls" that keep out their "theories" from the
> Academy. Should we teach kids that JFK might still be alive? Or that he was
> assassinated by the CIA?
>
> We see the immune system as a problem when it slows down the adoption and
> infusion of ideas like Pirsig's, but it is a necessary "wall" to ensure
> that
> "cancer" and viruses don't paralyze or destroy the intellectual level.
>
> On top of this, and this is just stating the obvious, there is an immune
> system
> on the social level, and anti-intellectualism can be easily seen as a
> symptom
> of this immune system. Intellect and damned interlictials are responsible
> for
> every, single, malady in the world. War escalating in Korea? Intellectuals
> are
> to blame. Recession? Intellectuals. Low performance in school?
> Intellectuals.
> Bad roads? Intellectuals. Still no cancer cure? Intellectuals. Sprained
> ankle?
> Intellectuals. Its rhetoric that is curious only in its absurdity, and in
> how a
> social immune system relies on unrelenting demonization to squelch threats
> to
> its power.
>

Platt
Not one but a whole bunch of strawmen -- a pitiful tactic employed by the
intellectual immune system.


>
> The "intellectual patterns" Platt condemns (in a perennial drumbeat) were
> not
> thrust upon a utopic society by an evil guvmint. They were policies that
> were
> adopted as a response to malignant and destructive social patterns.
> "Workplace
> Safety Laws", for one example, only exist because of the conditions that an
> unregulated industry were able to subject its workforce too. While some
> want a
> return to the 1890's, I remember the stories my grandfather told me about
> his
> life in the early 1900's as part of a mining family. Seeing, for example,
> bodies dumped onto the porch of the shack where a family of upwards of ten
> people were living, and while one person was dropping the body on the
> floor,
> another was nailing an eviction notice to the door. Pollution laws have
> your
> liberty-lovin' nads all in jumble? Far be it from me to point out that the
> Chicago RIVER caught on fire (and it was not the only river to burn).
>
> Of course, reasoned discourse is outside the walls of the social level
> immune
> system.
>

Platt
I'd be happy to compare and contrast the human misery resulting from the
actions of  big business and big government. Shall we begin with robber
barons vs. German national socialism?


>