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roachboy · 06-24-2004, 02:03 PM

ok, seaver--since england just lost and i am in a good mood...let's think about this for a minute.
first, if you actually read my posts, i argued that **your** reduction of things to economic causes was simplistic. i argued the contrary--then i elaborated on the point in the subsequent post. which means that you simply repeating the point i made twice in previous posts, and acting as though there is something of a refutation in repeating the argument you are opposing. if that is understood as operative in some debating game, then i do not know about it. maybe you can fill me in on where it gets played.

second, your point about the palestinians is also implicit in the post you react to. i said that the americans were not the only party to blame for their situation--if you want to play, try to read what i actually say more carefully, will you? in both cases, you are acting as though your mighty undergraduate training puts you in a position to argue with me by simply repeating my points--because you do not read carefully. if you are going to be a historian, you have to read carefully. otherwise, you will be laughed out of the business. i know, because my day gig is as a historian.

there is no such thing as "using history" as such--you probably should have encountered this complicating factor by now, if you are "an upperclassman"--but maybe you didnt--in which case, let me tell you--your view of history, like any other, mine included, is thoroughly saturated with politics--what you see as a variable, what you understand as the rules for linking those variables, the kind of information you produce through the process of building an argument--every step of it is shot through and through with your political views. this does not mean that you can say just anything--there are standards for proof at the level of data--you know, citations--but that standard does not mean that the arguments themselves are not a deploying of your politics. period.

since we seem to have no disagreement about the factoid level of things--given that you simply repeated what i had said earlier--then the problem is political--how you would approach what we are "discussing" as an analytic problem--and in that, i do not think you have a leg to stand on. we could talk about that if you like (as i said, england is out of the euro 2004 tournament, so things look bright, curiously...).....

it would be nice to return this to a level of debate-as-chessgame...

btw, i think you should apologize for your absurd "have you ever talked to an arab?" point. it was ridiculous in itself, and offensive to me personally to boot.

06-24-2004, 02:03 PM	#63 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	ok, seaver--since england just lost and i am in a good mood...let's think about this for a minute. first, if you actually read my posts, i argued that your reduction of things to economic causes was simplistic. i argued the contrary--then i elaborated on the point in the subsequent post. which means that you simply repeating the point i made twice in previous posts, and acting as though there is something of a refutation in repeating the argument you are opposing. if that is understood as operative in some debating game, then i do not know about it. maybe you can fill me in on where it gets played. second, your point about the palestinians is also implicit in the post you react to. i said that the americans were not the only party to blame for their situation--if you want to play, try to read what i actually say more carefully, will you? in both cases, you are acting as though your mighty undergraduate training puts you in a position to argue with me by simply repeating my points--because you do not read carefully. if you are going to be a historian, you have to read carefully. otherwise, you will be laughed out of the business. i know, because my day gig is as a historian. there is no such thing as "using history" as such--you probably should have encountered this complicating factor by now, if you are "an upperclassman"--but maybe you didnt--in which case, let me tell you--your view of history, like any other, mine included, is thoroughly saturated with politics--what you see as a variable, what you understand as the rules for linking those variables, the kind of information you produce through the process of building an argument--every step of it is shot through and through with your political views. this does not mean that you can say just anything--there are standards for proof at the level of data--you know, citations--but that standard does not mean that the arguments themselves are not a deploying of your politics. period. since we seem to have no disagreement about the factoid level of things--given that you simply repeated what i had said earlier--then the problem is political--how you would approach what we are "discussing" as an analytic problem--and in that, i do not think you have a leg to stand on. we could talk about that if you like (as i said, england is out of the euro 2004 tournament, so things look bright, curiously...)..... it would be nice to return this to a level of debate-as-chessgame... btw, i think you should apologize for your absurd "have you ever talked to an arab?" point. it was ridiculous in itself, and offensive to me personally to boot. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 06-24-2004 at 02:06 PM..