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i got sucked into a flurry of Activity in 3-d yesterday and will be sucked into another one shortly...this has been interesting, though. a debate here that actually pushed at my thinking--it's been a while.
on my way out: what i was trying to talk about above, mm, had in the end to do with types of statements. i put ethical statements into one category and political statements into another. the difference between them came down to basically one thing: i see in ethical statements a preference for a priori logic (general principles applicable universally) and in political statements a more situationally oriented logic. from a position informed by ethics, the assumption usually is that a situational logic is arbitrary or hopelessly relativist--to counter that, from the start, i outlined specific criteria that i would use to evaluate information.
the way i set that up, it followed that the positions we are speaking from would tend to talk past each other even if in basic ways we were in agreement.
i am really quite interested in how different frames of reference work, how they kick in, how the effects play out---often this results in my taking an observer relation in debates--set up the machinery and watch it work. this one was different, however...
anyway, it is pretty clear if you look through the posts that that the points of agreement between you and pigglet and i are multiple--and that the divergences keep coming down to the same kind of problem---(a)how far do each respective place allow us to go in thinking about the particularities of situations---in this, i dont see particular disagreement, actually---(b) what happens when you move from looking at a situation to making judgements about that situation. here is the point at which the differend comes up, and the reason for the differend, in the end, is different criteria come into play--the curious thing is that both your position and the position i think pigglet and i both come from are internally consistent, and that both enable us to push quite far into problematic areas.
fact is that when not involved in a meta-conversation (judgements abut judgements) the factors that shape my positions (at any rate) are often messier than i made them appear here. but it is really interesting that (for once) a debate happened in this space that allowed for that messiness to show up, to itself be a problem, and that because it was itself part of the conversation.
ok--i need to pull myself together and go meet a new piano soon....
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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