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pan:
i'm not going to respond directly to your post--i've already deleted 2.
for what it's worth, i find it really difficult sometimes to respond to you when you adopt this attitude of being the victim of persecution and remain civil.
call it a quirk.
so instead, i'll make a broader point:
probably the most productive point this particular thread has gotten to is the realization that if there are problems with this forum--and there are (some internal, some situational, i think at least)----that each of us bears a certain degree of responsibility for them.
if things are going to change, we have to change them ourselves.
there is no difference of essence between political viewpoints--it is not the case that one kind of person sees the world one way and another kind another.
there are differing positions which present each of us with choices to make about how to interact, how to proceed.
there are disagreements about values.
there are disagreements about hierarchies of values.
there are disagreements about whether information is required to make a political claim.
there are disagreements about what constitutes legitimate information.
there are disagreements about how to interpret information, how to organize it.
there are disagreements about what relation should obtain between information and the world that it purportedly describes.
there are disagreements about what matters in the world.
there are disagreements about policies, about political personalities, about institutions, about the nature and state of the american political order.
there are disagreements about whether subjecting the premises of your arguments to discussion is or is not part of political debate.
there are differing levels of skill in argumentation (and if you dont think this is a skill, you're deluding yourself--it takes work. it is not obvious how to make arguments with any degree of clarity.)
there are going to be disagreements, then, and about very basic issues, very basic procedures.
i dont see the problem with that.
it is because that's possible that i hang around here.
if you think the forum is in trouble and that bothers you, do something to change it.
if we want to change it, each of us should start with our own posts.
basically, this either is a community or it isn't.
personal aside: i am not committed to the notion of unity.
i think communities with vibrant internal debate are stronger than communities that lack it.
this is directly linked to my interest in direct democracy--which is not at all a peaceful kumbaya kinda set-up---but it DOES presuppose that all members of the polis (the deliberative body) are aware, despite their disagreements, that they operate in the context of a community and that they disagree in part BECAUSE they operate within the context of a community and BECAUSE they care about what happens to that community.
it's kinda like that here, without the exercise of actual power part.
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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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