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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Ilaine who wrote (43327)9/11/2002 8:48:00 PM
From: Bilow   of 281500
 
Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "I had a rough time with Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation because of the minute detail about 17th, 18th and 19th century British history - the Corn Laws, the Enclosure Acts, the Poor Laws, my head was spinning. I had no general understanding of the time period to contextualize Polanyi's explanations."

Unfortunately, the world is a rather complex entity. The history of even a small part of it should make your head spin. All too often, "general understanding" means that half the data is ignored in order to make some sort of political point. What's worse, the political point is inevitably something to do with the political problems and issues during the lifetime of the author, not the political times supposedly being illustrated.

A great example of this is the Iraq discussions. If you analyze everything from the point of view of "another Vietnam" you end up with a simplistic conclusion which is diametrically opposite of the simplistic conclusion you get when you analyze all the information from a point of view of "another Afghanistan". Both analyses are a waste of time. The world is complicated and combing through history looking for simplistic comparisons and analogies doesn't make it simple (though it will give you decent scores on the LSAT). The world should make your head spin.

Hell, even the physics that describes a single hydrogen atom, in isolation, should make your head spin.

-- Carl
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