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James--You're advocating censorship to protecte dummies from
themselves? Sorry--their only hope is to tune in, try hard, and get
informed. I, too, am sorry that there are lots of people out there
who believe implicitly in the Carlton Lutts of the day. But then
snake oil's always been on offer. I'd like to believe that eventually
people WILL begin to think independently, if only because there's so
very much information available to them that they're forced to do so.
Granted, I've many times been appalled when some well-meaning soul
insists that he/she MUST be right because the information in question
came from a published source, or, worse yet, a tv program. BUT: we
don't need censorship: we need courses in basic scepticism starting
in the first grade (but easy to understand how dreadfully this could
undermine authority figures). Everyone also needs to develop the
ability to read critically; texts don't always mean what they seem to
mean, or what we expect them to mean. Most people approach any text
with preconceived ideas, whether they realize they're doing so or not.
I DON'T mean to mount a defense of deconstruction, which in its
academic application can be inappropriate, if not silly. But we'd all
be better off if we'd pay more attention to what is really happening
(in this case, in the market) at the moment, and to what people who
talk and write about it really say, and to whether what they say is
what they really mean. If they mean anything at all. But now we're
getting into intentionalism. And what the hell, this is an
intentionalist post. OH GOD IT'S CATCHING! The academic disease.
Lecture on. Stop me before I do it again. Janice |