Freddy, I absolutely disagree with you. It is certainly an AD HOMINEM argument to simply impugn the source of a particular argument because you cannot refute it in any other way. You have said before that you don't want to bother to refute the IDEAS Hakeem is expressing, because I would just come at you another way, or something silly like that--I cannot find the exact post that you wrote. I think that is weak, to say the least.
When I was saying that Hakeem is writing outside his area of interest, I was obviously meaning ACADEMIC interest. Since his latest CV is dated 1978, and we cannot access writings before 1988 in the Library of Congress, I do not know what he wrote in that ten-year period. We do know that he was asked to do the review of Christopher Hutchens' book about Mother Teresa, but I am not arguing that this is significant.
What I am arguing, however, is that it is absurd to take a position on these threads that only a scholar writing in his field is worthy of serious discussion. I believe that someone who is a full professor with a distinguished career and a nine page CV could certainly analyze data and form provocative opinions about religion, just as I believe that someone like you who is very well read and bright but has no degree whatsoever is a very worthy opponent in this war of ideas. What if I were to say that I would not discuss anything with you, because I do have a degree? What if the people around here with doctorates refused to take seriously anyone without one?
Anyway, the world of ideas is rich, and I think we would all really cheat ourselves if we took those positions, just as you cheat the discussion by refusing to take Hakeem's ideas seriously ONLY because his scholarly career was as a sociologist. If you still want to refute his ideas point by point, fine, we can discuss that. But I consider snipes at Hakeem's scholarly background cheap shots, unworthy of big thinkers like you. |
