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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (56057)	8/30/2002 10:29:06 PM
From: Tom C	Respond to of 82486

. Surely you know that. SI, rather than go through expensive legal proceedings when they already had quite enough financial trouble, caved to a bully. Pure speculation on your part. You realize that, right?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (56057)	8/30/2002 10:44:55 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

You and jla both misinterpret what I said. Not for the first time. Or the second. Or the . . . I didn't say that people with scholarly backgrounds are more intelligent than those without (jla's objection). Or that they are guarantors of wisdom and character (your objection). (If the two of you had any interest in reading objectively what I write, you might not make such errors. But you aren't looking for the facts, you're looking for things to attack. Which means you will never learn anything. Which is too bad, but is your choice.) What I said is that the scholarly mind approaches information in a different, more objective, way. What I specifically said was: "People with scholarly backgrounds -- those who have taught, particularly at the university level, those who publish scholarly work, and the like -- are trained to examine facts dispassionately, to question, to demand proof. (I don't consider those who have Masters or professional degrees to be scholars by virtue of that, but those who have taken full PhDs probably can be counted as such.) Those without are more often -- not universally, of course, no human rule of behavior is universal, but generally -- prone to decide on the basis of emotion, of group think, of following the crowd, and the like." Now, if you can find in that statement where I say they are more intelligent, or have more wisdom, or have more character, please point to it. There are obviously many people with no degrees or scholarly background at all who are very intelligent, very wise, and of excellent character. But people with scholarly backgrounds have generally, though not universally, been carefully trained in looking for truth without concern for personality, likeableness, etc. It's a different approach to people and facts. Not that other people can't also have it. But it tends to be a general characteristic of trained scholars more than of the general population. So really, I don't see that your post disagrees with what I said at all. Only with what you tried, wrongly, to pretend that I had said which I didn't. (You didn't used to be this way, Laz. It used to be possible to hold an honest discussion with you. What happened to you?)