freecounterpoint: Outstanding Spengler

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Outstanding Spengler

8 comments:

My Frontier Thesis said...: Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics.

Sounds similar to the methodology I used to get through grad school.; 3/04/2008 9:15 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Note: talk to AA about his particular personal experiences. There's a helluva first-person case study he endured while at the U of Minnesota.; 3/04/2008 9:17 PM
Tecumseh said...: JJ: Didn't I post this about a week ago, and then didn't we have a long discussion on the subject? Yes, it's a good article, but watch out for Mr Alz. Even better, poney up a Mrs Clicq.; 3/04/2008 9:40 PM
Tecumseh said...: No, here. I beat you to the punch by only a bit more than a week, JJ. This is jeroboam territory.; 3/04/2008 11:46 PM
Tecumseh said...: Of course, you never read my post, or meditate on what I said, just latched on a side issue -- it's how it goes.; 3/04/2008 11:48 PM
Mr roT said...: Interesting point you bring up and in precisely the right context, AI. I reacted to gratuitous jabbing at Pepe instead of reading the Spengler article that did indeed have some content that I was willing to acknowledge (when it was not prefaced with, well, gratuitous jabbing, which is a turn-off).

So perhaps, as is the case in any attempt to arrive at truth, we do better by knocking off the ad hominems and go for the nut of a political argument instead of constantly referring to the locations of each others' births (except yours, of course, majeste) or families.

There are many posts of mine you don't read or if you do, don't comment on and that's just fine--even when what I post is precisely to your point of view in an argument we've been having now for ages: (e.g. this and this). I think my record is pretty good in re responding at least to what the poster has written.

And this is why the excerpt exists, AI, so that one can expose what one thinks is the important or at least fun part of a long piece. I had remembered reading about Klauss, but to me the important part of this article was Obama's knitting bee of haters and how someone from such a poisonous environment can still charm. That detachment is part of the technique of the profession called sociology and what passes for charm is part of that detachment.

As to meditating on what you said, I think I gave your jabs quite enough thought in deciding that they were sufficiently gratuitous to complain about. I don't like sounding like some school principal, but I don't like my close friends being insulted and often need to find a way to prevent that without becoming insulting myself.

You agreed and desisted for a bit, I think, and I thank you.; 3/05/2008 12:30 AM
Tecumseh said...: C'mon JJ, "even a broken clock is right twice a day" is not the stupendous "insult" you make it to be. I mean, this is pretty mild fare on this board, if you think about it. You want to act as a referee? Fine, but then use consistent standards, no irrational ones.

As for remembering the posts, you know, we have labels now. I know you use them inconsistently and haphazardly, but you do use them now and then. And note that I posted under "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback" -- a label you invented, and one descriptive enough to have given you a pretty good picture of what the article was about, if you could have gotten over the supposed "insult" (reminds me of the cartoon controversy -- are you as easily insulted as the Danish youth?); 3/05/2008 8:31 AM
Mr roT said...: It's just fine to be touchy in the instinct to protect your friends and relatives, AI. It's loyalty.; 3/05/2008 4:20 PM

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