Lily wrote:
> It wasn't necessarily the contents of Roseweed's post that I was taking issue with. It was the rather dogmatic way he was expressing it. Does everything a skeptic disagrees with have to be characterized as "woo
woo"?
Do you agree that for anyone capable of making rational judgements, there must be such a thing as contemptible nonsense? A point of view so patently absurd as to warrant
peremptory dismissal?
If not, then you may be unwittingly advocating the kind of wishy-washy, intellectually destructive liberalism that Stanley Fish, in his book The Trouble With Principle, took issue with (the "believers" here should read this book!).
The problem with it is, that if every point of view should be granted equal respect in public debate, and given an equal say, then no progress gets made, because - quite apart from anything else - the idea that
progress CAN be made becomes interchangeable with idea that it cannot (or even should not). So what we actually end up with, in practice, is a kind of radical, corrosive relativism, in which Hitler is as morally upright as Gandi, and all culture, religion and politics is reduced to the level of window dressing. In this
stifling atmosphere, rational discussion is impossible.
Now clearly (though we may disagree on what they are) there simply must be good ideas and bad ideas, cultural, religious and political traditions which are constructive, and those which are not. This being the case (though we may disagree on what qualifies) there simply must be such a thing as nonsense, which can be
peremptorily excluded from the debate. Furthermore, since culture, religion and politics are not just window dressing (they are the very fabric of who we are) there can never be any "neutral" territory on which debate can take place. Conflict is inevitable.
One more point. Stanley Fish argues, convincingly, that the appeal to what are called "neutral principles" in US law (such as of "fairness", "justice" etc.) is nearly always a rhetorical smokescreen, which obfuscates the real issues, and allows partisan agendas to be enforced without argument. One good example from a US courtroom was of a case (I don't have the book in front of me, I'm afraid, so no specifics) in which the defence argued that forcing blacks to sit at the back of the bus was not at all racist, because all the whites were equally segregated. Therefore - obviously! - all was "fair".
I mention this only because it seems to me that the "believer" camp here - airy-fairy, touchy-feely bunch that they are - are forever using the same tactic to advance their own agendas, and crush all reasonable opposition. Apparently, we are not allowed to "judge" their views, because this is "unfair". Everyone should be permitted to have their say, everyone has something to bring to the party. Now, so long as one is hiding behind this liberal facade, no argument is possible, and no progress can be made. Nobody is going to learn anything. My suggestion is that if you do not want to engage in debate ON OUR TERMS (this is, after all, a skeptic board) we're not interested. Go to a board where "fair" means something different.
Paul Hayward