Thursday, February 08, 2007
I know what to say
In "I didn't know what to say," below, I suggest that the collective will of teachers effected change, not argument, facts, reason, persuasion, etc. To better illuminate the principle I take from this, consider the opposite situation: a case in which reason & facts all point one direction, and it makes no difference at all.
Consider my arguments, way below, that two specific aspects of the circumcision debates cannot be reasonably argued. I believe that within our notion of reason, I am right about this. I also seriously doubt that anyone will notice, or care. Even were my ideas to gain wide circulation, people would continue to argue pointlessly about the same points I've demonstrated to be pointless.
If this sounds too self-aggrandizing, consider a different issue that I think has been resolved at the level of reason, as explained in this article in Salon. The article cites a two year old plan by a couple of Yale academics to end the corruption inherent in private campaign financing. I have been leery of campaign finance reform, because I believe that big money will always find a way around it, and I tend to suspect that campaign finance reform will end up just making things worse. Reading this proposal, though, I am convinced that big money could not find any way around it. Their proposal is constitutional and reasonably cheap. It also doesn't stand a chance. Like efforts to reform the electoral college, it will sit around gathering dust, and be pulled out every few years as a kind of curiousity. “Hey, look at this!” we say. “This could fix everything!” And in the same breath, we say, as though instinctively, “Too bad it will never happen.”
My point here is that knowing what to say is not as important as I once thought, because one can not know what to say and still impose a will, and one can know exactly what to say and find the ability worthless except as a parlour game. ¶ 4:14 PM
Consider my arguments, way below, that two specific aspects of the circumcision debates cannot be reasonably argued. I believe that within our notion of reason, I am right about this. I also seriously doubt that anyone will notice, or care. Even were my ideas to gain wide circulation, people would continue to argue pointlessly about the same points I've demonstrated to be pointless.
If this sounds too self-aggrandizing, consider a different issue that I think has been resolved at the level of reason, as explained in this article in Salon. The article cites a two year old plan by a couple of Yale academics to end the corruption inherent in private campaign financing. I have been leery of campaign finance reform, because I believe that big money will always find a way around it, and I tend to suspect that campaign finance reform will end up just making things worse. Reading this proposal, though, I am convinced that big money could not find any way around it. Their proposal is constitutional and reasonably cheap. It also doesn't stand a chance. Like efforts to reform the electoral college, it will sit around gathering dust, and be pulled out every few years as a kind of curiousity. “Hey, look at this!” we say. “This could fix everything!” And in the same breath, we say, as though instinctively, “Too bad it will never happen.”
My point here is that knowing what to say is not as important as I once thought, because one can not know what to say and still impose a will, and one can know exactly what to say and find the ability worthless except as a parlour game. ¶ 4:14 PM
