Academic Freedom Bill of Rights: or, Doesn't Everyone Love Orwellian Language?

[Ramo]

1. I might be stuck in 2 years ago. And might not always be aware that people change. I always think of BD as that young little scamp following Jezenka for instance.

2. (Segue) Don't you think you can get impressions of people from their posts?

Adolescents are generally pompous asses, and I know that I wasn't an exception. I haven't seen you much, so I don't know how up to date your impression of me is.

3. I was not gigging you for having expressed a high rating of your smarts. I haven't seen you do that recently, nor would it really bother me. I guess I'm looking at something different from smarts (maybe wisdom in the D&D sense). It was more speaking out towards the tendancy to ridicule the important things in life, the noble concepts, and yes, the noble country. first people accept pabalum from their teachers, then they question it. Then they realize that some things are really very important. CS Lewis's THE ABOLITION OF MAN is kind of behind some of my thinking here. I just read this.

To clarify, the "bomb Pearl Harbor" comment was a reference to a South Park parody of Pokemon, where the toys are vehicles for incitement of Americans to bomb Pearl Harbor. Boshko posted a pic of Hello Kitty with a gun, apparently a reference to some Koreans' view of Hello Kitty as representative of Japanese conquest, hence the comment. So it was a knock on Japanese toy industry and consumerism around the world, not exactly the "noble concepts."

I don't think I knock what are traditionally the "noble concepts." Ideas of freedom and democracy are literally the basis for my system of morality. As for the "noble country," the problem is that the community gets confused with the state. And the criticism of the latter gets turned into criticism of the former.

I'm not exactly a fan of Lewis. Objectivism is bunk. Moral relativism is needlessly conflated with amorality.

[TCO]

I wasn't responding to the comment about bomb Pearl Harbor. WRT Lewis, I think you can find faults in some of his arguments especially as he brings them to conclusion. But he often makes some good points as well. Especially the part where he starts to talk about the Green Book.

[TCO]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Why didn't they have this law when I was an undergraduate?

"I don't believe in Green's functions therefore I don't have to deal with them"...

But you luv that shiznit. I bet if you could invent some class of algebraic diff Eq's that you had a solution for and that they were new, it would get you...excited.

[KrazyHorse]

I can't lie. The very concept gets me hard as a rock...

[TCO]

It's that FRench thing. Hermite, Legendre, Lagrange, etc.

[KrazyHorse]

I know. They had some hardasses back in the day...

[TCO]

Let's get a thread for discussing higher mathematics. Better if you start it. UR or DanQ are about to come in and nix my content along with my spam...

[Ramo]

Especially the part where he starts to talk about the Green Book.

Reading it right now. He starts out with the Green Book. Seems like crap. He doesn't try to refute the concept of relativism, just goes on with fatalistic "oh the horror if this view were prevalent" type ****. The problem is that he links relativism necessarily with lack of belief. So moral relativism becomes amorality. Which is bullcrap.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Ramo

Especially the part where he starts to talk about the Green Book.

Reading it right now. He starts out with the Green Book. Seems like crap. He doesn't try to refute the concept of relativism, just goes on with fatalistic "oh the horror if this view were prevalent" type ****. The problem is that he links relativism necessarily with lack of belief. So moral relativism becomes amorality. Which is bullcrap.

Why? And I think the issue is more than one of the logic of the philosophy itself. Which I agree, he kinda stretches. To me the more relevant point is that when you prance around and act all smart and disdain patriotism, you lose something for the society and for yourself.

[Ramo]

GP, are you defining patriotism as love for my state or my nation? Because I love my Johnny Cash and Robert Johnson, liver 'n onions, grits and BBQ pork ribs. I just don't care for Tom DeLay or George Bush. How does that diminish me or society?

The reason that his logical argument is crap is simply that the recognition that moral systems can be constructed arbitrarily does in no way prevent you from having a system of morality. The latter is in no way dependent on the former. I have a morality that's grounded in my emotions, and these emotions need not be the same as anyone else's. I recognize that my morality isn't an absolute, but that doesn't make me a sociopath.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by TCO
love it or leave it, Omar.

Who's got an over inflated sense of their own intelligence?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Ramo
I just don't care for George Bush.

[TCO]

Ramo,

I guess I'm taking out on you for previous behavior and for things I see in other people. I don't care if you don't like George Bush. But I don't like adolescent disdain of patriotism that I see so often on this site. And America is much more than the pop and regional culture things in your list. You left out winning the Cold War, WW2, the Bill of Rights, no monarchy, etc. etc.

[KrazyHorse]

...overstating your own accomplishments...

[Az]

blowing up the meteor in "Armageddon"....