Re: MD The Carousel of Faux Philosophy

From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue May 24 2005 - 15:35:59 BST

  • Next message: Scott Roberts: "Re: MD Time"

    > MSH writes:
    > > Another variation of the Shift is to repeatedly ridicule the ideas of
    > > another and then, when asked for evidence, say "This is a forum dedicated
    > > to the work of Robert Pirsig. What does this have to do with Pirsig?"
    > > For example:
    > >
    > > "Howard Zinn is a Marxist and I don't believe anything he says."
    > > "What evidence do you have that Zinn is a Marxist?"
    > > "This forum is about Robert Pirsig, not Howard Zinn."
    > >
    > > OR
    > >
    > > "I don't believe any reports issued by anti-American organizations
    > > like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch."
    > > "What makes you think they are anti-American?
    > > "What does this have to do with the Metaphysics of Quality?"

    Platt asked:.
    > Speaking of evidence, please specify the source, including the context, for
    > these exact quotes. Not that I deny them.

    > msh May 23, 2005:
    > The quotes above were from memory, but they do not differ much from
    > TFP's actual words, referenced below:

    Just as I suspected. The quotes MSH quoted were not quotes at all. There's
    an intellectual level standard that statements surrounded by quotation
    marks mean that the person referenced said or wrote the exact words that
    were inside the marks. When an author violates this standard, his
    credibility rightly suffers.

    So now, having seen MSH's "evidence," I deny those quotes, although the
    words he believed he was at liberty to put in my mouth are reasonable
    facsimiles of my views. But I do not deny or retract one word that I
    wrote about about the leftist Bill Moyers and the anarchist Noam Chomsky.
    You can quote me on that. :-)

    Platt

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