Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response

[Q]uotes —“In practice it appears that choosing secular multiculturalism amounts to choosing fundamentalist Islam.”— Eli Harman —“A force applied to the end of a lever has many times the lifting power of the same force applied near the fulcrum. Generalizing, the same degree of change in a root cause brings many more consequences than the same degree of change in a derivative.”— Michael Philip —“You can very much ignore the truth, but it will lead to disastrous consequences, because your perception of the truth has no bearing on the actual truth.”— Tristan Powers (imperfect language but it does the job. smile emoticon – cd) —“The truth can hurt or tickle, it can be bitter or sweet, it can draw thunderous applause or furious rebuke. But it can’t be ignored.”— Shaun Moss —“Both the US as status quo Power and US as revolutionary Power tend to encourage history-fails. A status quo Power has a tendency to live in an eternal now. A revolutionary Power has a tendency to fixate on its own framing of social patterns and desirable outcomes. Add to that American exceptionalism, and you have a recipe for serial history-fails. As has been particularly obvious in US interventions in the Middle East.”—michael phillip —“The US is at once both a revolutionary and a status quo Power. It is a revolutionary Power in the straightforward sense that it is the only contemporary state seriously trying to export its revolution, apart from the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is also a revolutionary Power in a somewhat more subtle sense, in that it produces so much of the technology that continues to transform the world. Which puts the US in a similar situation during its Pax Americana, as Britain during the Pax Britannica: being the premier source of transforming technology while trying to foster international stability. But the US is also a status quo Power, in that the current arrangement of world affairs suits its interests–as the major economic, financial, trading and military Power. It tends to act as the central manager of the international system–its performance as such is very much affected by its own interests, because that’s what Powers do. But precisely because the US has a bigger stake in international stability than any other polity, it tends to be more active in trying to maintain that stability.”— Michael Phillip —“Thought experiments have done yeoman’s work in philosophy ever since the tale of the ring of Gyges in Plato’s Republic. There clearly is a place for them in testing our moral intuitions, yet they have been taken too far down the trolley track in contemporary ethical theory. At issue here is modality: the meaning of the possible for making sense of ethical life. Let me suggest two modes of the possible. One is the merely conceivable, which involves science fiction elements or extraordinarily rare circumstances, things that are not logically impossible or outright violations of the laws of nature. The other mode is the genuinely plausible, scenarios that are either actually possible (because they have happened) or feasible given a reasonable construal of existing realities. I would like to narrow the use of hypothetical to the latter set of plausible cases and coin a new term, hyperthetical, for the merely conceivable.”— Michael Philip Excellent reframing. I would suggest you take my approach of a minimum three points to make an argumentative line, and follow your own sentence structure: 1-Conceivable, 2-Plausible, and 3-Feasible. (I am going to steal it. thanks. ) “—Early in Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler writes that a man under 30 must not – or, ought not to – involve himself in politics. I cannot say that I disagree (although at 17 years the idea seemed rather dated and ageist). Those who deem themselves fit to rule must not only master the great contemporary debates of their time but must have a deep understanding of the conflicting political hagiographies, wedge points and sacred cows.”— Ayelam Valentine Agaliba.

[Q]uotes —“In practice it appears that choosing secular multiculturalism amounts to choosing fundamentalist Islam.”— Eli Harman —“A force applied to the end of a lever has many times the lifting power of the same force applied near the fulcrum. Generalizing, the same degree of change in a root cause brings many more consequences than the same degree of change in a derivative.”— Michael Philip —“You can very much ignore the truth, but it will lead to disastrous consequences, because your perception of the truth has no bearing on the actual truth.”— Tristan Powers (imperfect language but it does the job. smile emoticon – cd) —“The truth can hurt or tickle, it can be bitter or sweet, it can draw thunderous applause or furious rebuke. But it can’t be ignored.”— Shaun Moss —“Both the US as status quo Power and US as revolutionary Power tend to encourage history-fails. A status quo Power has a tendency to live in an eternal now. A revolutionary Power has a tendency to fixate on its own framing of social patterns and desirable outcomes. Add to that American exceptionalism, and you have a recipe for serial history-fails. As has been particularly obvious in US interventions in the Middle East.”—michael phillip —“The US is at once both a revolutionary and a status quo Power. It is a revolutionary Power in the straightforward sense that it is the only contemporary state seriously trying to export its revolution, apart from the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is also a revolutionary Power in a somewhat more subtle sense, in that it produces so much of the technology that continues to transform the world. Which puts the US in a similar situation during its Pax Americana, as Britain during the Pax Britannica: being the premier source of transforming technology while trying to foster international stability. But the US is also a status quo Power, in that the current arrangement of world affairs suits its interests–as the major economic, financial, trading and military Power. It tends to act as the central manager of the international system–its performance as such is very much affected by its own interests, because that’s what Powers do. But precisely because the US has a bigger stake in international stability than any other polity, it tends to be more active in trying to maintain that stability.”— Michael Phillip —“Thought experiments have done yeoman’s work in philosophy ever since the tale of the ring of Gyges in Plato’s Republic. There clearly is a place for them in testing our moral intuitions, yet they have been taken too far down the trolley track in contemporary ethical theory. At issue here is modality: the meaning of the possible for making sense of ethical life. Let me suggest two modes of the possible. One is the merely conceivable, which involves science fiction elements or extraordinarily rare circumstances, things that are not logically impossible or outright violations of the laws of nature. The other mode is the genuinely plausible, scenarios that are either actually possible (because they have happened) or feasible given a reasonable construal of existing realities. I would like to narrow the use of hypothetical to the latter set of plausible cases and coin a new term, hyperthetical, for the merely conceivable.”— Michael Philip Excellent reframing. I would suggest you take my approach of a minimum three points to make an argumentative line, and follow your own sentence structure: 1-Conceivable, 2-Plausible, and 3-Feasible. (I am going to steal it. thanks. ) “—Early in Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler writes that a man under 30 must not – or, ought not to – involve himself in politics. I cannot say that I disagree (although at 17 years the idea seemed rather dated and ageist). Those who deem themselves fit to rule must not only master the great contemporary debates of their time but must have a deep understanding of the conflicting political hagiographies, wedge points and sacred cows.”— Ayelam Valentine Agaliba.