Lots of good discussion on the blog this week. We began with a lively debate about the moral basis for antidiscrimination laws, which inspired some thoughtful commentary from the anonymous Rust Belt Philosopher, leading to an extended dialogue over on his blog. That dialogue has pretty much wound down, but I think that much of it is well worth reading even if it’s a little late to jump in.
Our thread on free trade was equally provocative. I’m sure I’ll soon return to some of the issues that came up near the end of the thread.
I offered a brain teaser to illustrate a key point from The Big Questions, namely that honest truthseekers can’t agree to disagree. I threw in a comparison to a related brain teaser about blue-eyed islanders, and my own brain teaser was quickly forgotten as the blue-eyed islanders became the focus of discussion. That was never my intention, but I’m thrilled that people found something interesting to discuss. Those who insist on controlling their threads’ directions should take up sewing, not blogging.
We also met the Ass Meat Research Group, and I said a few words about Paul Krugman. In entirely separate threads, of course.
See you all on Monday!
I really much prefer the discussion about a married couple’s face-off. The point (for me) is that a couple are often in a state of dynamic tension, which can be either fundamentally stable or unstable. Each side wants some particular goal (who has to do some task, who gets to their favorite activity, who’s right on the moon-landing question, etc.), but another goal is that of the marriage itself. So while each might push to a certain degree for their selfish goal, they won’t push past a certain point, that point being the one at which their spouse says, “That’s too much, I won’t put up with that amount of pressure for this fight.” There’s not a single degree of pressure for this breaking point; it depends on the importance of the particular issue at stake, how recently the one party has felt aggrieved at the hands of the other, state of physical and mental health, and so on. So each side must gauge the state of pressure and the closeness to break-point that their spouse is currently feeling–or, at least, communicating (and such communication might conceivably be insincere).
So it’s not just “My spouse has not given up on in the face of my intransigence”, it’s “My spouse has not given up and has shown such-and-such characteristics of frustration, in the face of my intransigence and communication of my particular feeling of steadfastness and of importance of the idea.” The give and take is multiply reflective, and it’s more like feeling blindly with one’s hands what the size and contours are of darkened room, than it is an exercise in reasoning. It’s a room compounded of emotion, with walls of anger on one side, betrayal on another, and fear of disrespect on the third, with a long, fuzzy corridor of despair and exhaustion forming an undignified exit. The dimensions and shapes of each spouse’s room are not only gauged by their partner, but shaped and formed as well. Each gropes and pushes and pulls, and the hope is to locate a space in which both can stand, apart from any of the walls.
Steve H.
Geez, why did rusty belt philosopher guy have to go into things like “listen man…if you want to act like a CHILD..” haha. There’s no room for that in a lively debate. All that tells me is that he was losing. In fact, after reading the entire dialogue, I felt his point was lost.