Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> Let the homophobes, the socialists, the racists, the religious, the
> luddites, the reactionaries, the anarchists, the statists, and
> all the others whose opinions are likely to be unpopular here speak
> up. We'll take them all on!
>
> We will listen very carefully and honestly to everything they have
> to say. We will scrutinize their arguments, but then pull no punches
> in our forthright disagreement, criticism, and negative rejection of
> their ideas (if, in fact, it comes to that). But we'll not indulge
> in one-line dismissals of those views, nor speak haughtily from a
> position of supposedly greater knowledge, but rather as ruthlessly
> as is possible evaluate their entire arguments, winnowing the true
> from the false, heralding the former, and denouncing the latter.
>
> And at all times, of course, we'll never resort to personal attacks,
> engage in name calling, or employ obfuscating debating tactics, but
> rather try to be as polite and respectful as is reasonable.
This must be very tongue in cheek. That is not what happens on
this list. A ruthless examination of ideas contrary to one's
own without ruthlessly examining one's own fundamental
assumptions is generally worthless. And perhaps also it is
just that this sort of media doesn't lend itself to such
clarity.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:02 MDT