Such scorn. No sugar-coating, just acid disdain. Whew! One sits up immediately as if suddenly soused with cold water. It's bracing actually, and also thought-provoking.
Following is an excerpt from a scholarly article on some current issue. As redacted and paraphrased, it could be about any controversy--philosophical, religious, economic, political, scientific, aesthetic.
The title: The Why [of the matter under discussion]; a Non-issue for [those in my camp]
'I have also noticed that these two camps have little to say to one another, for their differences are deep and deeply entrenched. I can't say that I expect to change that fact here. I ...am a committed [member of my camp] and believe absolutely and certainly that empirical investigation is the proper approach in explaining [the subject] . I also recognize that I have little convincing to say to those opposed to me. There are few useful conversations; there are even fewer converts.'
'How do I make my [position] intelligible? My answer is that I don't. The solution to this 'vexing' problem is all a matter of attitude.'
'..the source of the conflict really turns on a difference in the rules each side has adopted in playing the game.'
'In some sense, of course, I have a ready response to [them. They] need to alter theirs. To put it bluntly: their failure to understand the world as it really is cuts no ice... Their ideas are at fault, not the...method.'
'The sceptics do not share my intuitions. So be it. However, I do not feel inclined to convince them otherwise than I do trying to convince the religious that souls do not exist. I recognize hopeless projects.'
'Explanations are social creatures. They are designed for particular audiences asking particular questions within a particular historically determined framework....Their explanations(those of the people of my camp) are designed for them. If you don't antecedently buy into this project, including its biases, history, context, central questions, possible answers, and relevant actors, then [the] explanation (of one of us) probably won't satisfy you. It shouldn't.
Who's in and who's out is a matter of antecedent self-selection. I opt in; the sceptics opt out. Because we don't agree on the rules, my explanations don't make sense to them, and their explanations don't make sense to me.'
'Denying the project and devising different criteria for explanation is a perfectly legitimate move to make, of course.There is always room for more.'
This is extensive quotation but I want to give a fair presentation from the 1996 essay. A note of exasperation is evident, as well as disdain. There is no problem, the writer insists, so why do you insist on talking about it?
The writer makes double suggestion: First, she and her side are engaged in the proper pursuit, and those on the other side are not. Second, nothing can come of conversation because the differences are unbridgeable; the two camps live in separate worlds. The result: at a distance, a scorn; in direct competition, an anger the other is misappropriating their common name and misleading public perception. This is tantamount to heresy, and nobody is more hated than heretics because they are betrayers.
You (this is me, not the author speaking), you whom I oppose, whom I believe misguided and even dangerous, whom I wish would go away but won't, it's you I have to encounter, though the experience is distressing and somewhat defiling. If you would only open your eyes, you'd know how wrong you are, and be ashamed. (Who am I addressing? Any number of people and groups). In the meantime, I'm going to walk away and stick to my agenda, and you can do whatever the hell you want.
Complicated, intense emotions; genuinely high stakes: the history of ideas is riven with these kinds of conflicts. No anodyne answers will do. 'Love one another' by itself doesn't give us traction on our feelings of danger, outrage and disgust, and urgency as we act and speak. But orthodoxy/heresy storms mutate, dissipate, revive in new forms. Perhaps what we most regret in the next generation of conflict is what we felt compelled to do in the previous.
Perhaps all we can do is remember that good faith is not our monopoly, and bad faith not theirs; and not to give up on conversation, even such as the above.
Following is an excerpt from a scholarly article on some current issue. As redacted and paraphrased, it could be about any controversy--philosophical, religious, economic, political, scientific, aesthetic.
The title: The Why [of the matter under discussion]; a Non-issue for [those in my camp]
'I have also noticed that these two camps have little to say to one another, for their differences are deep and deeply entrenched. I can't say that I expect to change that fact here. I ...am a committed [member of my camp] and believe absolutely and certainly that empirical investigation is the proper approach in explaining [the subject] . I also recognize that I have little convincing to say to those opposed to me. There are few useful conversations; there are even fewer converts.'
'How do I make my [position] intelligible? My answer is that I don't. The solution to this 'vexing' problem is all a matter of attitude.'
'..the source of the conflict really turns on a difference in the rules each side has adopted in playing the game.'
'In some sense, of course, I have a ready response to [them. They] need to alter theirs. To put it bluntly: their failure to understand the world as it really is cuts no ice... Their ideas are at fault, not the...method.'
'The sceptics do not share my intuitions. So be it. However, I do not feel inclined to convince them otherwise than I do trying to convince the religious that souls do not exist. I recognize hopeless projects.'
'Explanations are social creatures. They are designed for particular audiences asking particular questions within a particular historically determined framework....Their explanations(those of the people of my camp) are designed for them. If you don't antecedently buy into this project, including its biases, history, context, central questions, possible answers, and relevant actors, then [the] explanation (of one of us) probably won't satisfy you. It shouldn't.
Who's in and who's out is a matter of antecedent self-selection. I opt in; the sceptics opt out. Because we don't agree on the rules, my explanations don't make sense to them, and their explanations don't make sense to me.'
'Denying the project and devising different criteria for explanation is a perfectly legitimate move to make, of course.There is always room for more.'
This is extensive quotation but I want to give a fair presentation from the 1996 essay. A note of exasperation is evident, as well as disdain. There is no problem, the writer insists, so why do you insist on talking about it?
The writer makes double suggestion: First, she and her side are engaged in the proper pursuit, and those on the other side are not. Second, nothing can come of conversation because the differences are unbridgeable; the two camps live in separate worlds. The result: at a distance, a scorn; in direct competition, an anger the other is misappropriating their common name and misleading public perception. This is tantamount to heresy, and nobody is more hated than heretics because they are betrayers.
You (this is me, not the author speaking), you whom I oppose, whom I believe misguided and even dangerous, whom I wish would go away but won't, it's you I have to encounter, though the experience is distressing and somewhat defiling. If you would only open your eyes, you'd know how wrong you are, and be ashamed. (Who am I addressing? Any number of people and groups). In the meantime, I'm going to walk away and stick to my agenda, and you can do whatever the hell you want.
Complicated, intense emotions; genuinely high stakes: the history of ideas is riven with these kinds of conflicts. No anodyne answers will do. 'Love one another' by itself doesn't give us traction on our feelings of danger, outrage and disgust, and urgency as we act and speak. But orthodoxy/heresy storms mutate, dissipate, revive in new forms. Perhaps what we most regret in the next generation of conflict is what we felt compelled to do in the previous.
Perhaps all we can do is remember that good faith is not our monopoly, and bad faith not theirs; and not to give up on conversation, even such as the above.
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