From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp*lib.org)
Date: Sun Jun 15 1997 - 01:47:32 MDT
At 03:17 PM 6/14/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Michael Butler wrote 6/14/97: <Have you actually read the work in question?
>(_The Fourth Turning_). If not, how can you be sure you know what their
>actual thinking is? Or doesn't that matter--is a kneejerk reaction based
>on second- or nth-hand opinion all you're up for?>
>
>I answered this back in a post on 3/6/97 titled ""The Fourth Turning" - A
>Must Read". I don't like repeating myself so I only reposted the bare
>minimum from this, I'm sure it's archived somewhere in the cyberether for
>your perusal. I'm flattered that you think my lengthy and articulate post
>might qualify as a "knee-jerk reaction."
Seems like I may have punched a button; if so, sorry.
I didn't recall your "lengthy and articulate" response, and I'm not
interested in debating whether it's possible to so buttress a kneejerk
response (by which I mean literally an immediate neurosomatic state path
triggered by an experience)--I see people do it all the time. Terror
management theory suggests it's a large part of humankind's makeup--but
maybe TMT is a crock.
A lot of people criticized _The Bell Curve_ without showing signs of having
even read--or perhaps I mean understood--the chapters' precis. And some did
so lengthily and articulately. Or maybe they read and understood but found
a deeper meaning, like who wrote the works of Shakespeare or something, and
it bothered them so much that it swamped the plain text.
I have no way of knowing if that's what you're doing; that's why I asked.
It seems to me that the matter is subject to debate. Perhaps you disagree.
If you feel like continuing this thread, try these on for size:
(po1) I take it that you'd agree with the proposition that all cycles in
human behavior are mythical; is that right?
(po2) there are no such things as "types" of people (in the "personality
type" sense).
MMB
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