RE: Openness to Unpopular Ideas

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Aug 05 2001 - 13:52:31 MDT


I had written

>> 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!
>>...

and Charles Hixson responded

> This is perhaps not the wisest attitude. People generally have a
> finite amount of attention to devote to details ... whatever they
> choose to consider details.

Oh, yes. I hadn't meant that as an open invitation :-)
I was speaking instead merely to the way that one *would*
respond to unpopular ideas, if one had the time. The
attitude that I wished to convey was that there is no
claim whatsoever that cannot be logically and patiently
criticized (in the sense of pan-critical rationalism).
I hope that my meaning is now clear (you aren't the first
to wonder).

> It was said earlier that <plonk>ing someone was a kind of self
> censorship. And this is true. It's also true, however, that any
> individual will need to restrict the focus of their awareness.

Of course.

Lee Corbin



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