My response is a disagreement with the conclusions being drawn from the article. I think the "backfire" is just a higher reading of an already existing commitment to defend an underlying certainty. I doubt there is any way to actually engage those certainties without that backfire unless it is through other human avenues that have nothing to do with public debate. So, I am not here to do anything like "help" Charlie.
Without the courage to place the certainty, and security that comes with it , on the blocks I have never seen this sort of argument make any conversions so I never even imagine that that is what I am about. I say this from experience. I am not, contrary to Charlie's schtick here, educated in the academy or with any stake in it. Until recently I was a high school quitter of the working class. I have been in demolition, roofing, even ditch digging as an honest choice for decades until settling into old house carpentry. I just read stuff for my own interest. Every day I try to put any recognized intellectual safe hiding place out into fresh air and open to ravages of what's-really-out-there. Whatever is still there at the end of the day, I take back inside for the night. I admit i don't have alot of grace for folks who refuse to do the same and white wash the violences their certainties need to survive.
In the there are implications in what Charlie and others say on here that seem to ugly to not pick a fight with. So I pick a fight.
I think that might make me a jerk some days. I can live with that.
|