Chris,
It wasn't a "charge"; more a statement that, from my perspective, the distinction itself is paralyzing.
Remember, I said in the last post that what you are saying is a Good Thing; of COURSE we need to make those distinctions, in life. My point was more abstract; So down here at the deconstrucionist level we're currently exploring, you've drawn a meaningless distinction.
I'm just feeling my way through these ideas; please don't think for a single instant that ANYTHING I say in this sort of a thread was meant to be taken as belittling, a put-down, derisory, whatever.
But I can't get away from the concept that, at an elemental level, the essence of language is manipulation, and down at that level there's no such thing as "good" or "bad". The uses to which we put our manipulative abilities, of course, are a whole other story.
Makes me think of the dude that was sitting at a bar in St. Louis, nursing a bourbon-and-branch, when an extremely attractive, apparently unaccompanied, woman sat down two stools south of him. After watching her toss back 3 scotches in quick succesion, our guy decided to take a shot at it...
He slid down beside her, looked her straight in the eye, and said: "If I give you a million dollars, will you sleep with me tonight?"
She looked him up and down, nodded in decision, and said "Sure!"
He said, "Great!", pulled out his wallet, removed a 50-dollar bill, passed it to her, and said "Let's go out in the alley for a quick blow job!"
She looked at him in stunned amazement, and said "What kind of a woman do you think I AM, anyway?" (She was pissed, dontcha know?)
His reply? "Honey, we've already established that; we're just haggling over price now..."
If you catch my drift?
(robt)
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