<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Adjudicating differences, was Sokol and Bricmonts</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> Hello everyone, SnitgirrRl writes Fri. Nov 20, 98: <TT>Well Doyle, dear one, you have to assume 1] that sectarian idealism leads to o-c behavior and  2] that obsessive compulsive behavior  is a bad thing. In either case, you are using it to suggest that o-c behavior is  'bad' or negative or not the most preferable state to be in  in precisely the same way that Jim said that sight is preferable to blindness. SnitgrrRl 1]  I'm wondering how we adjudicate competing claims for respect.  And, I'm wondering  if respect is all that  each party really wants.  Is it possible to conclude this discussion in such way that both your position (you don't want people to deploy metaphors of disability) AND Jim's position (he wants to deploy them b/c he does think that, say, sight is preferable to blindness) are respected? 2}  I'm not sure how and why we should and even if we can cleanse language of metaphors.  Consider your post:  you've used the word "margin" as in the margin of a paper, of a text, as in 'buying on the margin' You've used 'raising consciousness' which suggests several different usages:  consciousness raising in the feminist movement, raising something hidden in the recesses of the unconscious, indeed an entire philosophy of consciousness which  postrucs have rejected in favor of the use of 'subjectivity' and 'subject position'  You used the phrase "following a script" which is suggestive of the script in a play, a movie script, as 'fake' as 'forced' as 'not real'  I used military metaphors which you picked up on: "attacked" and later "deployed" Doyle In the case of the first paragraph, you trace down that things "is  'bad' or negative or not the most preferable state to be in  in precisely the same way that Jim said that sight is preferable to blindness." Doyle The problem I see with this is that you discover this by a logical extraction of felt values you perceive in my remarks.  What that says to me is your view is rule-bound.  Here is why this is so.  You say something is precisely so and symmetrical and invariant.  I add the words symmetrical and invariant because they are scientific tools for tracing similarities that have a great deal of power.  You, SnitgirrRl, might have an intuition that something in what I wrote and what Jim wrote is like that, but what is the material basis for describing such and such precise and material similarities?  I will give an example I am familiar with in vision, color is constant under varying lighting conditions.  Neural networks provide a means to compute such constancy.  You suggest that there is a constancy between my value judgement or "irruptive motivational affect" and Jim's opposite meaning statements from my own.  Please show to me how the brain does this.  Otherwise while your intuition sounds plausible, it seems somehow spurious too.  It in fact could be just your imaginative speculation worth taking into consideratin out of respect for you, but otherwise on the same plain as any other guess might be.  How are we to proceed if we are ruled by your imagination, and not mine? Doyle Your remark depends upon the mind working according to logical rules.  Certainly the brain can generate logical rules, but I challenge you to find rules in the brain.  What instead you find are neural networks which generate a different sort of thinking process than what you think you see in my thinking.  For instance your comments require a complete consistency to thinking if I am to follow your "logic", but since you found a logical inconsistency how does my brain continue to function if it is not up to your rules of performance evaluation? Doyle I read your comment about my views upon cleaning up metaphors, and I don't want to  clean up metaphors.  I have a paradigmatic understanding of the meaning of the oppression of disabled people in our society.  But I don't think metaphors as you say them are clean up able. That is like saying IQ measures something. Doyle By the way, awhile back in conversing with you on LBO about moralizing, and Obsessive Compulsive disorders and Sectarianism, I accused you of moralizing.  I have read your postings or re-read them, and I was wrong to say that, that is I miss represented your views, and any anger you might feel about that is my responsibility.  In regard to OCD and people who have it, I do not view them as bad in the sense you imply.  Sectarian social institutions are a problem.  I separate the human beings who are plastic and flexible from the social structures we build up and tear down as is our wont. regards, Doyle Saylor</TT> </BODY> </HTML>