>I don't know about the arrogant but I can't see you as a pedant. A pedant
>would
>at least make sure that understood premises would not be left out in a
>deductive argument. From Carrol Cox is a leftie and Joanna Sheldon is a leftie
>nothing at all follows about not all lefties being arrogant pedants or that
>lefties can be arrogant pedants etc. without tacit premises.
Fair enough, Ken. Which raises the possibility I'm utilising a particular complex of relations in the hope of lending a certain meaning to a formally meaningless utterance, no? So formal meaninglessness, which is formally apolitical by definition, is meaningful and political in actuality.
> I don't bother to attack theoretical hot air by another bit of theoretical
>hot air. If someone asks another person to pass the salt, in most contexts
>there will be nothing political about it.
You could get it yourself (as the Ik people of Southern Sudan reputedly would, if the Discovery Channel be believed - and off your plate if that's where it's best got). You could demand it (as a grumpy patriarch might). And you could ask for it (as we would). Seems a political option - circumscribed by a constitutive web of relations - to me! And then there's the matter of where the salt shaker might be formally located (I bet you it was nearer Henry VIII than his dinner guests, for a start)
>But I agree, Carrol certainly CAN BE irritating at times. I am
>sure he won't take offence at a meaningless statement.
If my statement was meaningless in the context of our list, you'd have nothing with which to agree, would you?
And nice deployment of the CAN BE. You generously deploy a formal statement to highlight that Carrol does not always irritate you. Me neither. It's nice to have a meaningful option between 'Carrol is not irritating' and 'Carrol is irritating', as neither of those do the man justice.
Which was the point that gave vent to my initial theoretical hot air (as opposed to this one).
Cheers, Rob.