kelley wrote:
> nevermind. i give up. i'm on the path to becoming just like carrol about
> this issue and i actually don't mind.
I've been following this thread only intermittently, but I was more or less serious when I referred to Susi as a lab specimen. What I mean is that his sheer ignorance of biology, history, etc. makes his ideas, as such, of no interest to discuss directly. But if you take him as a laboratory specimen, then you raise interesting questions. Is this particular brand of no-nothingism merely an aberration, or can it be linked to larger social forces and aid in the understanding of those forces? My suspicion is, though I would not try to defend it very vigorously, is that he and his friends should be viewed as a high-frequency aberration. As several have noted, they exemplify individualism goe bonkers. By individualism I mean not a particular set of habits or attitudes but the assumption that individuals even exist and are a useful explanatory category. And for studying the dynamic of this fundamental assumption, John Milton is rather more interesting than Christopher Susi or Matt Cramer.
Carrol