>> ravi wrote:
>>
>>> a valuable point, i would agree. but is there anything wrong or
>>> valuless with that stance? i see value in someone (pretty assured
>>> to be in the minority) playing the contrarian, keeping alternative
>>> theses, even weaker ones, alive (jks might detect the pkf
>>> influence in this view).
>>
>
>
> Well, chacun a son gout but I don't cut my conscience to defy this
> year's fashions!
>
> Besides, the answer to your question is at the beginning of this thread:
> no sense of proportion, and priveleging rhetorical style over
> ideological substance.
>
hi mina, thank you for your response. as i mentioned in a response (to carrol?), i kind of jumped in the middle of your conversation without tracing its history. i was not talking about cockburn or a particular person with a counterpoint, in my message. i agree with your point about sense of proportion, but is there a clear boundary between the style of rhetoric and the substance of ideology? to reach something substantial, i submit, we need the constant play of various ideologies with their attendant rhetorical styles. it is not for/as a rhetorical style that i propose that alernative, even if weaker, theories be kept alive.
i am afraid my point is not well related to the discussion you folks are in the middle of...
--ravi