>
> "And what about me? How do I feel about operating in a regime of scarcity
> (temporary, I hope) after almost three years of entrepreneurial frenzy?
> Well it has its pleasures, rather like the pleasure (on the
> obsessive-compulsive side to be sure) of cleaning up your desk after a
> bout of intense and almost narcotic writing, or the pleasure of pruning a
> manuscript of self-indulgent length, or the pleasure of finally getting
> through that pile of mail and identifying the debts and obligations it
> brings even if you can't quite take care of them."
> (http://chronicle.com/jobs/2001/10/2001101901c.htm)
In his NYT article Fish (taking, like Jameson, a Humpty Dumpty approach to the definition of "irrational") wrote:
> The same reduction occurs when we imagine the enemy as "irrational."
> Irrational actors are by definition without rhyme or reason, and
> there's no point in reasoning about them on the way to fighting them.
> The better course is to think of these men as bearers of a
> rationality we reject because its goal is our destruction. If we take
> the trouble to understand that rationality, we might have a better
> chance of figuring out what its adherents will do next and preventing
> it.
Since on Fish's premises there is no "rationality" but simply different equally valid "rationalities" of which the "rationality" of those directly responsible for the mass murders of Sept. 11th is one, how can the privileging of his particular "rationality" by way of a six figure income etc. be justified?
Ted