> DT: [snip] they had a secret language, Latin;
Latin wasn't a "secret language" -- it was the language of education in those days, as well as the common language of European culture. Granted, they ought to have educated kids in the vulgar languages of the various countries, as eventually came to pass centuries later, but then they ought'nt to have had a feudal system, either -- which was eventually overthrown centuries later.
> It was not a search for knowledge, it was honing your disputation
> skills so that
> you could publicly defend a thesis and attack a thesis. This is the
> history of our intellectual tradition. The Western tradition has
> placed a
> lot of emphasis on oral disputation. This is different from the Chinese
> and other Asian traditions, which would have found oral disputation
> quite
> unbecoming a sage....
Back to Buddhist history again -- "oral disputation" was a very important feature of most Buddhist traditions in Asia, including those in China. Where does she get her idea of what would have been "unbecoming a sage"? Well, Asia is the great happy hunting grounds for useful ignorant historical examples for people who don't know diddley about that part of the world, but don't care about their ignorance.
> What I am questioning in this book and calling into
> question is the use of ritual, automatic, knee-jerk use of debate
> formats,
> setting everything up as a war when it really is not called for and not
> appropriate. Any issue that you want to discuss you get a debate going.
> That means you're going to get the most polarized views you can, get
> people that you know are really good at shouting at each other and
> encourage them to shout each other down, because you think it makes a
> more
> lively show.
That's not what scholastic debates were like in medieval Europe *or* in ancient China, and she ought to know better. But what does she care about historical accuracy? She's a famous, frequently interviewed cultural critic -- she has the right to make history bend to her arguments.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile