>
>
> Dennis Claxton wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> So how much of my achievement is MY achievement and how
>>>> much is it hers?
>>>
>>> All of it. Next question?
>>>
>>> John A
>>
>> What happened to standing on the shoulders of giants?
>
> John is having fun. Look closely at the question to which he replies.
Spoilsport.
> But one could argue he is wrong. Surely there are more tangled threads
> in the social complex we call Joanna than merely one other person. I
> mean, doesn't the founder of the California university system have
> something to do with it? And the farmers who produced the food that
> founder ate? And the iron miners who produced the iron that went into
> the harvesting machinery that those farmers used to to produce the food
> that the founder of the California university system ate.
>
> And we haven't began to trace the relations of the people who wrote the
> books that Joanna's first-grade teacher read in college. Surely they
> have must be given their due.
And it's all theirs, too--that was my other implication. I don't see any point in dividing up the credit--that requires quantizing the qualitative.
> But you still can't have a revolution without some praise for both the
> big and small revolutionary leaders, so whether it's really really
> really Mozart who deserves credit for Don Giovanni or not, we better
> praise him or we pretty soon won't have an opera and we won't have any
> leaders of local minimum-wage groups and we will have to suffer
> capitalism for ever.
>
> And if you get 40 people out for a demo you had better give them high
> praise, for if you do they might not only come the next time but invite
> some friends to come with them, and if we're really lucky one of those
> friends might be Lenin.
And I agree with this, too--except that I'm pretty sure Lenin isn't showing up at too many events these days. Health problems, I believe.
Still having fun,
John A