You're right. Mercury in retrograde.
BW
--- Lenin's Tomb <leninstombblog at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 10/15/07, Robert Wrubel <bobwrubel at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Marvin's summary of this thread should end the
> debate,
> > but it wont. In my first academic job, I learned
> > there is nothing so viscious as an intellectual
> > argument. The reason is that there is so little
> at
> > stake in them, other than pride and self-regard.
> > Business people rarely argue like this; they
> negotiate
> > and maneuvre. That's because their strengths are
> > plain for all to see, right there on the balance
> > sheet. The intellectual has no such balance
> sheet,
> > other than his/her imaginary intellectual capital.
>
>
> This is an unnecessarily condescending attitude, and
> I am unimpressed by the
> valorisation of the businessman as a model of good
> argument: as if political
> activists should treat any discussion as a means to
> effectively exploit
> someone else. The reason the debate continues, if
> it does, is because there
> remain disagreements or misunderstandings to
> clarify. Suppose, for example,
> that Marvin misconstrued the arguments being made
> (as indeed he did,
> grievously)? One political purview from which it is
> acceptable to issue a
> thundering misrepresentation and then consider the
> debate closed is known as
> Stalinism. There are others that are more amenable
> to the business ethic,
> but I don't think we need to go through the list.
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