first, you use the weasel word "may" -- as if to suggest uncertainty, the ability to take it back if evidence is presented otherwise. it also enables you not to have to bring evidence or illustration to the table at all.
then, you follow up with a sentence which completely undermines the "may". There is no "may" or uncertainty about "large numbers of Iranians" because, after all, in the u.s. these values aren't shared by "large numbers of Americans" -- in which you try to wiggle out of the exoticism charge by making an oblique claim to a general human condition.
At 02:53 AM 6/30/2009, Chris Doss wrote:
>I don't think I'm trivializing anything. I am saying that the system of
>values on which you are operating (free choice is good, within limits,
>such as the lack of choice to walk around in public completely naked) may
>not be shared by large numbers of Iranians. This is a completely different
>issue than whether or not they should, normatively, share this system of
>values.
>
>It's not even shared by large numbers of Americans.
>
>--- On Mon, 6/29/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > Could you, just for a little while, stop trivializing this
> > stuff?
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>
>___________________________________
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