> At 10:18 AM 10/6/2009, Alan Rudy wrote:
>
> His stance, and the one you and Reed are taking in support of him,
>> suggests,
>> implies or baldly states that there couldn't possibly be an internal
>> contradictions to or stylistic flaws in) his work and that we are to take
>> it
>> or leave it; it is pure and we're allies of we accept it and enemies if we
>> don't.
>>
>
> Have you ever known Doug to take the stance you describe? Why would he
> start now?
>
No, and I can't figure it out, who knows if I'm an enemy is his eyes... tho he seems to have more distance from the exchange than Reed. Shag, obviously, can't figure Doug out either... and a number of others, writing off list, have indicated their perplexity as well. Its gotten so weird that Carrol's trying to be peacemaker... ;-)
> The nerve he's hit is, is I think at least for me, tied
>> to the ways his style, his lack of complexity and his denigration of
>> others
>> make it so the people who ought to hear his argument dismiss it out of
>> hand
>>
>
> Unless prick and asshole are meant endearingly when referring to Michaels I
> think any denigration has been a two-way street.
Yeah, I denigrated his denigration, 'ts true.
> That might have something to do with the tone of Reed's response to you.
>
> It might have, and probably did... but what do you call someone who, in the
most condescending of ways, treats large swaths of people who aren't
anti-leftists as ideological and idiotic servants of neoliberalism (without
ever, it seems, taking the time to actually talk with a decent range of
folks working in the realms he despises)? I call them pricks... I've been
that guy, but utterly without Michaels' reach or stature, I was a prick...
and the folks who straightened me out did so by obliterating my
overconfidence by taking me seriously rather than calling me an enemy or
assuming I hadn't any idea what I was doing.
Reed coulda been slapped me down and then had at the arguments I made (Doug kinda did) but I was just slapped and dismissed as an enemy. Doug's refused to address much if any of the substance of my concerns, or Shag's, too. Lots of opaque and rhetorical questions, tho. Everywhere is not WBAI, everyone is not Wise, and none of us critics can figure out who the audience is, or how this is helping "the left."