the answer to the problem is this: stop trying to be part of the conversation *about* a book that you don't have time to read. NO ONE thinks that we can read everything. NO ONE is asking that you read everything.
you are arguing against straw positions. while doug thinks he actually creates things buy doing that, you know a fuckload better than that. knock it off.
What *I* ask is that you do one of two things:
1. shut the fuck up about the book if you have not read it. 99% of the people on this list, both the speakers, and the lurkers, manage to do this. You and others who want to talk about a book but don't have time to read it are quite capable of doing same. have another conversation about something you do want to talk about. say, "this reminds me of this other issues that is a problem for leftist thought." or somesuch...
2. if you want to start a related conversation such as, WRT speculations as to what, say, Corey Robin had in mind with the phrase "mind", then start it and leave the guy out of it. It's really easy to do this. Ravi managed it when he wrote a post introducing other ways of conceiving of "minds". The examples of this are endless.
oh, another option:
3. ask honest questions - not duplicitous ones that poison the wells - questions that are in good faith.
"oh hai! Shag, Robin says that reactionaries do X and so. What about the philsopher Haywood j Blowme who says Y and so?"
At 11:42 AM 2/5/2012, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Carrol Cox
>
>Later in the day I'll both read your original post carefully, _and_ spend
>time on working out the logic of this post. For now I'm going to take just
>one question in isolation. That will introduce error (oblique response) but
>not, I think, incorrigible error into the whole exchange.
>
>------
>See my problem. I cannot even see my own posts as a whole, with the result
>that I sent this post with _none_ of its actual content included, but merely
>a preliminary observation. The remainder of the post I _thought_ I was
>sending apparently had somehow been deleted. I will attempt in a subsequent
>post to reconstruct that material but it will be iffy. I think I will post
>my results under the subject line:
>
>Does literacy necessarily end in Sadism?
>
>Carrol
>
>___________________________________
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