But I am baffled by Doug's extraordinary inability to separate an argument from the person who makes the arugment. The (il)logic seems to be that if one disagrees with a proposition, then one hates the person who has advanced it. Let's apply that logic to my literary preferences. I disagree violently with the central propositions around which The Cantos are organized; I think of Ezra Pound as anincredibly generous person. All the propositions I the Essay on Man are wrong, but it is nevertheless a fount of wisdom. And if you want to get serious about "The Conservative Mind," there is no better text on which to ground your anlaysis than the novels of Jane Austen. And you can speak of "The Mind" in that case because you are not talking about people at all; you are talking about a structure of ideas & attitudes as caught up in the pages of a text.
Or take Doug's own writers. As far as I can tell, there simply is no better commentary on contemporary u.s. economic activity than Left Business Observer, and Wall Street remains a classic. So Doug is obviously a major resource of u.s. leftism. (Whenever a thread on this list raises economic questions, I read Doug's posts first, sometimes not even bothering to read anyone else's posts.) He seems also fairly good when writing about contemporary mass opinion as reflected in polls of passive views or in voting. That is, he is excellent on (non)political politics. So by his logic, I obviously love him as a person. But as soon as he tries to write about left political activity he turns into some one utterly ignorant of his subject. The FHP article is a symphony of nonsense. He is quite incapable of interpreting public-opinion polls from the perspective of left strategy and tactics. (E.g., in response to my argument against the prison system he fatuously reminded me that 98% of the public would disagree: that shows utter ignorance of how left movements grow.) So given these two bodies of response to the writings of Doug Henwood and given Doug's inability to separate an argument from the person making it, how is Cox's attitude towards Henwood to be construed?
Carrol
P.S. The first thread on The Reactionary Mind concerned a debatre on it in the pages of the NYRB, referring to an earlier review of the book. Now, a major function of book reviews is to enable the reader to decide whether or not he/she wants to read the book. Clearly Mark Lilla in's arguments decieed tht question in the negative. Hence references to the book are irrelevant in this debate. It has to be grounded in that exchange of letters.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Wojtek S Sent: Friday, March 09, 2012 7:29 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Corey Robin's Reactionary Mind argument in miniature
Doug: "You used to be about 20% annoying and 80% interesting. Now you're 95% annoying and 5% interesting."
[WS:] I disagree. I find her recent postings far more interesting and informative than her old postings. I do not understand this whole brouhaha about Robin - I liked his book even though it did not answer the what's the matter with Kansas question (whether it intended to do it or not) - but beside that, her recent postings are quite informative on issues ranging from anarchists to professions.
Wojtek
On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 1:56 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Mar 7, 2012, at 8:29 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
>> BTW, his last couple of paragraphs are what always make me cringe about
his approach to argument on his blog. he knows that he shouldn't imply that
they are hypocrites. So, he tells us that "we" aren't implying they are
hypocrits, even after he does point and laugh at Sanchez, implying he's a
hypocrit, with the phrase, "It never seems to dawn on Sanchez...." This is
just another way of saying, what a hypocrit. Robin implies with "it never
seems to occur" that Sanchez either lies to himself or is so ideologically
blinded, he doesn't realize he's a hypocrit/inconsistent.
>
> Hey you know what? This:
>
>
http://cleandraws.com/2012/03/08/upper-middle-class-mores-alpha-male-behavi
or-etc/
>
> is a bag of shit. You can criticize my friends all you want. I only ask
that you actually know what the fuck you're talking about when you do.
>
> You used to be about 20% annoying and 80% interesting. Now you're 95%
annoying and 5% interesting. The whole bitch/snit act has taken you over and
you've become almost nothing but a pain in the ass.
>
> So: fuck you.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-- Wojtek http://wsokol.blogspot.com/
___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk