Comments on: Illustrating egalitarianism

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:57:51 +0000

Nope. It’s zany-madcap-humour. No, it’s parody. No it’s double-irony. No, I was right the first time, it’s zany-madcap.

By: bryan

bryan — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 11:33:06 +0000

“sarcasm is my specialty, I’ve just co-written a whole book of the stuff” well isn’t that ironic.

By: mandarin's little dog

mandarin's little dog — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 20:39:53 +0000

Whuf!

By: mandarin

mandarin — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 18:35:04 +0000

…sarcasm is my specialty, I’ve just co-written a whole book of the stuff. Sure you have.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 17:34:04 +0000

Thanks Charles. Yep I do have something to do with B&W. I wrote the Rhetoric Guide you urged me to have a look at. Thanks for Ayn Rand and Margaret Mead comments; I wrote those too. (Derek Freeman, I think you mean? The Mead book?) Horst Wessel – I wondered about that one too, but maybe what you didn’t dig is the fact that the epithet ‘Nazi’ does get thrown at sociobiologists. A reader has also recommended KBJ to me, but he wasn’t to my taste. We’re critical of the left but from within the left, not from the right. Some of the basic assumptions are different. (I also found him a bit heavy-handed, frankly.) Yup, seen Generator, thanks. (By the way, since you like the Dictionary – it’s a book now, much expanded from the site version. Will be out in October.)

By: Charles Copeland

Charles Copeland — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:33:50 +0000

Ophelia – a rapid Google check does reveal that you yourself have something to do with B&W – congratulations: worth a couple of dozen babes unborn, I suppose, even by my tragic-realist-secular-restorationist standards. The ‘Fashionable Dictionary’ entry on Ayn Rand is brilliant—as is the one on Margaret Mead, so obviously you guys have read your David Freedman. The definition of the ‘Horst Wessel song’ as ‘rumoured to be the song some sociobiologists most like to sing’ is, however, a bit on the cheap side (unless I didn’t dig some form of recursive sarcasm). Amazing how highly intelligent people can have blind spots, though—especially when you mention the term ‘self-actualisation’ in a skeptical context. Did you check out KBJ at Analphilosopher, BTW?: http://analphilosopher.blogspot.com/ KBJ is an ex-feminist who saw the light and now, inter alia, writes for TCS. Anyway, here’s another little website present for you (though you’ve probably been there, done that, already), the Postmodernist Generator: http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/ Bye for now—got to get back to the ironing or the lucky girl who married me will tear me to pieces. P.S.: Alex, by ‘cognitively disadvantaged’ I meant ‘low IQ’, but I didn’t want to frighten the horses at Crooked Timber too much, so I used a euphemism instead. I’d love to answer your question in detail but this thread is going on far too long, so perhaps some other time the subject comes up …. cheers, Charles.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:20:24 +0000

Ha! Looks as if you’re right, Djw. Oh thankyougod, thankyouthankyouthankyou. I’m so happy. (No problem at all Charles. That’s a terrific endorsement.)

By: Alex Fradera

Alex Fradera — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:06:29 +0000

Sorry, should be “won’t be seeing a Nobel prize in their lifetime”.

By: Alex Fradera

Alex Fradera — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:03:49 +0000

‘The cognitively disadvantaged’ is too nebulous. What do you mean? Are they those with pathological defects rendering them retarded? Those that would not be competent to work in business or medicine, given the appropriate education or opportunity? Those who be seeing a Nobel prize? If it’s the first, you can’t even pretend to apply that to the poor at large. The second seems to fly in the face of the phonomena of social mobility, which does exist even if hampered by inequity. If the third is all you’re left with, one would be tempted to say ‘so what’, but could equally follow that up with the question: is exceptional talent the result of heredity? If so, what would be the strong instances: music? maths? writing?

By: hew diolch

hew diolch — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 09:26:33 +0000

nice troll, charles. i think you finally tipped your hand with that last bit o’ chum, though. (mixed metaphors, anyone?)

By: a

Tue, 13 Apr 2004 08:24:38 +0000

“sarcasm is my specialty, I’ve just co-written a whole book of the stuff” Studying birds doesn’t mean you know how to fly.

By: DJW

DJW — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 07:52:39 +0000

Well, Ophelia, it would appear that if this post is to be taken at face value, you get your wish. Congrats. Charles, next time you head over to B & W, take a look around and see who posts in the blog and authors much of the rest of the site.

By: Charles Copeland

Charles Copeland — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 07:40:09 +0000

Ophelia, What’s your problem? B&W is a fine site and I’ve recommended it to umpteen email buddies. We can’t get enough of this analytical philosophy stuff—there’s no such thing as an overdose of B&W. I’d also recommend my occasional email buddy Keith-Burgess Jackson’s ‘Analphilosopher.com’ to you, although he’s got a Pete Singer thing about animal rights. And he occasionally writes for TCS, which will presumably turn you off. Have a nice day.

By: adm

adm — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 01:09:49 +0000

ugh, another case of people discussing a philosophical position and philosophy without having the slightest notion of what technical philosophers have had to say (i.e., stuff that gets published in Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, etc). First, every serious egalitarian (whether they are real egalitarians like Temkin and Cohen (and perhaps Dworkin) or Prioritarians like Parfit, Nagel, Crisp, and many others) is only interested in “inequalities that result from no fault or choice of the individuals disadvantaged”. That is, egalitarians only care about correcting for bad (brute) luck. Second, any egalitarian with a brain in her head is a pluralist about value. No one seriously thinks that equality is the only ideal; egalitarians just hold that one way a situation can be better or worse is in virtue of inequality. Thus egalitarians are not committed to maiming the beautiful or burdening the strong.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 00:20:14 +0000

Charles oh, dear Charles please please please tell me you weren’t joking. Please tell me you were serious about advising me to read the rhetoric guide at that excellent egghead site that I might benefit from familiarising myself with – please, please, please. That would be so funny, it would make my week, my month, my year. But no doubt it’s far too good to be true, and you’re just saying Physician heal thyself. But if so, sorry, I can’t, sarcasm is my specialty, I’ve just co-written a whole book of the stuff. And I’m sorry but your sarcasms about women deserve no better.