Comments on The Skeptic's Field Guide: Consequences of PoMo and yet more 9-11 conspiracy

John Steyne? Who's John Steyne? I meant Mark Steyn...

2006-06-30T15:00:00.000+10:00

John Steyne? Who's John Steyne? I meant Mark Steyn.

There's no non-sequitur here, Jef. Nor am I trying...

2006-06-30T12:06:00.000+10:00

There's no non-sequitur here, Jef. Nor am I trying to steer discussion away from the topic, I just wanted to make sure Theo and myself were talking about the same thing- a major source of our disagreements in the past has been due to our differing interpretations of certain words i.e. we were arguing about different things. Maybe I'm just being pedantic...

For example ‘relativism’ has many different connotations. Are we talking about ‘moral’ relativism? ‘Cultural’ relativism? ‘Scientific’ relativism? And what does ‘Western’ mean? White, Christian, affluent? Caucasian? Of European decent? A cultural definition or an ethnic one?

As for the second part of my post, I was referring to people like John Steyne, Janet Albrechtsen, and Ann Coulter who continually appeal to their own brand of absolutist dogma as the sole antidote to Islamofacism. As is often the case with people who subscribe to ideologies (ideologies are by definition absolutist in same way religious beliefs are), they parody their own perspectives i.e. ‘we’ll defeat their intolerance with our own superior brand of intolerance’.

Ben, I just love the "demand a definition of perfe...

2006-06-29T21:06:00.000+10:00

Ben, I just love the "demand a definition of perfectly obvious terms" non-sequitur. I would attempt to answer you but I'm afraid that I don't know what you mean by "annoy", "sprouted" (I think you meant "spouted" here, but I don't know what that means either), "brazenly", "blind ideology". You show me yours (definitions) and I'll show you mine. Sandbox stuff.

Western as opposed to the intolerant, and relativism as opposed to realism.

Just 2 questions for you Theo, before I add a more...

2006-06-29T16:55:00.000+10:00

Just 2 questions for you Theo, before I add a more substantial comment on your post:

1) define for me what you mean by
'Western'; and
2) define what you mean by 'relativism'.

For some reason those terms annoy me, usually because they're sprouted by people in the media brazenly pushing their own blind ideology.

Ignorance combined with certainty is worrying
<...

2006-06-29T08:39:00.000+10:00

Ignorance combined with certainty is worrying

not as detrimental as denial combined with certainty

..a word to the wise is sufficient...even Google won't help a fool..