hfavr@mtuxo.UUCP (a.reed) (12/09/85)
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes, writes: > I distinguish between the sophisticated libertarianism of such > important philosophers and economists as Nozick, Hayek, and M. > Friedman, and the Brain-Damage Libertarianism that seems to be > popular on the net. The latter is the philosophy of those who.... > do not understand what it is to think philosophically (which means > *rigorously*) about political and social questions. If I were to reply in kind, I would only need to say "Wow, what a rigorous philosophical argument!" and leave it at that. However, I used to fault the socialists on the net for much the same things, i.e. not generating philosophically rigorous arguments like those normally posted by libertarians, or not being as stimulating and insightful as Marx, or Sowell back when he was a Marxian. So I shall try to respond to heat with light. Most people on the net, whatever their political views, are not professional philosophers. To most of us, political philosophy is an occasional avocation. The articles we post almost never exceed the length of a single printed page, so comparisons with the depth of an 80-page journal article or a 1000-page book are fatuous. In the spirit of saving time and space, we use shortcuts. We omit the obvious, forgetting that it may not be obvious to the other side. We use our terms and concepts in familiar ways, forgetting that others may be using very different definitions. The result is that articles posted by socialists appear to other socialists as economical and to the point, while to libertarians they seem shallow and lacking in rigor. And, as Carnes has told us, vice versa. Disputation improves our understanding not only of our opponents' ideas, but also of our own. I have seen my own ideas undergo continuous refinement through discussion, on and off the net. Yet it is difficult to maintain an intellectual discussion in the face of open contempt by one's interlocutor. So, Richard, I think you owe your fellow netters an apology. And after you have apologized, we could go back to discussing more interesting things, like the nature of rights and freedoms. Adam Reed (ihnp4!mtuxo!hfavr)