Agreed.Notung wrote:Yep and that's pretty much been my problem with the whole thing since the start. I don't like the way a discussion on any issue always seems to be brought round to a discussion or comment about the individuals making the argument. I didn't like "The Privilege Delusion" because it talked about Richard Dawkins as a person, while he was trying to discuss the actual issue (i.e. elevator ethics)... and so on.Steersman wrote:...as if the latter was saying, “Aw, come on man – I thought you were on ‘our’ sideâ€...
Reminds me of something I read quite some time ago, something to the effect that small people talk about other people, mediocre people talk about things, and great people talk about ideas. While that is somewhat pretentious and rather simplistic, I think there’s a grain or two of truth in the concept. Seems to me it is the ideas and principles that we share that provides some necessary unification through some common ground – as opposed to the personal and petty and picayune details that frequently divide us. Or, as a character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped put it, “We hang together or we hang alone.â€