[Reader-list] The Poverty of Debate on Iraq

[Rana Dasgupta]

are: my time is also expiring, and i don't think you
read what i wrote.  

> The point is to recognize that if one accepts that
> the world is a field of
> flows, forces and vectors, one must in the same
> instance give up on the
> universality of anything being just "right" or
> "wrong." 

i don't think that the issue is one of metaphysics. 
it is one of pragmatics.  without putting words into
jamie's mouth i don't think the effort to construct
arguments with which we can argue such issues (in the
"public domain" which seems to be such a term of abuse
for you!) is anything other than a pragmatic project;
it makes no claims on some truth beyond the "field of
flows, forces and vectors" that you allude to.  the
relevance of einstein's TOE failure to this is, i
think, close to zero.  i tried to say in my last mail
that such a pragmatic project is important.  i wonder
what kind of productive social debate you would like
to put in its place.

> But FOX News, on the other hand, is intended for and
> shapes the public
> domain...so why should an argument that questions an
> argument that closely
> follows it's rhetoric, albeit with a different
> outcome, then be deemed
> pathetic, cruel and unjustified?

sorry: the rhetoric of FOX News is that of simple
assertion and suggestion.  i don't think what Jamie
was trying to do - even in your own analysis of it -
can be similarly labelled.  and i never said anything
about "cruel".  my understanding of cruelty is much
less mild than this.

R

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