Re: Re: Freedom to Spew

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Kendall Clark wrote:

> > We certainly are spending a lot of time dwelling on this one paper burning
> > incident.
>
> Yeah, but that's a good thing, right? Critical reflection is
> hardly *over*practiced, even on the left. Humans need, generally, more of
> it rather than less.

I would agree, mostly.  My point was less oriented at 'internal'
discussion of tactics than 'external'.  By internal, I mean, discussion
amongst a group of people who largely agree on goals.  Once you agree on
goals its time to talk about tactics, yes.  However, amongst a group of
people not in agreement on goals tactics is mostly a distraction.

> Even temporarily? Like, have we edged into that already, d'ya think?
>
> I guess maybe it's a function of my background, but I can't think of
> many examples where talking about tactics was 1) completely irrelevant
> to larger questions, and 2) not always already interpenetrated with
> talk about goals. There seems to be a pretty obvious dialectic between
> goals and tactics, such that discussing the one is always at least
> implicitly discussing the other.

See my above point.  If the public at large, inasmuch as they are aware of
Horowitz, is more aware of him as "the guy whose ad those students
burned", as opposed to "the guy who is virulently against reparations",
then that's a failure.  Because then when you want to talk about
reparations (the important issue at hand) most people would rather talk
about the paper burning, which is not that important.

More to the point, people are easily distracted, and welcome distraction
from difficult issues like reparations.  Providing that distraction is not
a good way to further your cause.

> So, in case I'm being too subtle, how about we *talk* about the reparations
> argument, pro and con, for a while here? I know Bijan wants to write about
> Randall Robinson's *The Gift*; and I've been working on some arguments about
> the ethics of remedying historical evil generally, as well as having spent
> a good bit of time with Conyer's legislative proposals, and I know that others
> here have valuable contributions to make.

I'd definitely be interested in hearing more about this.

My 2 cents worth based on what I've heard is that whether it actually ever
happens or not, just getting the idea into the public meme pool is a good
thing.

> It's a great issue to organize around, particularly since it so nicely
> helps divide sheeps and goats. There are even some novel pro-reparations
> arguments that might be attractive to conservatives.

This I have to hear.


-dave

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