Shag, don't you realize with your last post you have just proven Marcus right...
And what do you do - you answer with a copied and pasted bit from Hayek's Nobel Prize acceptance speech...
Please.
You
both know that is a disingenuous, desperate argument.
At different points in the past both of you have criticized my overly long responses (some of which have already dealt with this exact subject). Now, when I simply try to keep it shorter by citing experts, you criticize that too. Any excuse to dismiss, eh.
Frankly, it is simpler to cite experts because they are less likely to be challenged. When everyone thinks they are an expert in politics and economics, citing an clear expert to establish a premise is simply a smart way to minimize getting bogged down into having to prove every single premise simply because certain people are contradictory and desperate to avoid honest inquiry because they don't want to confront the fact that they don't know what they are talking about.
Since far to many love to
avoid the argument, it is a way to short circuit those efforts and streamline the debate toward truth seeking.
Your inability to think outside the box, or to even venture into 'imagine if...' leads all of these conversations down the same path...
Yes, that path is to seek truth.
All that "imagine if" crap gets is useless wishful thinking at the expense of reality. The imagined "perfect" becomes the enemy of the real and good. We have far too much of that today. It is what has gotten us into the economic and fiscal mess we are currently in. In fact, too often people use their intellect to find a way to
avoid truth in favor of rationalizing what is pleasant to imagine.
There is a lot of truth in the claim that the difference between the pessimist and the optimist is that, "the pessimist is better informed".
some realm of dry, boring theory that doesn't even come close to messy, sticky, fuzzy, and much more fun, real life.
It is amazing. I have run into a number of Left leaning individuals recently who are
desperate to avoid any discussion of political philosophy. If they were confident in the logical coherence of their own worldview, they would not need to resort to such desperation.
When it comes to social phenomenon, EVERYTHING starts with philosophy. An attempt to avoid philosophy is an attempt to avoid reality and truth.
In fact, the basic methodological underpinnings of the
natural sciences
would not exist without philosophical conclusions reached through logical deduction. Put more simply,
science would not exist without philosophy. Further, no findings from science would have any validity without it's philosophical underpinnings.
Again, to ignore philosophy is to ignore reality and truth.
Henry Hazlitt said "what men do not know about they take for granted." In no area is this more true then in the area of political philosophy/ideology. Everyone thinks they are an expert on it and most either have no clue about it, or have a false, simplistic understanding of the different viewpoints involved. Unfortunately, their ego is such that they refuse to consider the possibility that they are wrong.
Take the argument that OWS is largely socialist or socialist derived. That question can ONLY be determined by an understanding of ideology. What are the basic understandings of human nature, social causation, values, means, etc behind it? What ties all different forms of socialism together and sets them apart from other ideologies?
Without that background, any claim that OWS is or is not rooted in a given ideological view is mere conjecture, blind assumption and an act of mindless devotion to an ideologically derived narrative.
Marcus, as with most people who reject such claims, simply
assert the claim as false. They can never explain WHY it is false because they have no understanding of the actual ideology in question. Instead, we get temper tantrums and other aggressive attempts to avoid having to actually confront the argument.
