Re: These guard dogs (Re: Evidence for "Big Bang Theory")
Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.iinet.net.au)
Mon, 15 May 1995 09:15:04 GMT
In article <Admin.0xqm@oubliette.COM>, Eric Shook (Panopticon@oubliette.COM) writes:
>Fair enough answer. I have noticed that Gil speaks with a great amount of
>asperity in his tone. I know that when I first came into this newgroup that
>I was lost upon that tone. Without a fuller context it is likely to incite
>one to disregard him.
Must be this medium, and the people who chose to abuse it so. Here I
am known as such a nice, quiet thoughtful sort of fellow, only given
to a very occasional public outburst against the crap we are fed by
the politicians and their journo toadies.
But then, that is just the normal response of the intelligent mind
to the unrelenting crud drivel we are fed, n'est-ce pas?
> I also know that Gil has said some worthwhile things,
>and I am glad that he represents himself consistently. I often find his
>points to be extreme, but not much more so than many others, and at worst,
>it is a point of view that contains anthropological knowledge, unlike many
>others here. Albeit, that knowledge seems to be frosted by certain singular
>assumptions. I think that the gravitation towards religious explanation may
>characterize him generally, but I am not certain that he could be
>catagorized as belonging to some old school which was overly dependant upon
>specifically turning only to religion as explanation.
Religious explanation, Eric? Goodness me, you miss the point quite
entirely. Don't worry about Carl, sitting there in his booth all
googly-eyed and blathering over nothing at all, and unable to keep pace
with the thrust of our deliberations.
It has already been agreed here that religion is beyond the scope of
science, but surely that does not legitimately prevent anybody from
personally going beyond that scope and enjoying what the various
religious systems might have to offer.
I merely argue that those who abuse us and rant against religion in
the name of science, insisting so that we as humans must necessarily
leave off right at that very point where science leaves off, are no
better than fascists. That is not difficult to understand, is it?
Fair go, eh? Next thing they'll be telling us we're not allowed out to
a good restaurant, or to a movie, or whatever else we might want to do
in our own time, just because it isn't "science".
Science cannot be placed above the mind that created it, and neither
can religion. The entire agony over such differences is stupid.
I had made a video on the topic in fact, for my Honours Seminar on
field methods in ethnographic film, entitled "Protagony".
In hindsight it is no longer astonishing that my teacher wanted to keep
the rest of the Department from viewing it, while here I log onto the
Internet to find you lot right there before me! With no more interest
in one another as colleagues than ripping each other's guts out to get
at the funding trough first, and here going behind people's backs to
have their accounts cancelled, just like the rest of the academics.
Excuse me, but I have said before that at times I want to puke having
to watch you lot the way you behave!
Me bitter? Nah! I want to puke watching all this institutionalised
shit carry-on all the time, that's all.
>I wonder if Anthropology in Australia suffers from its very own bias just
>like ours does? Could it be that Gil's point of view focuses more strongly
>upon areas which Australians really found themselves to be guilty of
>stomping on? This would be something like our Western guilt over
>modernization. We keep turning right back to that point no matter what, and
>eventually we might find that it has shaped our version of Anthropological
>inquiry, and out lived its utility. So, perhaps Gil is speaking from the
>POV of Australia, replete with its focus upon problems that are very real
>and in need of greater intention down under?
That yoghurt MUST have been wicked. Here we have an anthropologist
finally willing to consider the idea that things might very well be
different in the different parts of the world; each with their own
biases, points of view, guilt trips, priorities . . .
How utterly extraordinary!
Maybe if I can get you to the next step, Eric, why, we might just
manage to get some idea around that we all might have something to
offer, not despite our difference but because of them.
Wouldn't that be wonderful.
>Speaking of loosening up, I do frequently think that Gil needs to back
>off a step and realize that he sometimes doesn't make the clearest sense in
>this written media. It emphasizes the negative, and is fractured and easily
>misunderstood, and easily taken out of context.
Astonishing! Absolutely unique in the history of the Usenet! Finally
after all this time here we have an American beginning to utter the
very same words which have been posted from here in Australia these
past three years!
Just goes to show that if you repeat yourself often enough, through
every range of emotional colour and texture available, eventually,
finally, some small spark of an idea might begin to make itself felt
in someone's mind somewhere, that you are trying to communicate with
them.
>Not to mention the fact that he is riding a white horse on this cosmology
>argument. Certainly he has had some points, and often I note that the
>sci.astro folks have some points. In between though, Gil sometimes gets up
>on that horse and rides into battle. Problem is, nobody else knows where
>this battle is! I mean, Gil! Come on, old fruits! You often seem to be
>suffering some paranoid delusion which attributes great evils to those
>from Dr. Scott's camp, without providing a clear context by which your
>claims would make sense to anyone else uninformed of whatever past
>incursions you may refer to. It certainly makes you, Gil, look the odd one.
>Whereas, you probably know what you mean, when you get up on your haunches
>we sometimes don't. Which only causes all other points you make to suffer
>invalidation in some degree.
Well, excuse me that I am the only regular from down this way. Of
course whatever I do will make it appear I am the odd one out. But
that applies to all you lot over there too, doesn't it?
That you ALL out there seem to be suffering some paranoid delusion
which attributes great evils to those of us down here in Australia,
refusing to concede that we here as intelligent and reasonable as you
claim yourselves to be, despite our demonstrated tolerance and good
humour toward all others, surely does not make you paranoid. That I
may appear to you paranoid surely does not make me paranoid.
RATHER, as I have repeated here often enough, wouldn't it just maybe
a good idea to check your facts before making such assumptions, and
counterattacking so persistently and aggressively over so many years
just because you THINK the other might be paranoid?
>(and now, for the little boy appeal.....)
>
>I just wish we could all get along better than we have been....
>Its not like we are stupid. Couldn't we just all be anthropologists
> ^^^^^^
>instead of enemies? (Quick switch towards the end there to my Grandmother's
>old appeal...)
Marvelous! Incredible! If I wasn't so pleased I'd accuse you Eric of
trying to steal my thunder on leading the way to reconciliation.
Problem seems to have been all this time that all you lot must for
some reason be led right through the pits (except poor Carl who just
doesn't know any different to start with and still can't get it) and
back again before you want to stop and think about what someone might
be trying to say to you from around this side of the planet.
Fair dinkum, I can just imagine how some poor bloody alien from light
years away is going to be treated if ever you lot received a signal
from THEM first. They'd have to have a damned sight more stamina that
I do, that's a fact!
One merely wonders if any of you Americans are ever going to think
that perhaps there just might be an easier way to do it. That in the
end it costs you just as much as it does anyone else, however rich
you think you are and can afford to waste so much energy.
>This medium is certainly volatile.
That's not a bad thing as such, is it? So long as we keep the fact in
mind it's fine, isn't it?
So long as nobody gets upset because they think we're not being so
nice to them as they might otherwise prefer.
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