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It seems like if you're going to engage in a public debate in favour of or opposing X, the bare minimum expectation should be that you do enough background rese

It seems like if you're going to engage in a public debate in favour of or opposing X, the bare minimum expectation should be that you do enough background research to be able to speak in an informed manner about X.

paganel 7y ago
Care to give an example of where do you think I'm wrong? What does "X" mean? Do you contest the influence of guys like Marcuse on today's public intellectuals and academia? What do you mean by "background research"? I did read a lot of Marx (his youth works, Capital I, half of Grundrisse) and I did read some Marcuse (couldn't make that much out of it, but I can certainly say that his works had no direct relation to Marx's works). I also really do believe that today's public intellectuals are ignoring the blight of the majority of the people inhabiting this planet, being they men or women (like I said, we have no Zola of our time). I'd be happy to be proven wrong in which with case I'm eager for book recommendations. Honestly, I'm pretty taken down by comments such as yours, with general statements that point at nothing in particular (again, what does "X" mean?) in response to a comment like mine that directly mentions two or three things included in TFA (Peterson, Zola, Marx and public intellectuals generally speaking). I expect better from the HN public.
- narag 7y ago
  It seems he's talking about Peterson, not you.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  > What does "X" mean? Literally any topic that one might try to have an intellectual debate about. In this case, you're choosing "Marxism", but my point is far more general than that. If you're going to stand up and publicly make arguments about feminism, dark energy, protecting endangered species, the rise of China, post-impressionism... the very least you can do is enough background reading to not make a fool of yourself. Contrary to your assertion that "accusing a non-marxist that he is clueless about marxism is not that big of a thing", I am saying that being clueless about the very thing you've arrogantly stood up to talk about in public is a big deal and should be humiliating. I don't think you and I actually disagree that Peterson is an embarrassment.
Nasrudith 7y ago
To be fair to Peterson knowing about the downsides may be sufficient knowledge to oppose it. I don't need to know the tripe about Nazi racial theory and Lebenstraum to know they are horrible people to be opposed and even neutral acceptance is an unacceptable position - their lengthy list of travesties and failures is good enough to say "it is not only a horrible evil but an ineffective one". Even if ignoring morality they aren't an effective model. Not that Nazism and Communism are equivalent. The later at least has some non-evil implementations - there is a wide difference between unironic Stalinists who see murdering anyone slightly better off as a solution and those who think "Hey we can try to provide a good standard of living with worker owned cooperatives". Even if the latter is doomed to failure it is in no way equivalent to Nazis or even Stalinist "cousins".

paganel 7y ago

Care to give an example of where do you think I'm wrong? What does "X" mean? Do you contest the influence of guys like Marcuse on today's public intellectuals and academia? What do you mean by "background research"? I did read a lot of Marx (his youth works, Capital I, half of Grundrisse) and I did read some Marcuse (couldn't make that much out of it, but I can certainly say that his works had no direct relation to Marx's works). I also really do believe that today's public intellectuals are ignoring the blight of the majority of the people inhabiting this planet, being they men or women (like I said, we have no Zola of our time). I'd be happy to be proven wrong in which with case I'm eager for book recommendations. Honestly, I'm pretty taken down by comments such as yours, with general statements that point at nothing in particular (again, what does "X" mean?) in response to a comment like mine that directly mentions two or three things included in TFA (Peterson, Zola, Marx and public intellectuals generally speaking). I expect better from the HN public.

narag 7y ago
It seems he's talking about Peterson, not you.
ForHackernews 7y ago
> What does "X" mean? Literally any topic that one might try to have an intellectual debate about. In this case, you're choosing "Marxism", but my point is far more general than that. If you're going to stand up and publicly make arguments about feminism, dark energy, protecting endangered species, the rise of China, post-impressionism... the very least you can do is enough background reading to not make a fool of yourself. Contrary to your assertion that "accusing a non-marxist that he is clueless about marxism is not that big of a thing", I am saying that being clueless about the very thing you've arrogantly stood up to talk about in public is a big deal and should be humiliating. I don't think you and I actually disagree that Peterson is an embarrassment.

Nasrudith 7y ago

To be fair to Peterson knowing about the downsides may be sufficient knowledge to oppose it. I don't need to know the tripe about Nazi racial theory and Lebenstraum to know they are horrible people to be opposed and even neutral acceptance is an unacceptable position - their lengthy list of travesties and failures is good enough to say "it is not only a horrible evil but an ineffective one". Even if ignoring morality they aren't an effective model. Not that Nazism and Communism are equivalent. The later at least has some non-evil implementations - there is a wide difference between unironic Stalinists who see murdering anyone slightly better off as a solution and those who think "Hey we can try to provide a good standard of living with worker owned cooperatives". Even if the latter is doomed to failure it is in no way equivalent to Nazis or even Stalinist "cousins".