----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2004 11:10 PM Subject: Re: "God Is With Us" L3
>> That wasn't the question. >It wasn't? Nope. If you want, I can quote the exchange, but it was the when you referred to "the lessons of Viet Nam." Gautam questioned your ability to determine something that has eluded a number of people who have been intensely studying the field. > When a foreign policy graduate student at MIT, > who received a degree in government from Harvard states that your point > differs from historians and political scientists who are studying the > period, then it is highly likely that you hold such an opinion. >Hold such a what of an opinion? That you are much more capable than they are. Why else would something be obvious to you on casual observation yet elude professionals who have made the study of this and similar questions their life's work. >> I'd lay odds that he is reasonable familiar with the general scholarship in > these fields. So, the question is how do you know that they are all wrong > and you are right? >First off, who precisely are these "they all" to which you refer? The folks that Gautam was referring to in his origional post. Since both poly sci. and history are scholarly fields, thought in these fields are represented by journal articles, books written by people who've established some credentials in the field through previous work, etc. One would expect a student at Harvard in government to have at least a general awareness of the work in that area. It was apparent to me that when Gautam talked about political scientists and historians, he was referring to people who worked in this area...so the "they" seemed obvious from the start. > What is arrogant and belligerant about this? Personally, a sweeping > statement that those bright folks who work in the field have missed the > obvious which you clearly know, sounds arrogant and pompous to me. But, > YMMV. >I don't think you read my initial statement too closely, and I have to >wonder if you saw Gautam's response. I thought you called my response arrogant, but that there was an underlying good question under it...not that you were comparing my version of the question to Gautam's. I just didn't catch what you intended, sorry. Here's how Gautam responded: >Wow, Warren, political scientists, historians, and >just about everyone else have been discussing Vietnam >for thirty years, trying to figure out exactly what >the "lessons of Vietnam" are - and you know for sure >what we can learn from that war? Pray tell, do share >them with us. >Please show me which sentence in that note was not pompous and >arrogant. There is no doubt that Gautam was rather sarcastic, but that's a bit different than arrogant. But, from my perspective, indicating that you know something that the scholars in the field concede that they don't know is rather arrogant. That has a reasonable liklyhood of being trueonly if: 1) One happened upon a brand new explaination or 2) One is several sigma brighter than the mean intelligence in the field. >By contrast your query was quite reasonable. I tend to >respond a lot more reasonably to questions that aren't asked in a >belittling, condescending or otherwise snotty tone. I don't think I >need to explain why. Sure, few people like negative tones. Sarcasm, while making make one's point should be used _very_ sparaingly IMHO. I can understand why you don't like it. But, you also led with your chin, there....boldly proclaiming certainty in an area in which scholars tend to put forth their ideas in more measured tones. Look, I also go boldly where angels fear to tread...because I debate foreign policy, government, ecconomics, with professionals. I get by pretty easily, all things considered, because work very hard at using measured tones when arguing with people in the field. >To the earlier exchange, I think the question's pretty clear: How is it >that so many people seem not to have learned from history? Before learning from history, it's worthwhile to understand just what the lessons of history are. The lessons we can learn from Viet Nam would be a facinating source of discussion. I think it is also a field where honest, reasonable people can still differ greatly. >I don't know what question you think I was asking, but it doesn't seem >to be whatever it was you were responding to. The question that Gautam raised "How can Warren know what the lessons of Viet Nam are when they are still considered very much up in the air by the community of scholars." >> Well, if you read his posts, you would have some familiarity. >How? By reading the side notes when he writes. Many of us do that from time to time. In particular, he mentioned it when DB was writing about how clear and obvious the right actions the lessons of history are. I know certain things about you from reading your side notes. For example, I'd guess you don't teach electrical engineering at your college. :-) >> Are you arguing that there is no such thing as scholarship in history, foreign >> affairs, and political science? >Course not. Where did I say I was? Well, you stated, on several occasions, that your opionon was right and those folks who worked in the area clearly missed the lessons. If scholarship does exist, on what basis would you say that? Why is your casual observation right, and their scholarship wrong? >> I know, for example, that he had Stanley >> Hoffmann as his senior thesis advisor and has Dr. Hoffmann's >> professional respect. >Gee, since my Psychic Friends® TeleHelmet™ is in the shop this week, I >guess I have to cry mea culpa for not knowing that particular datum. >How shocking, utterly shocking of me to overlook this blatantly obvious >piece of information. I just provided it to you; I don't think he specifically mentioned it on this list...he just mentioned that he worships the ground that Hoffmann and Huntington walk on. So, I didn't expect you to know it before. But, given that he went to Harvard and majored in government with a strong interest in international affairs, there was a good chance he has some association with them. >It would seem you chose to overlook the other items I listed. And it >would seem you chose to overlook the context I later gave for >mentioning Rummy and Cheney. >This, Dan, is why I don't particularly have a lot of patience sometimes >when discussing things with you. I have to restate things I said in >earlier posts on the same thread. That gets frustrating. I read what you wrote, and I still didn't see what the connection between these two and 'Nam was...since they were involved in Defense after the US was out of 'Nam. Cheney was secretary of defense during the fairly sucessful Gulf War I, and Rumsfeld held that post under Ford, so I just couldn't fathom what they had to do with 'Nam. >From your reply to Gautam, I saw that you assumed they were connected with the bad decisions made in 'Nam. But, since I knew they were not, this connection didn't come to mind. I actually do read what you write, but I often just guess at the connections you assume. >> What Communist government was overthrown in South Viet Nam? >None. That's kind of the point, man. The propaganda for Nam was "domino >theory" -- and the effects were nil. All that action, and to what end? Well, Cambodia and Laos did fall after that, with tragic consequences. In a sense, Nixon was more right than Johnson, calculating that splitting Russia and China was, from a strategic sense, more important than keeping SE Asia out of the hands of Communists. >> I don't assume anyone's an idiot without some evidence to support the >> determination. I'm aware that others who came before me were not >> stupid. That's why it's utterly baffling to me that we are getting >> some >> serious national deja vu out of Iraq now. > >> Because there is a general tendency to see any war in terms of the war of >> one's formative year and see parallels that do not bear up under >> scholarship. >I have no conscious recollection of Viet Nam. Fair enough, I just assumed that because you conclusions are full of the retoric of the times. >> No, that's not it. But, with all due respect, you tend to make strong >> statements without considering facts first. >Gee, in an arena of opinion I can see how that ... would seem ... >unusual. C'mon. I most certainly am not the only one who makes strong >statements. No, DB does it too, and he is also called on it. I try to be careful and judicious in the areas where I make strong statements. For example, in discussing QM, the brain, free will, and the mind with Zimmy, I reserved my strong statements for those areas in my, not his, area of expertise. When I differed with him in his area, I worked hard to use careful language. >> A couple examples of this was >> quoting a well know liberal ecconomist and member of this list, as >> well as former member of the Clinton administration, as a clear supporter of >> Bush. >Oh? I must have overlooked something then. Who, where, etc.? I was thinking along the lines of: <quote> The problem is that the foregoing assertions, which are glossed over and buried in a way that makes it seem like they wish to be hidden, carry no weight, even though the entire crux of DeLong's argument is (in essence) that the desperately poor choose to remain so.... DeLong's argument sounds very suspiciously like some of those advanced to support slavery, but that's hardly surprising, as toiling day after day making mats for a corporation, with no hope whatsoever for advancement or escape, is, in essence, just that...... Of course this is precisely the same kind of drivel one hears from wealthy people in the US as well. And as the divide between rich and poor becomes greater in our "jobless" economic "recovery", as the middle class -- which used to be the backbone of American society -- continues to shrink, we're going to continue to see more dreck spewed from patsies such as DeLong as the US continues to more closely resemble the very third- and fourth-world countries it exploits for cheap labor now. <end quote> >> Or calling the Viet Nam war a war to overthrow a communist government. >That's precisely the line that was handed to the US during the >conflict, unless I'm woefully misinformed. No, it wasn't. It was containment: Stopping the spread of Communism. The domino theory was about the continued spread if we don't stop it in 'Nam...not overthrowing Ho. >I won't carry on a discussion where one participant is saying things >like, "what this guy really meant was..." and so on. I'll gladly >discuss many topics with you, but I will not discuss with you what >Gautam might have meant by anything. He can speak for himself. I jumped in because his comments were as clear as possible to me, and they were points I agreed with. I restated them in order to increase the chance that they were understood. Gautam certainly doesn't need anyone to defend his ideas. But, since this is an open forum, it's reasonable for different people to jump in with different formations of the same (or similar) ideas. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
