"None Dare Call It A Conspiracy" Dept.
[Update: It seemed appropriate as this post was written on the fly to go back and excerpt parenthetical sentences within the body of the piece and move them to footnotes for less post congestion; ergo, that is what I have done. -ISM 9/17/06 12:10pm]
Those who have reasonable familiarity with your humble blog host --including those who knew of him even before he was blogging-- know that the subject of conspiracy theories is one that has been touched on by him at sundry times and diverse manners both at this weblog and also in other mediums in years gone by. The present writer has written as of late on several problems with apologetics methodology and the mentality that those who cloak themselves in this mantle can often fall prey to. And while it is customary to link to various threads substantiating assertions made, in the case of this posting it would only serve to detract from what is being posted here on an individual your host has written on before and a serious problem that he has. Among the contributors to this project are some whom this writer feels are credits to Catholic apologetics in general or over time will be once again. But without further ado, let us get to the project:
On Robert Sungenis and the Jews
The willingness of those to contribute to this project -which your host has known was in creation for quite some time now- is to be commended. Thanks therefore are in order to Mr. David Palm, Dr. Art Sippo, Mr. Michael Lopez, Mr. Matthew Anger, Mr. Ben Douglass,{1} Mr. John Novotny, Mr. Jacob Michael and Mr. Patrick Morris. And thanks are particularly in order to Mr. Michael Forrest who was the long holdout on this matter and to whom the lions share of the credit for the above compilation belongs. Indeed, the present writer in light of past problems with now estranged friends of his own can see a parallel to Mr. Forrest's own reassessment in retrospect of the habitual pattern of failing to give due scrutiny to friends. Or in Mr. Forrest's own words:
While others decided they had to leave, I continued to defend and excuse things that I should not have in retrospect because I had neither the time nor inclination to see them more clearly. And candidly, the absolute confidence and assertiveness with which Bob responds to seemingly all issues and objections also made me doubt my own eyes at times. But I think perhaps there was a part of me that actually wanted some of his explanations, defenses and excuses to be true and so I accepted them. It was only over time and through circumstance that I was forced to recognize that my friendship with and respect for Bob had caused me to be unduly tolerant and deferential.
Mr. Forrest also asks readers who peruse the thread to carefully consider the information presented below in its entirety. In light of how Mr. Forrest has shown the same care and concern as your host to carefully and thoroughly document his assertions, it seems appropriate to concur with him on that point at the very least. Those who take the time and are willing to go through the effort to carefully document evidences to establish or defend a theory deserve their work to be properly respected by those who would presume to interact with it.
It is not easy to publicly take to task friends when they have strayed and it is certain that Mr. Forrest will receive a lot of slings and arrows from the camp of Mr. Robert Sungenis.{2} But principles are what is important as is the issue of ethics and truthfulness. It does no good for someone to give a free pass to friends in this area when they would upbraid non-friends for the same antics. For that reason, We at Rerum Novarum unreservedly commend the above personages who are taking an active stand on principles in the public confronting of Robert Sungenis on these matters and hope that the project to which they have contributed bears its desired fruit in the future.{3} While I would not have a problem noting them on this blog again if someone contacts me on the matter, to link them to this post would be to distract from the work of Mr. Forrest and others which needs to be noted publicly.
[Update: Bob Sungenis' Open Letter Via Envoy -ISM 9/28/06 3:58pm]
[Update: Jacob Michael has written a thorough response to Robert Sungenis' response to the piece below. If nothing else, this writer must commend Jacob for the solidity of his logic and use of reason in the above article. -ISM 9/28/06 4:00pm]
Notes:
{1} I recognize that Ben Douglass was more of a "hostile witness" in the above project and not an active or consenting participant. However, that he has shown a concern on these matters -even indirectly- is worth some recognition as I see it.
{2} As will I am sure the others who actively contributed: all of them at one time good friends of Mr. Sungenis'.
{3} Even if in certain matters there are areas of disagreement on either issues pertaining to those noted, terminology used, etc.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Today is the sixty-third birthday of one of rock and roll's most distinctive songwriters and one of my all time favourites: Roger Waters. To commemorate the occasion, I want to remind readers of an album review I did last year for his 1992 solo album Amused to Death - another masterpiece from a man who has made more than a few of them in his career.{1} Oh and for those who find it funny that I would give such high marks to an album where the artist and I have significant disagreements on geopolitical matters{2}, I remind you that I am not and never have been one who bases my friendships with others on whether or not they agree with me. As not a few others do this -be they so-called "progressivists", so-called "conservatives"{3} or others, it seems apropo to note the latter briefly at this time. Happy birthday Roger and may your father's soul{4} rest in peace with the faithfully departed.
Notes:
{1} Two of them are among the greatest selling albums of alltime: 1973's Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall from 1979. The Amused album -while not selling anywhere near what the latter two sold- is nonetheless in terms of quality deserving of being mentioned with them.
{2} On the subject of war in general Roger and I have some disagreements: that is all I will say on it at the present time.
{3} This is not a problem that is the sole franchise of the so-called "progressivists", "so-called "peacemakers", or whatever of course.
{4} Roger lost his father in Anzio, Italy in 1944: an event that had profound explicit and implicit branding on him viz. how he approached songwriting and the subjects he has sought to write on over the years -both with Pink Floyd and since 1985 as a solo artist.
Notes:
{1} Two of them are among the greatest selling albums of alltime: 1973's Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall from 1979. The Amused album -while not selling anywhere near what the latter two sold- is nonetheless in terms of quality deserving of being mentioned with them.
{2} On the subject of war in general Roger and I have some disagreements: that is all I will say on it at the present time.
{3} This is not a problem that is the sole franchise of the so-called "progressivists", "so-called "peacemakers", or whatever of course.
{4} Roger lost his father in Anzio, Italy in 1944: an event that had profound explicit and implicit branding on him viz. how he approached songwriting and the subjects he has sought to write on over the years -both with Pink Floyd and since 1985 as a solo artist.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Points to Ponder:
(On Love and Beauty)
[P]rofundity and beauty lie precisely in decisiveness. Only in it can love mature in all its beauty. A beauty made up of nothing but harmony is not a real beauty. Real beauty also needs contrast. Light and darkness complement each other. Even the grape needs rain to grow, and not just sun; not only day, but also night. [Pope Benedict XVI]
(On Love and Beauty)
[P]rofundity and beauty lie precisely in decisiveness. Only in it can love mature in all its beauty. A beauty made up of nothing but harmony is not a real beauty. Real beauty also needs contrast. Light and darkness complement each other. Even the grape needs rain to grow, and not just sun; not only day, but also night. [Pope Benedict XVI]
Monday, September 04, 2006
Friday, September 01, 2006
"Palace of the King" Dept.: A Tribute to Freddy:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[Prefatory Note: While Freddy's name is generally rendered as Freddie, he changed the spelling to the latter late in life as he thought it would help in adapting to changing audience dynamics. (See what is noted in the text below for an explanation of this.) I have elected to use the original spelling on purpose. -ISM]
Casual blues fans are aware of BB King and those who can dig deeper into the real gritty blues know of his unrelated contemporary Albert King. I have made no secret about my view of the latter as the King of the Blues properly speaking. But certainly BB does not disgrace that moniker which he is often associated with. However, there is a lesser known King whose mention in such esteemed company is well-deserved and it is Freddy King. Like BB and Albert, Freddy developed a unique style that influenced countless musicians. And like Albert who sired a "son" in the blues in one Stevie Ray Vaughan (RIP), Freddy to a certain extent "sired" a "son" of his own in Eric Clapton.{1}
Each of the Kings had certain parts of their playing that to a degree characterized them. BB's approach was that of light jazz-influenced runs with a sweet vibrato trilling technique. Albert's was a style that alternated between sweet and sour, manfully rough yet soft and delicate with an emphasis on string bending, a chilling vibrato trill, and a very deep tone to accomodate his unorthodox upsidedown and backwards left handed style. Freddie borrowed bits from BB early on and Albert later on and fashoned a style that approached the intensity of Albert and the delicacy at times of BB. His vibrato was respectable and at times could send a chill up the spine. And while all the Kings were adept at instrumentals (particularly Albert and Freddy) and solid singers,{2} Freddy was arguably the best of any of the blues giants at just letting his guitar do the talking.{3}
Freddy King out of all the Kings was the most nimble on the fretboard. But like Albert and BB, he was sparing in his approach overall{4} and focused more on what was said and how it was said unlike the lions share of guitar virtuoso sorts who run all over the fretboard and make little if any sense. A master knows that true works of art are painted with a variety of colours. A good bluesman knows how to make love to the guitar figuratively speaking -some such as BB and Albert even naming their guitars with a woman's name.
Freddy made his mark and accumulated a giant share of his reputation playing in Chicago in the late 1950's and early 1960's under the tutilege of Chicago Blues godfathers Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters. He played at that time to overwhelmingly black audiences. Over time, blues as a form drew aficianados among the white rock and roll fans -in large part to many British and American bands giving the old bluesmen their long-deserved due.{5} Many artists were capable of adapting to the changing winds to a certain extent including both of his namesakes. But Freddy struggled in this area. Not musically as the "Texas Cannonball" was a potent musical force all the way up to the end. But in the area of attitudes and being open to some extent -despite a growing friendship with admirer and "son in the blues" Eric Clapton who even today speaks highly of him.
Indeed, Freddy's difficulty in adapting may explain part of why he is not as well remembered as the still-touring BB King and the late great Albert King (RIP).{6} And while I could say more -and Freddy can be spoken of without reference ot Albert and BB, I do not do so because he deserves to be considered in their company as a "King of the Blues" and not just in name. His was a blues master in his own right and he died young for a bluesman.{7} But he deserves to be remembered for his contributions to electric postwar blues. Rest in peace Freddy "Texas Cannonball" King. Hopefully this post can do its small pat in reminding people of how great you were and why you deserve to be considred amongst the Trinity of Kings of the Blues in more than just name.
Notes:
{1} This is not to say that Albert did not influence Clapton and Freddie did not influence Stevie of course as there was some cross-pollenization in both cases -particularly with Clapton. But while Clapton ripped off Albert's stuff blatantly at times (particularly in his Cream and blind Faith days), he did not in doing this assimilate into his approach an intuitive understanding of the masterful nature of Albert's deceptively simple stylings the way Stevie did. However, he did do this with Freddy's signature riffs borrowing not only phrasings but actually demonsrating the aforementioned intuitive understaning of Freddy's appproach.
{2} An argument can be made that of the three Kings of the Blues, Freddy was perhaps the best vocalist.
{3} In this area, one must also rank the late great Albert Collins (RIP) in the top tier.
{4} Though any listen to his rendition of Five Long Years (a song covered by BB King and later Buddy Guy) gives a good idea of what Freddy could do when he really let loose.
{5} Eric Clapton has been particularly good at doing this.
{6} In his heyday, Albert King sold about equally between black and white audiences without changing an iota of his style: something that even BB cannot claim.
{7} At 42 in 1976: thirty years ago this December 26th.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[Prefatory Note: While Freddy's name is generally rendered as Freddie, he changed the spelling to the latter late in life as he thought it would help in adapting to changing audience dynamics. (See what is noted in the text below for an explanation of this.) I have elected to use the original spelling on purpose. -ISM]
Casual blues fans are aware of BB King and those who can dig deeper into the real gritty blues know of his unrelated contemporary Albert King. I have made no secret about my view of the latter as the King of the Blues properly speaking. But certainly BB does not disgrace that moniker which he is often associated with. However, there is a lesser known King whose mention in such esteemed company is well-deserved and it is Freddy King. Like BB and Albert, Freddy developed a unique style that influenced countless musicians. And like Albert who sired a "son" in the blues in one Stevie Ray Vaughan (RIP), Freddy to a certain extent "sired" a "son" of his own in Eric Clapton.{1}
Each of the Kings had certain parts of their playing that to a degree characterized them. BB's approach was that of light jazz-influenced runs with a sweet vibrato trilling technique. Albert's was a style that alternated between sweet and sour, manfully rough yet soft and delicate with an emphasis on string bending, a chilling vibrato trill, and a very deep tone to accomodate his unorthodox upsidedown and backwards left handed style. Freddie borrowed bits from BB early on and Albert later on and fashoned a style that approached the intensity of Albert and the delicacy at times of BB. His vibrato was respectable and at times could send a chill up the spine. And while all the Kings were adept at instrumentals (particularly Albert and Freddy) and solid singers,{2} Freddy was arguably the best of any of the blues giants at just letting his guitar do the talking.{3}
Freddy King out of all the Kings was the most nimble on the fretboard. But like Albert and BB, he was sparing in his approach overall{4} and focused more on what was said and how it was said unlike the lions share of guitar virtuoso sorts who run all over the fretboard and make little if any sense. A master knows that true works of art are painted with a variety of colours. A good bluesman knows how to make love to the guitar figuratively speaking -some such as BB and Albert even naming their guitars with a woman's name.
Freddy made his mark and accumulated a giant share of his reputation playing in Chicago in the late 1950's and early 1960's under the tutilege of Chicago Blues godfathers Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters. He played at that time to overwhelmingly black audiences. Over time, blues as a form drew aficianados among the white rock and roll fans -in large part to many British and American bands giving the old bluesmen their long-deserved due.{5} Many artists were capable of adapting to the changing winds to a certain extent including both of his namesakes. But Freddy struggled in this area. Not musically as the "Texas Cannonball" was a potent musical force all the way up to the end. But in the area of attitudes and being open to some extent -despite a growing friendship with admirer and "son in the blues" Eric Clapton who even today speaks highly of him.
Indeed, Freddy's difficulty in adapting may explain part of why he is not as well remembered as the still-touring BB King and the late great Albert King (RIP).{6} And while I could say more -and Freddy can be spoken of without reference ot Albert and BB, I do not do so because he deserves to be considered in their company as a "King of the Blues" and not just in name. His was a blues master in his own right and he died young for a bluesman.{7} But he deserves to be remembered for his contributions to electric postwar blues. Rest in peace Freddy "Texas Cannonball" King. Hopefully this post can do its small pat in reminding people of how great you were and why you deserve to be considred amongst the Trinity of Kings of the Blues in more than just name.
Notes:
{1} This is not to say that Albert did not influence Clapton and Freddie did not influence Stevie of course as there was some cross-pollenization in both cases -particularly with Clapton. But while Clapton ripped off Albert's stuff blatantly at times (particularly in his Cream and blind Faith days), he did not in doing this assimilate into his approach an intuitive understanding of the masterful nature of Albert's deceptively simple stylings the way Stevie did. However, he did do this with Freddy's signature riffs borrowing not only phrasings but actually demonsrating the aforementioned intuitive understaning of Freddy's appproach.
{2} An argument can be made that of the three Kings of the Blues, Freddy was perhaps the best vocalist.
{3} In this area, one must also rank the late great Albert Collins (RIP) in the top tier.
{4} Though any listen to his rendition of Five Long Years (a song covered by BB King and later Buddy Guy) gives a good idea of what Freddy could do when he really let loose.
{5} Eric Clapton has been particularly good at doing this.
{6} In his heyday, Albert King sold about equally between black and white audiences without changing an iota of his style: something that even BB cannot claim.
{7} At 42 in 1976: thirty years ago this December 26th.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Points to Ponder:
(On Woodrow Wilson From A Contemporary - And A Lot of What is Wrong With Much of What Passes For "Thought" These Days From Most People)
I sometimes think the man has no sense of things that penetrate below the surface. With him, the rhetoric of a thing is the thing itself. He is either wanting in understanding or convictions, or both. Words -phrases, felicity of expression and a blind egotism have been his stock in trade. [Senator Robert LaFollette]
(On Woodrow Wilson From A Contemporary - And A Lot of What is Wrong With Much of What Passes For "Thought" These Days From Most People)
I sometimes think the man has no sense of things that penetrate below the surface. With him, the rhetoric of a thing is the thing itself. He is either wanting in understanding or convictions, or both. Words -phrases, felicity of expression and a blind egotism have been his stock in trade. [Senator Robert LaFollette]
Monday, August 28, 2006
Miscellaneous Threads Worth Reviewing:
[Prefatory Note: Most of this post was composed from August 1st through August 9th or so. -ISM]
Briefly (if I may) on these threads...
Gibson's Film Career in Jeopardy After Anti-Semitic Comments (FOXNews)
I have almost always been what one would call a "chillin sort" when I have had more to drink than I should. However, one time when I was at my buddy Tim Tull's house back when we were in high school, we got blasted while picking out bass lines to The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon. I remember learning in that session the 7/4 bass riff from Money: one of the few things I have a clear recollection of from that night. I do remember that we were drinking a nasty concoction of rot gut gin, vodka, and orange juice and that each mixture had less and less orange juice in it and I lost count around 12 or so. The gin was of the sloe variety so we were drinking away thinking we were quite stout drinkers (rather than the amateurs that we actually were) and all of a sudden, it hit all at once like (I would imagine) being hit by a stun dart where everything goes numb and in slow motion. Except in this case it was the reflexes and the vision.
Apparently, at one point I said less than flattering things about him including threatening to kill him.{1} There was nothing to provoke it at the time and I was quite embarassed the next day to find out what had happened -including that I broke a window with a small pumpkin and had a vomiting episode which got all over the carpeting, etc.{2} Nonetheless, people can say and do things when drunk that they would never mean or do when they were sober. For that reason, I do not consider the Mel Gibson episode to be any kind of a big deal. However, I expect to see a lot of people make a big deal out of it. I though have said all I intend to say on the matter for the indefinite future in this paragraph. Moving on...
Sr. Benedict's Boxing Club: Join Now and Take Advantage of Summer Discounts--Only $19.95 Per Session (Fumare)
I can think of many individuals who could use such lessons actually...
Do any of the following apply to you:
You believe that superior US Military strength is not necessary in today's world
No.
You believe that the proper approach to statecraft is that which is embodied by Cardinals Sodano and Martino
Hell no.{3}
You believe that the Pope should be the one who makes the call when to go to war
No.{4}
Then chances are, you've been pummeled in the schoolyard--or are in imminent danger of it!
I agree 100% with that assessment of most (but not all) of those who take the position of appeasement in the face of Islamofascism. As far as the Church goes, statements by bishops -be they a conference of bishops, those in authority in various Vatican dicasteries, even those of Pope Benedict XVI himself are hardly ipso facto magisterial and therefore binding on the Catholic consience -whatever nonsense that certain self-styled "apologists" for the Catholic Church may assert. But enough on that matter for now.
Boer Farm Murders (The Right Perspective)
An appetizer if I may...
Andre van Tonder, a horse breeder and Boere farmer, discusses the recent murder of his parents at their farm near Vrede in the Orange Free State.
The farming district of Vrede is a region of agricultural plenty, including the Free State's largest stock fairs of maize wheat, mutton, wool, beef, dairy, products and poultry. The extremely savage and violent farm murders are obviously aimed at intimidating White commercial farmers into abandoning their farms, so the Communist ANC government's goal of distributing white-owned farmland to black squatter communities can be met.
Andre is eager to tell the story of the genocide on Whites, and the degeneration of South Africa under ANC control.
The odds of the MSM reporting on these issues in any prominent way is about 1%. For this is hardly uncommon in South Africa with the advent of the Communist African National Congress assuming power ten years ago. However, those who point this out are likely to be considered "racists": a situation that explains why many would hesitate to say anything. Another reason is the marxist double standard that impairs many who consider themselves "progressivists" or "peacemakers' or whatever nice candy-coated label they try to disguise themselves with to avoid being recognized for what they actually are.
Stop the Murders (The Right Perspective)
Again, just a taste...
Oom Johan Pienaar, Secretary of the Boervolk, relates what is being done on a diplomatic level in South Africa to act against the more than 2,000 murders of Boer farmers that have taken place there since the Communist ANC took power in 1994.
Again, the MSM silence is and will remain deafening for ideological reasons.
Brits to Blair: Split With Bush (Gordon Prather)
Homegrown 'Islamic fascists' (Gordon Prather)
There is nothing of worth in the above threads except to point out to you readers why reason and logic are so important and what happens when they are neglected by those who attempt to examine various positions or philosophies. I am reminded of the old TV commercial with the tagline "This is YOur Brain on Drugs, Any Questions???" But by all means my friends, read the above threads. Anyone who thinks they are "paragons of sound rationale" can feel free to email me about them. Moving on...
Tree Huggin Hippie Crap (TheLittleOrangeFox at Outlaw Republican)
Just a taste...
What do you get when a hero dies and a mother cries?
A tragedy.
What do you get when a hero dies and a mother neglects his grave stone for two years while whoring herself off to third world socialist dictators and nut-wing celebrities for photo-ops while spending her son's insurance money on huge left-wad protest against one solitary man she claims will not see her but previously DID see her?
Um, a "professional-apologist-in-training"??? ;-) As Larry the Cable Guy would say after that kind of statement "Lord I apologize for that...bein' with the starving Pygmies in New Guinea. Amen."
Maybe I have taken the wrong approach the past ten years of my Independant political life. (Well, ten years this coming November anyway.) Perhaps I should have styled myself as an "outlaw Republican" instead of telling the Republicans to go pound sand for their party stupidity. Will have to ponder that a bit but for now, I remain an Independant voter and can do no other (God help me).
Gender difference, not gay marriage, at center of family fight (Michael Medved)
Hats off to Michael Medved for coming up with a different way of looking at this incendiary issue. (My own musings on this matter from February of 2004 can be viewed HERE for those who are interested.)
The Blind Leading the Evil (Joseph D'Hippolito)
Though not as good as his stellar July piece Pontificating on Israel (posted in an August 12, 2006 miscellaneous threads installment); nonetheless, Joe does not disappoint in this very worthy followup thread. Those who would savage Joe for apparent "attacks" against problematical Holy See geopolitical positions would do well to remember the words of the Dominican Melchior Cano who at the Council of Trent noted the following to critics of church reform who defended the status quo:
"Peter has no need of our lies or flattery. Those who blindly and indiscriminately defend every decision of the supreme Pontiff are the very ones who do most to undermine the authority of the Holy See—they destroy instead of strengthening its foundations." [Melchior Cano]
This counsel needs to be considered at all times with respectful but constructive criticism not seen as detrimental -particularly in areas which do not pertain to Catholic doctrine in direct proportion to their distance from the latter respectively. Moving on...
Mel Gibson and Politics of Bigotry (Brent Bozell)
Thanks are in order to Greg Krehbiel for bringing the above thread to my attention.
The state of ecumenical dialogue (Bill Cork)
I have to concur with Bill on his assessment here. Frankly, ecumenical dialogue seems at times to be impossible within the Catholic Church amongst fellow Catholics; ergo, that it would fail with other Churches and ecclesial communites to some extent is understandable. Nonetheless, those who can stomach it and remain true to the core pinciple of seeking truth have my best wishes for eventual success. But the present appraisal of the endeavours on the whole do not look promising.
Notes:
{1} According to Tim, I attacked him near the top of the stairway and he shoved me down the stairs. After tumbling down, I got up and came up the stairs again and he shoved me down again. (I have no recollection of any of this so I have to go on his account of the events of that night.)
{2} I can count the number of times this has happened in my life on less than four fingers -and three of them were when I was under 21.
{3} Briefly on the Vatican Diplomatic Corps and the War in Iraq (circa September 27, 2004)
{4} [S]ince the authority recognized by the [Catechism of the Catholic Church] to levy war is the secular authority, it is to this authority where the judgment is levied, not that of the pope. This is easily demonstrated with Catholic sources -indeed I have done so many times already. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 6, 2005)]
[Prefatory Note: Most of this post was composed from August 1st through August 9th or so. -ISM]
Briefly (if I may) on these threads...
Gibson's Film Career in Jeopardy After Anti-Semitic Comments (FOXNews)
I have almost always been what one would call a "chillin sort" when I have had more to drink than I should. However, one time when I was at my buddy Tim Tull's house back when we were in high school, we got blasted while picking out bass lines to The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon. I remember learning in that session the 7/4 bass riff from Money: one of the few things I have a clear recollection of from that night. I do remember that we were drinking a nasty concoction of rot gut gin, vodka, and orange juice and that each mixture had less and less orange juice in it and I lost count around 12 or so. The gin was of the sloe variety so we were drinking away thinking we were quite stout drinkers (rather than the amateurs that we actually were) and all of a sudden, it hit all at once like (I would imagine) being hit by a stun dart where everything goes numb and in slow motion. Except in this case it was the reflexes and the vision.
Apparently, at one point I said less than flattering things about him including threatening to kill him.{1} There was nothing to provoke it at the time and I was quite embarassed the next day to find out what had happened -including that I broke a window with a small pumpkin and had a vomiting episode which got all over the carpeting, etc.{2} Nonetheless, people can say and do things when drunk that they would never mean or do when they were sober. For that reason, I do not consider the Mel Gibson episode to be any kind of a big deal. However, I expect to see a lot of people make a big deal out of it. I though have said all I intend to say on the matter for the indefinite future in this paragraph. Moving on...
Sr. Benedict's Boxing Club: Join Now and Take Advantage of Summer Discounts--Only $19.95 Per Session (Fumare)
I can think of many individuals who could use such lessons actually...
Do any of the following apply to you:
You believe that superior US Military strength is not necessary in today's world
No.
You believe that the proper approach to statecraft is that which is embodied by Cardinals Sodano and Martino
Hell no.{3}
You believe that the Pope should be the one who makes the call when to go to war
No.{4}
Then chances are, you've been pummeled in the schoolyard--or are in imminent danger of it!
I agree 100% with that assessment of most (but not all) of those who take the position of appeasement in the face of Islamofascism. As far as the Church goes, statements by bishops -be they a conference of bishops, those in authority in various Vatican dicasteries, even those of Pope Benedict XVI himself are hardly ipso facto magisterial and therefore binding on the Catholic consience -whatever nonsense that certain self-styled "apologists" for the Catholic Church may assert. But enough on that matter for now.
Boer Farm Murders (The Right Perspective)
An appetizer if I may...
Andre van Tonder, a horse breeder and Boere farmer, discusses the recent murder of his parents at their farm near Vrede in the Orange Free State.
The farming district of Vrede is a region of agricultural plenty, including the Free State's largest stock fairs of maize wheat, mutton, wool, beef, dairy, products and poultry. The extremely savage and violent farm murders are obviously aimed at intimidating White commercial farmers into abandoning their farms, so the Communist ANC government's goal of distributing white-owned farmland to black squatter communities can be met.
Andre is eager to tell the story of the genocide on Whites, and the degeneration of South Africa under ANC control.
The odds of the MSM reporting on these issues in any prominent way is about 1%. For this is hardly uncommon in South Africa with the advent of the Communist African National Congress assuming power ten years ago. However, those who point this out are likely to be considered "racists": a situation that explains why many would hesitate to say anything. Another reason is the marxist double standard that impairs many who consider themselves "progressivists" or "peacemakers' or whatever nice candy-coated label they try to disguise themselves with to avoid being recognized for what they actually are.
Stop the Murders (The Right Perspective)
Again, just a taste...
Oom Johan Pienaar, Secretary of the Boervolk, relates what is being done on a diplomatic level in South Africa to act against the more than 2,000 murders of Boer farmers that have taken place there since the Communist ANC took power in 1994.
Again, the MSM silence is and will remain deafening for ideological reasons.
Brits to Blair: Split With Bush (Gordon Prather)
Homegrown 'Islamic fascists' (Gordon Prather)
There is nothing of worth in the above threads except to point out to you readers why reason and logic are so important and what happens when they are neglected by those who attempt to examine various positions or philosophies. I am reminded of the old TV commercial with the tagline "This is YOur Brain on Drugs, Any Questions???" But by all means my friends, read the above threads. Anyone who thinks they are "paragons of sound rationale" can feel free to email me about them. Moving on...
Tree Huggin Hippie Crap (TheLittleOrangeFox at Outlaw Republican)
Just a taste...
What do you get when a hero dies and a mother cries?
A tragedy.
What do you get when a hero dies and a mother neglects his grave stone for two years while whoring herself off to third world socialist dictators and nut-wing celebrities for photo-ops while spending her son's insurance money on huge left-wad protest against one solitary man she claims will not see her but previously DID see her?
Um, a "professional-apologist-in-training"??? ;-) As Larry the Cable Guy would say after that kind of statement "Lord I apologize for that...bein' with the starving Pygmies in New Guinea. Amen."
Maybe I have taken the wrong approach the past ten years of my Independant political life. (Well, ten years this coming November anyway.) Perhaps I should have styled myself as an "outlaw Republican" instead of telling the Republicans to go pound sand for their party stupidity. Will have to ponder that a bit but for now, I remain an Independant voter and can do no other (God help me).
Gender difference, not gay marriage, at center of family fight (Michael Medved)
Hats off to Michael Medved for coming up with a different way of looking at this incendiary issue. (My own musings on this matter from February of 2004 can be viewed HERE for those who are interested.)
The Blind Leading the Evil (Joseph D'Hippolito)
Though not as good as his stellar July piece Pontificating on Israel (posted in an August 12, 2006 miscellaneous threads installment); nonetheless, Joe does not disappoint in this very worthy followup thread. Those who would savage Joe for apparent "attacks" against problematical Holy See geopolitical positions would do well to remember the words of the Dominican Melchior Cano who at the Council of Trent noted the following to critics of church reform who defended the status quo:
"Peter has no need of our lies or flattery. Those who blindly and indiscriminately defend every decision of the supreme Pontiff are the very ones who do most to undermine the authority of the Holy See—they destroy instead of strengthening its foundations." [Melchior Cano]
This counsel needs to be considered at all times with respectful but constructive criticism not seen as detrimental -particularly in areas which do not pertain to Catholic doctrine in direct proportion to their distance from the latter respectively. Moving on...
Mel Gibson and Politics of Bigotry (Brent Bozell)
Thanks are in order to Greg Krehbiel for bringing the above thread to my attention.
The state of ecumenical dialogue (Bill Cork)
I have to concur with Bill on his assessment here. Frankly, ecumenical dialogue seems at times to be impossible within the Catholic Church amongst fellow Catholics; ergo, that it would fail with other Churches and ecclesial communites to some extent is understandable. Nonetheless, those who can stomach it and remain true to the core pinciple of seeking truth have my best wishes for eventual success. But the present appraisal of the endeavours on the whole do not look promising.
Notes:
{1} According to Tim, I attacked him near the top of the stairway and he shoved me down the stairs. After tumbling down, I got up and came up the stairs again and he shoved me down again. (I have no recollection of any of this so I have to go on his account of the events of that night.)
{2} I can count the number of times this has happened in my life on less than four fingers -and three of them were when I was under 21.
{3} Briefly on the Vatican Diplomatic Corps and the War in Iraq (circa September 27, 2004)
{4} [S]ince the authority recognized by the [Catechism of the Catholic Church] to levy war is the secular authority, it is to this authority where the judgment is levied, not that of the pope. This is easily demonstrated with Catholic sources -indeed I have done so many times already. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 6, 2005)]
"C'est La Vie" Dept. on the David Armstrong Affair:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[Update: Against my own better judgment, I allowed myself to be drawn into dealing with Mr. Armstrong. The latest dispatching thread can be read HERE though readers should consider what the thread below says before reading the subsequent offering for the most accurate picture of this tragic situation. -ISM 9/28/06 4:20pm]
I spent more time than I should have pondering how to respond to the latest round of revisionism from one Dave Armstrong. Part of me considered posting a whole bunch of stuff on this matter and continuing the obliteration of David's portrayal of events with systematic and factual accounts of reality. But then I had one of the benefits of my past writings reminding me of a core problem at the heart of this whole circumstance. In a sentence, I remembered my Altered Eye Alters All posting from August 23rd and the problem I noted with dealing with those who have a problem with solipsistic approaches to reality. A weakness if you will in all of this is the natural motivation to respond to attempts made by others to distort my positions on issues or to impugn to me the most malicious of motivations. At some point, one has to resist the temptation to fight on and recognize when all is said that can be said.
For it is only so far that reason and logic will take someone. Word was received by your host via email that Dave is again publicly going after me on his weblog. In yet another bizarre episode of this unfortunate circumstance, he is appearing to take a special joy in noting that I have quoted him in the "Points to Ponder" series on this weblog before. That is of course true and I readily admit it. However, before getting to the meat of this posting and the final curtain call of this tragic situation,{1} I should note that I do not always agree with the words used in that feature. This has been noted before and the persons cited in that series run the gamut from Jesus Christ and St. Paul to Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Che Guevara. (Quite a spectrum I am sure you would agree.) When seen in that light, Dave should not immediately presume that my citing of his words in that feature guarantees that I must have agreed with him.{2} But enough on that minor point and onto the purpose of this posting.
I see in the most recent threads Dave has put up that once again he is proof texting my work and seeking to manufacture straw men to then topple and proclaim victory. It is a sad spectacle since Dave is doing nothing more than the very excesses that makes a lot of what passes for "apologetics" so repugnant to me. And while I do at time set traps for my opponents to stumble into, it would not be honest to say that I concocted this as a ploy to trap Dave. No, this time his entrapment was for the most part serendipitously self-inflicted. It all gets down to the elements of logic, reason, and the objective presentation of the facts of reality. And no matter how much he publicly proclaims presumed new discoveries, those who can look at the evidences without bias can see that Dave's portrayals are at variance with reality.{3} It is sad to see someone I once respected so much make such a poor showing as he repeatedly has here but it is a casualty to the methodology of certain "apologist" sorts.
For those who are concerned with the facts and actual history, proof texting will get them nowhere. I have dealt with more than enough debunking of Dave's misuse of my work to believe that there is a deeper problem than his continual attempts to smear me. And while I have dealt with the historical revisionist attempts by Dave a lot already, the issue of the deeper problem at work here has not been touched on much and I want to do so right now as it has not gotten as much attention.
Those who would trust my estranged friend's mischaracterizations of me would presume that I cannot get along with anyone -that everything and everyone is a fight or a "villain to vaporize" or whatever. This is of course easily debunked by looking at the lions share of the dialogues that I have posted to this weblog. Between them and many other private correspondences, the amicability percentage is at least 98%. Easily.
Even on the issue where Dave and I butted heads, I had a few friends disagree with me on the same subject Dave did and I am still good friends with all of them. None of this meshes well with Dave's attempt to caricature me as one who does not work and play well with others. But then again, it seems to matter not who would try to dissuade him of this view: such persons immediately go from the side of the angels to the devils henchmen with you. How sad it is that Dave in doing this vindicates something Tim Enloe told me last year that I thought was a rhetorical exaggeration (to put it nicely). But then again, I still naively thought I could reason with Dave then. And for some reason, I thought that enough time had passed and enough distance from the January event (read: the last attempt at rapprochement) to try to reason with him again. Obviously, I was wrong again to think Dave would handle these matters reasonably. What else can logically be concluded from this???
Of course a key reason that I got along just fine with those friends who did not agree with my position on the subject where Dave and I tangled (despite principled and firm disagreement on the issues) was that they did not act unethically as Dave did and furthermore,{4} they also made some actual arguments to interact with.{5} And there were also no insinuations of heterodoxy simply because I disagreed with them in certain applications of Catholic principles in areas which we are obviously dealing with theologomenon and not Church teaching.
On this issue, Dave has shown that he does not understand the issues involved and he cannot make a non-normative argument in response to my non-normative ones.{6} I tried to discourage him from discussing publicly an issue where I knew he was seriously out of his element. Then, after he failed to heed those suggestions and his attempts at "argumentation" were destroyed, I sought to get him to fess up to his breaches of ethics and he would not.{7}
Then, when I was notified of assertions Dave made about me in other mediums, I sought to undertake a more systematical outlining of what I noted before shorn of almost all invective. What I outlined in two postings this month{8} is irrefutable by Dave and that is why he continues to ignore it.{9} Now, we have his latest attempts at public spectacle{10} for what reason I have no idea. I suppose one could speculate that it was to generate more $$$ for his apologetics endeavours{11} or even simply because he cannot let what happened last year go.{12} But ultimately, his reasons for why he did this do not matter. Once again, I did not in any way compel him to have to respond to anything on that subject. And (furthermore), it was never necessary to make this an issue of personalities though that is what he chose (for some reason) to do.{13}
Oh and do not be deceived: Dave knows full well that I did not smear him at all -not last year, not earlier this year, and not at the present time. Instead, I made assertions that I more than adequately substantiated. My logic was solid and my reasoning unimpaired. But Dave cannot admit to this because his apologists ego gets in the way.
The apologetic mindset{14} involves always having to win arguments. And rather than showing some humility and admitting it in circumstances where they may have bit off more than they can chew on something, it is viewed as better by them to shoot the proverbial messenger.{15} I have tried every conceivable way to get through to Dave and nothing has worked. I see no reason to say anything else except to correct his latest attempt at manufacturing some supposed double standard on my part and then bid him farewell. The Bible says that certain kinds of demons are only cast out by prayer and fasting...I am not saying Dave is possessed but this has to be one of those kinds of difficulties where something beyond the normal protocol is needed. For I must confess that while I have sought to reason with Dave and have employed solid logic to try and get through to him, I have almost certainly not prayed enough for him. Nor have I fasted either. And though I am loathe to say this publicly{16}, I am in the process of losing about 25 pounds in the next seven weeks...the inconveniences in that endeavour I will offer up for my estranged friend. But enough on that point for now.
Dave has attempted to counter my assertions of him violating basic ethics{17} by claiming that I blogged something that he did not want blogged. This charge has no merit really and Dave needs to be honest with his readers about it. For I did nothing but follow my correspondence policy to the letter which --for those who do not know-- has been consistently noted for all to see in my side margin for the past four years. Here it is as it reads in the side margin -and to which Dave was not ignorant of as it was mentioned when the whole Hand fiasco{18} was taking place:
Any correspondence will be presumed eligible for blogging unless the sender otherwise specifies. This is referred to as the Welborn Protocol and is a policy that will be followed at Rerum Novarum. (Though name and email information will as a rule not be posted without explicit request to do so by the sender.) [Email Posting Disclaimer From the Side Margin of Rerum Novarum]
The difference between what I do with correspondence and so many others do is that I am upfront and objective in my handling of it. That is the first difference. The second is that I explicitly told Dave and everyone else that was on the thread which I posted on August 17, 2005{19} that (i) I reserved to myself the right to blog the material later on in some form or another and (ii) that when I did so I would not mention the parties involved by name. I also noted in that email that if Dave wanted, I could mention him by name to show that two Catholics could amicably disagree on the issue and not act the way Stephen Hand had earlier that year. And though Dave never specifically asked to be unmentioned, I decided after some reflection on the matter to go along with normal blog protocol and not mention the names of anyone in the thread.
For someone looking to make a villain of people, this would be an odd way of going about things as I am sure anyone looking at these matters objectively can agree. My reason (at the time) was because I knew what Dave had said in the material{20} was off the cuff and that to present that as if that was the best argument that could be made for his view would be to erect a straw man. This would have publicly set my friend up for looking bad and I did not want that to happen. That is why I held back until three attempts to get him to take the subject private failed to achieve its intended purpose.
If Dave was thinking clearly on this issue, he would realize that reiterating this stuff over and over as he is doing only to have his attempts easily dispatched does not help his credibility at all. Instead, it causes people to question his veracity on issues where frankly they should not--and yes folks, unlike the manner in which Dave has treated me, I will not play tit for tat and assert (implicitly or otherwise) that there is not material of worth in the corpus of Dave's writing. I even have a post of stuff in draft form outlining some of this stuff -including certain elements that I recognize I owe a debt of sorts to Dave on- but after his banning of Greg for absolutely trivial stuff{21}, I do not see why I should even bother with that now.
If Dave can go at least so far as to reinstate Greg's posting privileges and show some degree of equity in his moderation of his comboxes and maintain this position for a reasonable amount of time, then I will reconsider my present stance on this. But not until then for to ban or silence serious criticism in order to make public displays against more insignificant challenges is not a sign of honour. I could say more but I trust that what is written in this posting is enough to outline in expository format the events of last year and since as well as the not-insignificant issues I have had with the methodology of Dave Armstrong on the subjects of controversy last year.Ergo, I will simply say in concluding this thread three words to Dave Armstrong: C'est La Vie.
[Update: It was recently pointed out to me by a few people that the tonality of this posting detracted from the substance of the points I was making. I do not deny that I was in an irritable mood when I drafted it and my mood was hardly unjustified. However, that does not mean that the manner whereby I responded is automatically appropriate or without deficiency in prudence. So with that in mind, I decided to revisit this posting from 2006 where invective so suffused the arguments I made as to render them far less persuasive to casual readers than they otherwise could have been.
To potentially render this enterprise more fruitful, I asked someone to act as a third party editor of sorts to review the postings and make suggestions of areas to be revised and others to be removed. (This person had no part whatsoever in the original controversy and to my knowledge is on good terms with all parties involved.) They agreed to review this post and made a number of suggested corrections. In every suggestion they made, I promptly made revisions where recommended and removed material that was recommended to be removed and resubmitted the proposed adjustments to them for follow-up critique, etc. This process continued until areas originally found problematical were adjusted to their satisfaction at which time I made the adjustments to the posting itself and republished it.
The revised posting before you is far more focused on my original arguments and hopefully provides much more light than heat unlike what was written previously. And though I stand by the substance of my original critiques, I do nonetheless profoundly regret letting my anger get the better of me in how I originally responded to Dave Armstrong in this post and extend to him through this effort as well as in words a most sincere apology. -SM 10/2/13]
Notes:
{1} Well, "final" until someone gives me a head up that Dave actually wants to attempt a meaningful rapprochement or something. I will not delete the threads in the archives in such an instance; however, I would gladly update them to note any changes that would be involved in such a situation (which would include a public retraction of any invective). The latter (when utilized) was never more than an ornament to my solid argumentation anyway...and its usage was (as it always is) a judgment call which people can agree or disagree on. And a few chastised me for the occasional invective admittedly even when they either supported my arguments or admitted that they were now agnostic on the subject of dispute after previously siding with Dave's position on the matter...a situation to which my arguments no doubt contributed to.
{2} Heck, if Dave is feeling particularly like treasure hunting, he would note that in about 250 installments of that series over four years there are five citations of Stephen Hand and one of Greg Mockeridge. Imagine that, I cited Stephen five times as much in that feature as I have Greg Mockeridge!!! And no, it does not mean I agree with him five times as much as I do Greg anymore than the fact that Greg and Che Guevara being cited once apiece means I agree with them equally either. Or Adolph Hitler's one citation and Dave Armstrong's one (if memory serves) citation in that feature. Again, context matters and knowing what the purpose of any particular feature is does not hurt either.
{3} Originally I referred to Captain Queeg in this part of the posting but that part has been excised as (in retrospect) highly inappropriate.
{4} But not as important as the ethical violations I have outlined.
{5} Though in the interest of disclosure, I must confess as I have from day one that (the normative and subjective nature of his attempts aside), Dave did with that one subject actually make viable arguments -their failure to stand up to legitimate non-normative scrutiny notwithstanding of course.
{6} Instead, he resorted to subjectivist and normative argumentation.
{7} My use of the ad hominem was valid even if of questionable prudence, not invalid as he has erroneously asserted again and again.
{8} "An Altered Eye Alters All"--Miscellaneous Notes on Integrity (circa August 23, 2006)
{9} While attempting to construct a fictitious sequence of events while opining about mythical conspiracies, etc. on my part. For more on this, see the following posting:
Setting the Record Straight on Old Controversies For Preserving the Historical Record (circa August 16, 2006)
{10} There is also the fact that Dave has basically done everything he can to get readership including continually trying to manufacture conflicts as people are naturally drawn to them much as they are to a trainwreck. Dave is also quite good at casting himself as the martyr. There will always be a certain large segment of humanity that is drawn to that sort of thing -even if only out of curiosity. And that is really all one needs to do to manufacture "hits" to a site. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 16, 2006)]
{11} Dave also presumes that I have a "double standard" in my approach to the entire notion of those who do apologetics for pay. In reality, my position is quite consistent and explainable without difficulty; however, that is a subject I will have to deal with another time if I do at all.
{12} This is a matter of historical record and I will not mince words as to what happened.
{13} I am at a loss to figure out why he chose to do this and (admittedly) after all that has transpired, I view this much more cynically than I once did. One can only give the benefit of the doubt so much without being viewed as naive: indeed, some who contacted me basically told me I was that in my attempts to reason with Dave: particularly in the attempts made this year. I refused to accept the evidences that were so manifestly obvious to others: in retrospect, I was naive but my intentions were good. (I wanted to give my friend a chance to avoid losing face publicly.)
{14} I should note before this is done that it is my usual instinct to focus on issues and avoid personalities; however, since doing that in this case would allow too many people to presume that they are innocent of what I am outlining above, three names will be mentioned of Catholics with a reasonable web presence. Though many more could be named than three, I will settle at this time for naming David Armstrong, Mark Shea, and Stephen Hand. I like all three of them personally -particularly Mark. Nonetheless, all three of them evince a serious lack of properly understanding general norms of theological interpretation -particularly on what is and is not magisterial teaching. For this reason, on certain pet issues of theirs which fall under the latter classification, they show an incapability (or unwillingness) to engage in authentic dialogue. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 5, 2006)]
{15} For those who invariably expose their respective ignorances on certain subjects have had the temerity to show them up and not accept uncritically said parties' unsubstantiated assertions on the matter.
{16} And because I have publicly said this, I expect no reward for it from God...though I hope He will see fit to help Dave as necessary to obtain a clear picture of what has transpired in reality.
{17} Assertions I have substantiated to the point of being (modesty aside for a moment) irrefutable by him or anyone else.
{18} I noted the distinction explicitly in July of last year and how it differed from Stephen Hand's correspondence protocol in these words:
About the only difference between the two is that I am far more straight forward than Mr. Hand is. For I use objective criteria for my email policy (i.e. "all correspondence") rather than subjective criteria (i.e. "email flamers") which allows for equivocation and hence disingenuousness.[Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa July 2, 2005)]
Readers will note that I was defending not only my own use of correspondence in that thread but also Dave's!!! But then again, Dave had not acted unethically up to that point and I did not envision how he would act less than two months later.
{19} The thread was first circulated privately on August 12, 2005 in substantially the same form (approximately 97% the same) as what was eventually blogged five days later.
{20} That generated the bulk of what I wrote in the first Hiroshima posting.
{21} If Dave was being consistent in his approach, he would have to ban himself from his own comboxes since what he banned Greg for was all minutiae and Dave's misrepresentations of me were far graver objectively speaking!!! (This for those who do not know is an application of the Scholastic "from lesser to greater" argumentation principle.) Some of what Greg was banned for was actually Greg showing his ability to self-deprecate a bit: a concept that seems foreign to Dave unfortunately. Again, those who would write attempted satires of others or compose little joking tidbits who cannot self-deprecate should avoid using any kind of humour whatsoever in their work if they do not want to appear to be involving themselves in a double standard viz. what they will do to others vs. what they will complain about when the same approaches are used against them. And that is the bottom line really.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[Update: Against my own better judgment, I allowed myself to be drawn into dealing with Mr. Armstrong. The latest dispatching thread can be read HERE though readers should consider what the thread below says before reading the subsequent offering for the most accurate picture of this tragic situation. -ISM 9/28/06 4:20pm]
I spent more time than I should have pondering how to respond to the latest round of revisionism from one Dave Armstrong. Part of me considered posting a whole bunch of stuff on this matter and continuing the obliteration of David's portrayal of events with systematic and factual accounts of reality. But then I had one of the benefits of my past writings reminding me of a core problem at the heart of this whole circumstance. In a sentence, I remembered my Altered Eye Alters All posting from August 23rd and the problem I noted with dealing with those who have a problem with solipsistic approaches to reality. A weakness if you will in all of this is the natural motivation to respond to attempts made by others to distort my positions on issues or to impugn to me the most malicious of motivations. At some point, one has to resist the temptation to fight on and recognize when all is said that can be said.
For it is only so far that reason and logic will take someone. Word was received by your host via email that Dave is again publicly going after me on his weblog. In yet another bizarre episode of this unfortunate circumstance, he is appearing to take a special joy in noting that I have quoted him in the "Points to Ponder" series on this weblog before. That is of course true and I readily admit it. However, before getting to the meat of this posting and the final curtain call of this tragic situation,{1} I should note that I do not always agree with the words used in that feature. This has been noted before and the persons cited in that series run the gamut from Jesus Christ and St. Paul to Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Che Guevara. (Quite a spectrum I am sure you would agree.) When seen in that light, Dave should not immediately presume that my citing of his words in that feature guarantees that I must have agreed with him.{2} But enough on that minor point and onto the purpose of this posting.
I see in the most recent threads Dave has put up that once again he is proof texting my work and seeking to manufacture straw men to then topple and proclaim victory. It is a sad spectacle since Dave is doing nothing more than the very excesses that makes a lot of what passes for "apologetics" so repugnant to me. And while I do at time set traps for my opponents to stumble into, it would not be honest to say that I concocted this as a ploy to trap Dave. No, this time his entrapment was for the most part serendipitously self-inflicted. It all gets down to the elements of logic, reason, and the objective presentation of the facts of reality. And no matter how much he publicly proclaims presumed new discoveries, those who can look at the evidences without bias can see that Dave's portrayals are at variance with reality.{3} It is sad to see someone I once respected so much make such a poor showing as he repeatedly has here but it is a casualty to the methodology of certain "apologist" sorts.
For those who are concerned with the facts and actual history, proof texting will get them nowhere. I have dealt with more than enough debunking of Dave's misuse of my work to believe that there is a deeper problem than his continual attempts to smear me. And while I have dealt with the historical revisionist attempts by Dave a lot already, the issue of the deeper problem at work here has not been touched on much and I want to do so right now as it has not gotten as much attention.
Those who would trust my estranged friend's mischaracterizations of me would presume that I cannot get along with anyone -that everything and everyone is a fight or a "villain to vaporize" or whatever. This is of course easily debunked by looking at the lions share of the dialogues that I have posted to this weblog. Between them and many other private correspondences, the amicability percentage is at least 98%. Easily.
Even on the issue where Dave and I butted heads, I had a few friends disagree with me on the same subject Dave did and I am still good friends with all of them. None of this meshes well with Dave's attempt to caricature me as one who does not work and play well with others. But then again, it seems to matter not who would try to dissuade him of this view: such persons immediately go from the side of the angels to the devils henchmen with you. How sad it is that Dave in doing this vindicates something Tim Enloe told me last year that I thought was a rhetorical exaggeration (to put it nicely). But then again, I still naively thought I could reason with Dave then. And for some reason, I thought that enough time had passed and enough distance from the January event (read: the last attempt at rapprochement) to try to reason with him again. Obviously, I was wrong again to think Dave would handle these matters reasonably. What else can logically be concluded from this???
Of course a key reason that I got along just fine with those friends who did not agree with my position on the subject where Dave and I tangled (despite principled and firm disagreement on the issues) was that they did not act unethically as Dave did and furthermore,{4} they also made some actual arguments to interact with.{5} And there were also no insinuations of heterodoxy simply because I disagreed with them in certain applications of Catholic principles in areas which we are obviously dealing with theologomenon and not Church teaching.
On this issue, Dave has shown that he does not understand the issues involved and he cannot make a non-normative argument in response to my non-normative ones.{6} I tried to discourage him from discussing publicly an issue where I knew he was seriously out of his element. Then, after he failed to heed those suggestions and his attempts at "argumentation" were destroyed, I sought to get him to fess up to his breaches of ethics and he would not.{7}
Then, when I was notified of assertions Dave made about me in other mediums, I sought to undertake a more systematical outlining of what I noted before shorn of almost all invective. What I outlined in two postings this month{8} is irrefutable by Dave and that is why he continues to ignore it.{9} Now, we have his latest attempts at public spectacle{10} for what reason I have no idea. I suppose one could speculate that it was to generate more $$$ for his apologetics endeavours{11} or even simply because he cannot let what happened last year go.{12} But ultimately, his reasons for why he did this do not matter. Once again, I did not in any way compel him to have to respond to anything on that subject. And (furthermore), it was never necessary to make this an issue of personalities though that is what he chose (for some reason) to do.{13}
Oh and do not be deceived: Dave knows full well that I did not smear him at all -not last year, not earlier this year, and not at the present time. Instead, I made assertions that I more than adequately substantiated. My logic was solid and my reasoning unimpaired. But Dave cannot admit to this because his apologists ego gets in the way.
The apologetic mindset{14} involves always having to win arguments. And rather than showing some humility and admitting it in circumstances where they may have bit off more than they can chew on something, it is viewed as better by them to shoot the proverbial messenger.{15} I have tried every conceivable way to get through to Dave and nothing has worked. I see no reason to say anything else except to correct his latest attempt at manufacturing some supposed double standard on my part and then bid him farewell. The Bible says that certain kinds of demons are only cast out by prayer and fasting...I am not saying Dave is possessed but this has to be one of those kinds of difficulties where something beyond the normal protocol is needed. For I must confess that while I have sought to reason with Dave and have employed solid logic to try and get through to him, I have almost certainly not prayed enough for him. Nor have I fasted either. And though I am loathe to say this publicly{16}, I am in the process of losing about 25 pounds in the next seven weeks...the inconveniences in that endeavour I will offer up for my estranged friend. But enough on that point for now.
Dave has attempted to counter my assertions of him violating basic ethics{17} by claiming that I blogged something that he did not want blogged. This charge has no merit really and Dave needs to be honest with his readers about it. For I did nothing but follow my correspondence policy to the letter which --for those who do not know-- has been consistently noted for all to see in my side margin for the past four years. Here it is as it reads in the side margin -and to which Dave was not ignorant of as it was mentioned when the whole Hand fiasco{18} was taking place:
Any correspondence will be presumed eligible for blogging unless the sender otherwise specifies. This is referred to as the Welborn Protocol and is a policy that will be followed at Rerum Novarum. (Though name and email information will as a rule not be posted without explicit request to do so by the sender.) [Email Posting Disclaimer From the Side Margin of Rerum Novarum]
The difference between what I do with correspondence and so many others do is that I am upfront and objective in my handling of it. That is the first difference. The second is that I explicitly told Dave and everyone else that was on the thread which I posted on August 17, 2005{19} that (i) I reserved to myself the right to blog the material later on in some form or another and (ii) that when I did so I would not mention the parties involved by name. I also noted in that email that if Dave wanted, I could mention him by name to show that two Catholics could amicably disagree on the issue and not act the way Stephen Hand had earlier that year. And though Dave never specifically asked to be unmentioned, I decided after some reflection on the matter to go along with normal blog protocol and not mention the names of anyone in the thread.
For someone looking to make a villain of people, this would be an odd way of going about things as I am sure anyone looking at these matters objectively can agree. My reason (at the time) was because I knew what Dave had said in the material{20} was off the cuff and that to present that as if that was the best argument that could be made for his view would be to erect a straw man. This would have publicly set my friend up for looking bad and I did not want that to happen. That is why I held back until three attempts to get him to take the subject private failed to achieve its intended purpose.
If Dave was thinking clearly on this issue, he would realize that reiterating this stuff over and over as he is doing only to have his attempts easily dispatched does not help his credibility at all. Instead, it causes people to question his veracity on issues where frankly they should not--and yes folks, unlike the manner in which Dave has treated me, I will not play tit for tat and assert (implicitly or otherwise) that there is not material of worth in the corpus of Dave's writing. I even have a post of stuff in draft form outlining some of this stuff -including certain elements that I recognize I owe a debt of sorts to Dave on- but after his banning of Greg for absolutely trivial stuff{21}, I do not see why I should even bother with that now.
If Dave can go at least so far as to reinstate Greg's posting privileges and show some degree of equity in his moderation of his comboxes and maintain this position for a reasonable amount of time, then I will reconsider my present stance on this. But not until then for to ban or silence serious criticism in order to make public displays against more insignificant challenges is not a sign of honour. I could say more but I trust that what is written in this posting is enough to outline in expository format the events of last year and since as well as the not-insignificant issues I have had with the methodology of Dave Armstrong on the subjects of controversy last year.Ergo, I will simply say in concluding this thread three words to Dave Armstrong: C'est La Vie.
[Update: It was recently pointed out to me by a few people that the tonality of this posting detracted from the substance of the points I was making. I do not deny that I was in an irritable mood when I drafted it and my mood was hardly unjustified. However, that does not mean that the manner whereby I responded is automatically appropriate or without deficiency in prudence. So with that in mind, I decided to revisit this posting from 2006 where invective so suffused the arguments I made as to render them far less persuasive to casual readers than they otherwise could have been.
To potentially render this enterprise more fruitful, I asked someone to act as a third party editor of sorts to review the postings and make suggestions of areas to be revised and others to be removed. (This person had no part whatsoever in the original controversy and to my knowledge is on good terms with all parties involved.) They agreed to review this post and made a number of suggested corrections. In every suggestion they made, I promptly made revisions where recommended and removed material that was recommended to be removed and resubmitted the proposed adjustments to them for follow-up critique, etc. This process continued until areas originally found problematical were adjusted to their satisfaction at which time I made the adjustments to the posting itself and republished it.
The revised posting before you is far more focused on my original arguments and hopefully provides much more light than heat unlike what was written previously. And though I stand by the substance of my original critiques, I do nonetheless profoundly regret letting my anger get the better of me in how I originally responded to Dave Armstrong in this post and extend to him through this effort as well as in words a most sincere apology. -SM 10/2/13]
Notes:
{1} Well, "final" until someone gives me a head up that Dave actually wants to attempt a meaningful rapprochement or something. I will not delete the threads in the archives in such an instance; however, I would gladly update them to note any changes that would be involved in such a situation (which would include a public retraction of any invective). The latter (when utilized) was never more than an ornament to my solid argumentation anyway...and its usage was (as it always is) a judgment call which people can agree or disagree on. And a few chastised me for the occasional invective admittedly even when they either supported my arguments or admitted that they were now agnostic on the subject of dispute after previously siding with Dave's position on the matter...a situation to which my arguments no doubt contributed to.
{2} Heck, if Dave is feeling particularly like treasure hunting, he would note that in about 250 installments of that series over four years there are five citations of Stephen Hand and one of Greg Mockeridge. Imagine that, I cited Stephen five times as much in that feature as I have Greg Mockeridge!!! And no, it does not mean I agree with him five times as much as I do Greg anymore than the fact that Greg and Che Guevara being cited once apiece means I agree with them equally either. Or Adolph Hitler's one citation and Dave Armstrong's one (if memory serves) citation in that feature. Again, context matters and knowing what the purpose of any particular feature is does not hurt either.
{3} Originally I referred to Captain Queeg in this part of the posting but that part has been excised as (in retrospect) highly inappropriate.
{4} But not as important as the ethical violations I have outlined.
{5} Though in the interest of disclosure, I must confess as I have from day one that (the normative and subjective nature of his attempts aside), Dave did with that one subject actually make viable arguments -their failure to stand up to legitimate non-normative scrutiny notwithstanding of course.
{6} Instead, he resorted to subjectivist and normative argumentation.
{7} My use of the ad hominem was valid even if of questionable prudence, not invalid as he has erroneously asserted again and again.
{8} "An Altered Eye Alters All"--Miscellaneous Notes on Integrity (circa August 23, 2006)
{9} While attempting to construct a fictitious sequence of events while opining about mythical conspiracies, etc. on my part. For more on this, see the following posting:
Setting the Record Straight on Old Controversies For Preserving the Historical Record (circa August 16, 2006)
{10} There is also the fact that Dave has basically done everything he can to get readership including continually trying to manufacture conflicts as people are naturally drawn to them much as they are to a trainwreck. Dave is also quite good at casting himself as the martyr. There will always be a certain large segment of humanity that is drawn to that sort of thing -even if only out of curiosity. And that is really all one needs to do to manufacture "hits" to a site. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 16, 2006)]
{11} Dave also presumes that I have a "double standard" in my approach to the entire notion of those who do apologetics for pay. In reality, my position is quite consistent and explainable without difficulty; however, that is a subject I will have to deal with another time if I do at all.
{12} This is a matter of historical record and I will not mince words as to what happened.
{13} I am at a loss to figure out why he chose to do this and (admittedly) after all that has transpired, I view this much more cynically than I once did. One can only give the benefit of the doubt so much without being viewed as naive: indeed, some who contacted me basically told me I was that in my attempts to reason with Dave: particularly in the attempts made this year. I refused to accept the evidences that were so manifestly obvious to others: in retrospect, I was naive but my intentions were good. (I wanted to give my friend a chance to avoid losing face publicly.)
{14} I should note before this is done that it is my usual instinct to focus on issues and avoid personalities; however, since doing that in this case would allow too many people to presume that they are innocent of what I am outlining above, three names will be mentioned of Catholics with a reasonable web presence. Though many more could be named than three, I will settle at this time for naming David Armstrong, Mark Shea, and Stephen Hand. I like all three of them personally -particularly Mark. Nonetheless, all three of them evince a serious lack of properly understanding general norms of theological interpretation -particularly on what is and is not magisterial teaching. For this reason, on certain pet issues of theirs which fall under the latter classification, they show an incapability (or unwillingness) to engage in authentic dialogue. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 5, 2006)]
{15} For those who invariably expose their respective ignorances on certain subjects have had the temerity to show them up and not accept uncritically said parties' unsubstantiated assertions on the matter.
{16} And because I have publicly said this, I expect no reward for it from God...though I hope He will see fit to help Dave as necessary to obtain a clear picture of what has transpired in reality.
{17} Assertions I have substantiated to the point of being (modesty aside for a moment) irrefutable by him or anyone else.
{18} I noted the distinction explicitly in July of last year and how it differed from Stephen Hand's correspondence protocol in these words:
About the only difference between the two is that I am far more straight forward than Mr. Hand is. For I use objective criteria for my email policy (i.e. "all correspondence") rather than subjective criteria (i.e. "email flamers") which allows for equivocation and hence disingenuousness.[Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa July 2, 2005)]
Readers will note that I was defending not only my own use of correspondence in that thread but also Dave's!!! But then again, Dave had not acted unethically up to that point and I did not envision how he would act less than two months later.
{19} The thread was first circulated privately on August 12, 2005 in substantially the same form (approximately 97% the same) as what was eventually blogged five days later.
{20} That generated the bulk of what I wrote in the first Hiroshima posting.
{21} If Dave was being consistent in his approach, he would have to ban himself from his own comboxes since what he banned Greg for was all minutiae and Dave's misrepresentations of me were far graver objectively speaking!!! (This for those who do not know is an application of the Scholastic "from lesser to greater" argumentation principle.) Some of what Greg was banned for was actually Greg showing his ability to self-deprecate a bit: a concept that seems foreign to Dave unfortunately. Again, those who would write attempted satires of others or compose little joking tidbits who cannot self-deprecate should avoid using any kind of humour whatsoever in their work if they do not want to appear to be involving themselves in a double standard viz. what they will do to others vs. what they will complain about when the same approaches are used against them. And that is the bottom line really.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
I apologize to my readers for taking so long to get the long-overdue "miscellaneous threads" posts put up on this site. (Things have been hectic on many fronts.) The first of those threads have been moved to the front of the line for completion and posting...hopefully by Monday.
With the dog days of summer posting-wise nearly over, we will be in the final stretch electionwise starting the Tuesday after Labour Day. Until then, it is difficult admittedly to motivate myself to write on much but I will get those miscellaneous threads done before the Tuesday after Labour Day. And hopefully if before then if not at that time revise the various other articles at this site which I noted earlier in the month needed to be done.
With the dog days of summer posting-wise nearly over, we will be in the final stretch electionwise starting the Tuesday after Labour Day. Until then, it is difficult admittedly to motivate myself to write on much but I will get those miscellaneous threads done before the Tuesday after Labour Day. And hopefully if before then if not at that time revise the various other articles at this site which I noted earlier in the month needed to be done.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
"An Altered Eye Alters All Things" Dept.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[A]fter probably engaging him in dialogue more than almost anyone (especially from a traditionalist perspective) I can say Shawn makes great pains to be honest [with] those he fights against. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum quoting Kevin Tierney (circa May 20, 2005)]
As the above subject touches to some extent on what this thread will deal with, it seems appropriate to preface with it before moving onto the meat of this posting.
Having noted that, sometimes the most intriguing points to ponder are those which seem innocuous at first but which take on a greater perception with time and added experience thrown into the mix. Two such points I want to focus on at the moment are an expression and also a term I defined a couple of years ago because they will assist in framing what I want to touch on in this posting and it is the subject of character.
The first of these is a dictum of William Blake which I have referenced a number of times on this weblog in the past three odd years. That dictum -which also was featured in a points to ponder segment from over two years ago- is quite an insightful expression. Here it is for those who do not remember it before I continue these notes:
An altered eye alters all things. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa June 27, 2004)]
The statement itself gets to the heart of what I have often referred to over the years as foundational presuppositions or those elements we do not see but which often unconsciously impact our approach to any issue, circumstance, or situation. In a nutshell: a person whose vision on something is altered inexorably alters all things pertaining to that particular issue, circumstance, situation, etc. Ponder that point when the rest of this post is read but before getting to the meat of the matter, another term needs to be noted which pertains to some extent to the aforementioned Blake dictum. The term is solipsism and its coordinative theory.{1}
[The] epistemological theory of solipsism [is one] whereby the self knows nothing but its own states and their constituent modifications if you will. This is a core philosophical flaw of modern day liberal political views. [Paraphrased Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa January 30, 2004) and Excerpted from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa February 7, 2004)]
Somewhat serendipitously one morning in January of 2004, I got it in my mind to discuss the subject of modernism and the philosophical/rational problems of it in various contexts with Apolonio Latar III. While the end result of the posting came out quite good; nonetheless, I in retrospect should not have discussed that matter at that time. Luckily for me my dialogue partner was quite a sharp knife in the drawer so I was able to motivate myself to handle it properly{2} and (in the process) defined another term which I would later refine slightly and post to my Miscellaneous BLOG as a frame of reference{3} for one aspect of how I approach any and all issues (or otherwise view those who approach issues not in rational and logical manners but instead in an illogical and emotionally-driven fashion).
Solipsism basically is the core flaw of all strains of liberal or self-styled "progressivist" attempts to navigate the oceans of reality. It explains why such people cannot be reasoned with -though we should of course make the effort nonetheless{4} at sundry times and in diverse manners within certain boundaries.{5} However, to posit that it infects only those of a so-called "progressivist" or "liberal" operative viewpoint would be far too simplistic. It also can infect those of so-called "conservative" or "traditionalist" as well as any weltanschauung in existence. The reason for this should be obvious; ergo I will not comment on it for now{6} and focus instead on an example or two couple from the sorts of people who would not fit the predominant pseudo-"progressivist" mould where this problem is at its most acute.
To start with, consider if you will someone who views everything as consisting of them versus someone else or them versus a particular worldview. If we add to the equation that this person has a propensity towards grandstanding sometimes in opposite proportion to what they know about a given subject, you have the makings in potentia of someone who would not shirk from acting unethically when interacting with others.
It would be pointless to presume that such a person would necessarily act any better towards friends because to do so would be to misunderstand them -particularly if they consider themselves "specially anointed" in some form or another: a "prophet", "apostle", "defensor fidei", etc. of a particular point of view. Such individuals -particularly if there is potential profit in their endeavours- can fall prey to seeking to advance their agenda through any means be it fair or foul: though they would in doing so project the veneer of moral righteousness in their actions -or as a great religious man noted about three hundred odd years ago (as noted by R P Quadrupani circa about two hundred years ago:
Evil is never done more effectually and with greater security, says St. Francis de Sales, than when one does it believing he is working for the glory of God. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa September 29, 2002)]
What kind of evils could such a person undertake under the presumption of a "divine mandate"??? Well, the simple act of violating private correspondence could be noted for starters.{7} If you have a person who feels they simply have to weigh in on anything either out of a flawed understanding of what "apologetics" is (either wholly or in part){8} and further still, if they are driven by financial considerations at the same time, then such an unethical breach is almost predictable{9} unfortunately. Equally predictable is such a person not taking time to assimilate properly the views of others whom they would presume to "educate" on subjects to which they would be better off not talking about.{10} I am reminded in thinking of such people what the late John Henry Newman noted about the problems with such people so I will quote him at this time:
[I]n spite of so much that is good in them, in spite of their sense of duty, their tenderness of conscience on may points, their benevolence, their uprightness, their generosity, they are under the dominion(I must say it) of a proud fiend; they have this stout spirit within them, they determine to be their own masters in matters of thought, about which they know so little; they consider their own reason better than any one's else; they will not admit that any one comes from God who contradicts their own view of truth. What! is none their equal in wisdom anywhere?..is there none to wrest from them their ultimate appeal to themselves? [LINK]
The subject of the writing quoted above was faith and private judgment but the principles apply to anyone who sets themselves up as some kind of "ultimate oracle" on any and all subjects. Such "ultimate oracle" sorts have no need to make any kind of serious effort to interact with someones positions because they presume to know everything without effort anyway. When you add to the mix a martyrs complex, the end result of such people is that they end up pissing off people who see through their facades of "wanting to dialogue" but it is not them who are the problem you see, it is those who expect that such persons (who make pretenses at being "able or willing to dialogue") who are then cast as the "villains."
Another way of saying it is that these kinds of people pontificate dogmatically on subjects that they do not know about and then (when their antics are publicly deplored by those who know of what they speak) they play the "I did nothing wrong...why is everybody always picking on me" Charlie Brown schtick.{11} The end result is that those who (i) do recognize and respect the distinction between private and public discussions{12} and (ii) who demand legitimate respect and amicable discourse handled in a mature fashion{13} as the "villains" in some "conspiracy" contrived by those who feel that everyone is "out to get them", etc.
While more could be noted in the future on this subject (and indeed it may well be), consider what is noted above and how truly twisted the kinds of people I refer to are -how wrapped up in their own little solipsistic world they have to be- to paint persons such as yours truly as "villains" when in reality, the ones who are acting unethical at every step of the way is the very persons who publicly pose as all "righteous" and as the "martyrs" in such endeavours. Talk about an altered eye altering all things my friends!!!
In closing, I do not and never have expected people to accept anything I have to say as some kind of arbitrary out-of-context injunction simply because I say it. When one learns to think in principles, they learn to think logically because principles make thinking a lot easier. All I expect from anyone I dialogue with is to show the most elementary elements of respect for those they converse with -and if they do not, then I get damn angry and will spare no amount of rhetoric in chastising them for their lapses of character.{14} Remember these things the next time certain parties try to paint me or anyone else who disagrees with them as a "polemicist", as "mean-spirited", or any other categorization of a similar sort. Oh and to summarize the Bizarro "logic" such people in a paragraph if I may:
If fidelity to principles and striving to see that anyone who wants to debate me on an issue approaches the subject matter (as well as the participants of the opposite point of view) is "polemical" and viewed as "improper", "unenlightened", "unethical", "unecumenical", etc. --while those who act unethically, violate private correspondence, deliberately misrepresent the views of others, seek to create public controversy for the sake of playing "martyr" for the peanut gallery, etc., is what is considered "proper, "enlightened", "ethical", "ecumenical", etc. than I am glad to be considered "improper", "unenlightened", "unethical", "unecumenical", etc. by such people or those who "reason" like them.
For such persons would obviously have no idea what the terms they wield mean when properly understood. As a result, their attitudes and actions would make a statement about their commitment to truth, justice, ethics, and integrity far beyond anything they actually say on the matters in writing. And that is the bottom line really.
Notes:
{1} [W]hen one is dealing with a theory, they are dealing with both abstract notions as well as coordinating dynamic principles of action. One of the author's intellectual mentors once defined a theory as "a set of non contradictory abstract ideas (or as philosophers like to call them 'principles') which purports to be either a correct description of reality or a guideline for successful action."...[Excerpt from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa January 14, 2004)]
{2} Despite working off of autopilot...the post was written at 0500 on about three hours of sleep if memory serves. (Kids, do not try that at home!!!)
{3} That is what the Miscellaneous BLOG developed into over time. Originally I set it up from an older blog template as a kind of place to put stuff that did not seem to fit the main parameters of Rerum Novarum. Eventually, in a somewhat serendipitous fashion, it became a place to either (i) define core terms of dialogue discourse from scratch or (ii) to serve as a place to feature important terms as I utilized them in other places for aiding readers in getting a better grasp at how I approached various subject matters.
{4} After all, you never know when the penny will drop for some people. And yes, even those who to some extent value reason and logic as important tools that separate us from the animals do not always utilize them in a consistent fashion...this gets to the problem of agenda pundits and their problems with objectivity: a subject touched on in a number of ways at this weblog in the past including quite recently in brief.
{5} This is to some extent the only normative element of the equation and indeed it cannot be anything otherwise...however much we may wish it could be confined to non-normative contexts. I should probably revisit some of the blog material where I discuss the distinction between normative and non-normative: it was a subject I dealt with last year prior to dealing with the issue of the atomic bombings and the moral/ethical issues involved there. (Mainly cause I knew critics of my position would argue normatively and they were all as predictable as incoherent drivel from...well...far more places than one will find attempts at rational discourse unfortunately.)
{6} I have discussed this subject before on this weblog and in other mediums -even if I have generally done so in passing.
{7} This is tantamount to violating the confessional in my mind: something I explained in detail earlier this year in a Miscellaneous BLOG posting when this crime was committed again by certain estranged friends and serial grand-standers who shall at this time not be named.
{8} For it is not possible that such people will take the time to learn about the intricacies of complex issues before deigning to discuss them in a public forum. Nor do they have any scruples about making public hay out of private conversations where one or more of the participants has requested that the discussion remain confidential. I do this in all instances where the subject matter is more technical and I have good reason to suspect that some of the parties involved in the discussion do not adequately grasp many of the elements involved. This is done to allow them to retain face and is how someone who respects the discipline of the dialogue conducts themselves. One who seeks to dialogue does not do so with the intention of belittling the other person or to "win" the discussion. Instead:
"The dialogue...supposes that one listens to the other, and in the divine sense of this word listen, as Jesus the child listened to the doctors, or the risen Christ listened to the pilgrims of Emmaus, or the man listens to Revelation, or God listens to man's prayer. Let yourself listen, I say, with the hope that the other's point of view will teach you something new, will complete your thought, or will allow you to expand it, to purify, subliminate, deepen it. An objector, contradictor, critic are unsuspecting aids, for in every objection there is a part of the truth, which allows us to better express what we think, to forestall confusion, to give relief and contour to our opinions. St. Thomas began by presenting what went against his thesis. He leaned on the obstacle, on the apparent negation he built his discreet affirmation, filtered, tested, simple, and sure. And Laecorde, in the same spirit, said: "I do not try to convince my adversary of error, but to join him in a higher truth." [Jean Guitton: Dialogues of Paul VI With Jean Guitton pg. 163 (c. 1967) as quoted in I. Shawn McElhinney's Commentary on the Intricacies of Dialogue (c. 2003) as excerpted from Rerum Novarum (circa May 20, 2005)]
That is the model of proper dialogue and unfortunately it is as rare as hen's teeth amongst those who style themselves "apologists."
{9} Those who wonder why I make this distinction it is because oftentimes when the distinction is recognized, people can feel free to be looser and less confrontational when involved in a private correspondence.
{10} Another advantage of distinguishing between public and private statements is that it can be easier to navigate more complicated subjects in private with those who may not want to publicly comment on something that they recognize they may need to learn more about. And (of course) it is an excellent way to gain the confidence of one's positional adversaries if they understand that nothing they say in such a setting will later be used against them publicly in a cheap attempt to "score points" as is the practice of those who prefer grandstanding and manufactured conflict to an honest dialogue on ideas.
{11} Among the examples of this I could note is the following one from a recent weblog posting:
[XXXX] is also quite good at casting himself as the martyr. There will always be a certain large segment of humanity that is drawn to that sort of thing -even if only out of curiosity. And that is really all one needs to do to manufacture "hits" to a site. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 16, 2006)]
{12} See footnote ten of this posting as well as the following thread:
Clarifying My Policy Viz. Private Correspondence--A Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG Post (circa January 27, 2006)
{13} See the contents of footnote twelve as well as these threads (just a few of which could be culled from the archives of this humble weblog in the past few years):
Some Principles For Authentic Dialogue and the Proper Use of Sources in Papers (circa February 9, 2006)
Miscellaneous Musings on Dialogue--An Audio Post (circa October 6, 2005)
On the Subject of Foundational Presuppositions - Following Up a Previous Prelude (circa May 20, 2005)
{14} The intention is medicinal: to essentially shame them into acting honourable if amicable attempts to do so fail.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[A]fter probably engaging him in dialogue more than almost anyone (especially from a traditionalist perspective) I can say Shawn makes great pains to be honest [with] those he fights against. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum quoting Kevin Tierney (circa May 20, 2005)]
As the above subject touches to some extent on what this thread will deal with, it seems appropriate to preface with it before moving onto the meat of this posting.
Having noted that, sometimes the most intriguing points to ponder are those which seem innocuous at first but which take on a greater perception with time and added experience thrown into the mix. Two such points I want to focus on at the moment are an expression and also a term I defined a couple of years ago because they will assist in framing what I want to touch on in this posting and it is the subject of character.
The first of these is a dictum of William Blake which I have referenced a number of times on this weblog in the past three odd years. That dictum -which also was featured in a points to ponder segment from over two years ago- is quite an insightful expression. Here it is for those who do not remember it before I continue these notes:
An altered eye alters all things. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa June 27, 2004)]
The statement itself gets to the heart of what I have often referred to over the years as foundational presuppositions or those elements we do not see but which often unconsciously impact our approach to any issue, circumstance, or situation. In a nutshell: a person whose vision on something is altered inexorably alters all things pertaining to that particular issue, circumstance, situation, etc. Ponder that point when the rest of this post is read but before getting to the meat of the matter, another term needs to be noted which pertains to some extent to the aforementioned Blake dictum. The term is solipsism and its coordinative theory.{1}
[The] epistemological theory of solipsism [is one] whereby the self knows nothing but its own states and their constituent modifications if you will. This is a core philosophical flaw of modern day liberal political views. [Paraphrased Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa January 30, 2004) and Excerpted from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa February 7, 2004)]
Somewhat serendipitously one morning in January of 2004, I got it in my mind to discuss the subject of modernism and the philosophical/rational problems of it in various contexts with Apolonio Latar III. While the end result of the posting came out quite good; nonetheless, I in retrospect should not have discussed that matter at that time. Luckily for me my dialogue partner was quite a sharp knife in the drawer so I was able to motivate myself to handle it properly{2} and (in the process) defined another term which I would later refine slightly and post to my Miscellaneous BLOG as a frame of reference{3} for one aspect of how I approach any and all issues (or otherwise view those who approach issues not in rational and logical manners but instead in an illogical and emotionally-driven fashion).
Solipsism basically is the core flaw of all strains of liberal or self-styled "progressivist" attempts to navigate the oceans of reality. It explains why such people cannot be reasoned with -though we should of course make the effort nonetheless{4} at sundry times and in diverse manners within certain boundaries.{5} However, to posit that it infects only those of a so-called "progressivist" or "liberal" operative viewpoint would be far too simplistic. It also can infect those of so-called "conservative" or "traditionalist" as well as any weltanschauung in existence. The reason for this should be obvious; ergo I will not comment on it for now{6} and focus instead on an example or two couple from the sorts of people who would not fit the predominant pseudo-"progressivist" mould where this problem is at its most acute.
To start with, consider if you will someone who views everything as consisting of them versus someone else or them versus a particular worldview. If we add to the equation that this person has a propensity towards grandstanding sometimes in opposite proportion to what they know about a given subject, you have the makings in potentia of someone who would not shirk from acting unethically when interacting with others.
It would be pointless to presume that such a person would necessarily act any better towards friends because to do so would be to misunderstand them -particularly if they consider themselves "specially anointed" in some form or another: a "prophet", "apostle", "defensor fidei", etc. of a particular point of view. Such individuals -particularly if there is potential profit in their endeavours- can fall prey to seeking to advance their agenda through any means be it fair or foul: though they would in doing so project the veneer of moral righteousness in their actions -or as a great religious man noted about three hundred odd years ago (as noted by R P Quadrupani circa about two hundred years ago:
Evil is never done more effectually and with greater security, says St. Francis de Sales, than when one does it believing he is working for the glory of God. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa September 29, 2002)]
What kind of evils could such a person undertake under the presumption of a "divine mandate"??? Well, the simple act of violating private correspondence could be noted for starters.{7} If you have a person who feels they simply have to weigh in on anything either out of a flawed understanding of what "apologetics" is (either wholly or in part){8} and further still, if they are driven by financial considerations at the same time, then such an unethical breach is almost predictable{9} unfortunately. Equally predictable is such a person not taking time to assimilate properly the views of others whom they would presume to "educate" on subjects to which they would be better off not talking about.{10} I am reminded in thinking of such people what the late John Henry Newman noted about the problems with such people so I will quote him at this time:
[I]n spite of so much that is good in them, in spite of their sense of duty, their tenderness of conscience on may points, their benevolence, their uprightness, their generosity, they are under the dominion(I must say it) of a proud fiend; they have this stout spirit within them, they determine to be their own masters in matters of thought, about which they know so little; they consider their own reason better than any one's else; they will not admit that any one comes from God who contradicts their own view of truth. What! is none their equal in wisdom anywhere?..is there none to wrest from them their ultimate appeal to themselves? [LINK]
The subject of the writing quoted above was faith and private judgment but the principles apply to anyone who sets themselves up as some kind of "ultimate oracle" on any and all subjects. Such "ultimate oracle" sorts have no need to make any kind of serious effort to interact with someones positions because they presume to know everything without effort anyway. When you add to the mix a martyrs complex, the end result of such people is that they end up pissing off people who see through their facades of "wanting to dialogue" but it is not them who are the problem you see, it is those who expect that such persons (who make pretenses at being "able or willing to dialogue") who are then cast as the "villains."
Another way of saying it is that these kinds of people pontificate dogmatically on subjects that they do not know about and then (when their antics are publicly deplored by those who know of what they speak) they play the "I did nothing wrong...why is everybody always picking on me" Charlie Brown schtick.{11} The end result is that those who (i) do recognize and respect the distinction between private and public discussions{12} and (ii) who demand legitimate respect and amicable discourse handled in a mature fashion{13} as the "villains" in some "conspiracy" contrived by those who feel that everyone is "out to get them", etc.
While more could be noted in the future on this subject (and indeed it may well be), consider what is noted above and how truly twisted the kinds of people I refer to are -how wrapped up in their own little solipsistic world they have to be- to paint persons such as yours truly as "villains" when in reality, the ones who are acting unethical at every step of the way is the very persons who publicly pose as all "righteous" and as the "martyrs" in such endeavours. Talk about an altered eye altering all things my friends!!!
In closing, I do not and never have expected people to accept anything I have to say as some kind of arbitrary out-of-context injunction simply because I say it. When one learns to think in principles, they learn to think logically because principles make thinking a lot easier. All I expect from anyone I dialogue with is to show the most elementary elements of respect for those they converse with -and if they do not, then I get damn angry and will spare no amount of rhetoric in chastising them for their lapses of character.{14} Remember these things the next time certain parties try to paint me or anyone else who disagrees with them as a "polemicist", as "mean-spirited", or any other categorization of a similar sort. Oh and to summarize the Bizarro "logic" such people in a paragraph if I may:
If fidelity to principles and striving to see that anyone who wants to debate me on an issue approaches the subject matter (as well as the participants of the opposite point of view) is "polemical" and viewed as "improper", "unenlightened", "unethical", "unecumenical", etc. --while those who act unethically, violate private correspondence, deliberately misrepresent the views of others, seek to create public controversy for the sake of playing "martyr" for the peanut gallery, etc., is what is considered "proper, "enlightened", "ethical", "ecumenical", etc. than I am glad to be considered "improper", "unenlightened", "unethical", "unecumenical", etc. by such people or those who "reason" like them.
For such persons would obviously have no idea what the terms they wield mean when properly understood. As a result, their attitudes and actions would make a statement about their commitment to truth, justice, ethics, and integrity far beyond anything they actually say on the matters in writing. And that is the bottom line really.
Notes:
{1} [W]hen one is dealing with a theory, they are dealing with both abstract notions as well as coordinating dynamic principles of action. One of the author's intellectual mentors once defined a theory as "a set of non contradictory abstract ideas (or as philosophers like to call them 'principles') which purports to be either a correct description of reality or a guideline for successful action."...[Excerpt from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa January 14, 2004)]
{2} Despite working off of autopilot...the post was written at 0500 on about three hours of sleep if memory serves. (Kids, do not try that at home!!!)
{3} That is what the Miscellaneous BLOG developed into over time. Originally I set it up from an older blog template as a kind of place to put stuff that did not seem to fit the main parameters of Rerum Novarum. Eventually, in a somewhat serendipitous fashion, it became a place to either (i) define core terms of dialogue discourse from scratch or (ii) to serve as a place to feature important terms as I utilized them in other places for aiding readers in getting a better grasp at how I approached various subject matters.
{4} After all, you never know when the penny will drop for some people. And yes, even those who to some extent value reason and logic as important tools that separate us from the animals do not always utilize them in a consistent fashion...this gets to the problem of agenda pundits and their problems with objectivity: a subject touched on in a number of ways at this weblog in the past including quite recently in brief.
{5} This is to some extent the only normative element of the equation and indeed it cannot be anything otherwise...however much we may wish it could be confined to non-normative contexts. I should probably revisit some of the blog material where I discuss the distinction between normative and non-normative: it was a subject I dealt with last year prior to dealing with the issue of the atomic bombings and the moral/ethical issues involved there. (Mainly cause I knew critics of my position would argue normatively and they were all as predictable as incoherent drivel from...well...far more places than one will find attempts at rational discourse unfortunately.)
{6} I have discussed this subject before on this weblog and in other mediums -even if I have generally done so in passing.
{7} This is tantamount to violating the confessional in my mind: something I explained in detail earlier this year in a Miscellaneous BLOG posting when this crime was committed again by certain estranged friends and serial grand-standers who shall at this time not be named.
{8} For it is not possible that such people will take the time to learn about the intricacies of complex issues before deigning to discuss them in a public forum. Nor do they have any scruples about making public hay out of private conversations where one or more of the participants has requested that the discussion remain confidential. I do this in all instances where the subject matter is more technical and I have good reason to suspect that some of the parties involved in the discussion do not adequately grasp many of the elements involved. This is done to allow them to retain face and is how someone who respects the discipline of the dialogue conducts themselves. One who seeks to dialogue does not do so with the intention of belittling the other person or to "win" the discussion. Instead:
"The dialogue...supposes that one listens to the other, and in the divine sense of this word listen, as Jesus the child listened to the doctors, or the risen Christ listened to the pilgrims of Emmaus, or the man listens to Revelation, or God listens to man's prayer. Let yourself listen, I say, with the hope that the other's point of view will teach you something new, will complete your thought, or will allow you to expand it, to purify, subliminate, deepen it. An objector, contradictor, critic are unsuspecting aids, for in every objection there is a part of the truth, which allows us to better express what we think, to forestall confusion, to give relief and contour to our opinions. St. Thomas began by presenting what went against his thesis. He leaned on the obstacle, on the apparent negation he built his discreet affirmation, filtered, tested, simple, and sure. And Laecorde, in the same spirit, said: "I do not try to convince my adversary of error, but to join him in a higher truth." [Jean Guitton: Dialogues of Paul VI With Jean Guitton pg. 163 (c. 1967) as quoted in I. Shawn McElhinney's Commentary on the Intricacies of Dialogue (c. 2003) as excerpted from Rerum Novarum (circa May 20, 2005)]
That is the model of proper dialogue and unfortunately it is as rare as hen's teeth amongst those who style themselves "apologists."
{9} Those who wonder why I make this distinction it is because oftentimes when the distinction is recognized, people can feel free to be looser and less confrontational when involved in a private correspondence.
{10} Another advantage of distinguishing between public and private statements is that it can be easier to navigate more complicated subjects in private with those who may not want to publicly comment on something that they recognize they may need to learn more about. And (of course) it is an excellent way to gain the confidence of one's positional adversaries if they understand that nothing they say in such a setting will later be used against them publicly in a cheap attempt to "score points" as is the practice of those who prefer grandstanding and manufactured conflict to an honest dialogue on ideas.
{11} Among the examples of this I could note is the following one from a recent weblog posting:
[XXXX] is also quite good at casting himself as the martyr. There will always be a certain large segment of humanity that is drawn to that sort of thing -even if only out of curiosity. And that is really all one needs to do to manufacture "hits" to a site. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 16, 2006)]
{12} See footnote ten of this posting as well as the following thread:
Clarifying My Policy Viz. Private Correspondence--A Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG Post (circa January 27, 2006)
{13} See the contents of footnote twelve as well as these threads (just a few of which could be culled from the archives of this humble weblog in the past few years):
Some Principles For Authentic Dialogue and the Proper Use of Sources in Papers (circa February 9, 2006)
Miscellaneous Musings on Dialogue--An Audio Post (circa October 6, 2005)
On the Subject of Foundational Presuppositions - Following Up a Previous Prelude (circa May 20, 2005)
{14} The intention is medicinal: to essentially shame them into acting honourable if amicable attempts to do so fail.
I always seem to forget that August 22nd is the anniversary of the weblog, not August 23rd. Anyway, yesterday was our fourth anniversary. Four years and 2,100 plus posts and we are not out of ideas for discussion yet my friends...not by a long shot. We are not the most well-read of the blogs out there but I have long believed that our reading audience is among the most intelligent. I say this based on the emails received and the topics they raise or request clarifications on. (Only a few of which I actually end up blogging.) Anyway, for those who have been there from the beginning or those who have over time found their way here, thanks for your readership. Now that the event has been noted, onto more stuff that will (hopefully) provoke thought from you readers.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
"One From the Vault" Dept.
(And Other Tidbits)
The post I referred to on integrity in Sunday's audiopost of miscellaneous notes is finished but I have to review it and make last minute adjustments before it is posted to this weblog. There is also the rest of the "miscellaneous threads" installment which has been delayed for weeks and which will be gotten to before the end of the week time-willing. And while I envision another installment in the "tracking the elusive so-called 'neo-con'" series being published in the next monthly cycle of blogging (August 22nd-September 21st), at the moment, it seems appropriate to respond to a public criticism of the weblog postings from August 5th of this year...this dip into the vault is of recent vintage albeit I have retouched slightly my original response in spots (including excerpting some of the text to put into footnotes). My interlocuter's words will be in dark orange font.
Rewrite. Rephrase. Cut. Cut. Cut.
Five pages by my standards is a cut XX. I was told by some friends that I needed to lengthen what I wrote because there was too much subject matter touched on.
Shawn and Greg are trying to say something,
No, we actually do say stuff XX.
but their horrible, pompous prose makes their essays impenetrable.
It would be better for you to say that what we wrote is impenetrable to you but do not presume that what you cannot comprehend is therefore objectively impenetrable.{1}
As Greg can speak for himself, I will confine these comments to my own writing except to note that the reason for the formatting is because there were multiple persons whose words were used.
Frankly, what I wrote is not a rubix cube. It is a theory properly understood and is intended to provoke logical thought and reasoned analysis. And as logical thought and reasoned analysis is quite rare in most circles (including "apologetics" ones), a degree of condescention is required to outline certain elementary factors that are required for that.
It is indeed unfortunate but after over seven years of observing this phenomenon of "Catholic apologetics" and seeing this problem manifest itself not only amongst the neophytes but to a larger extent the seasoned apologists, I am not about to stand by and pretend that the ship is not sinking when indeed it is. On making a positive contribution to the arena of ideas and influencing culture for the good, Catholic apologists are (as a whole) miserable failures!!! A key reason for this is that they presume a competence in certain issues{2} which they do not have.
Furthermore, as many of them evince either ignorance of (or an unwillingness to differentiate) between what is an authoritative Church pronouncement and what is not, they inevitably{3} throw everything into the same kettle and this is erroneous. It is also disingenuous to no small degree.
I am beyond tired of seeing illogical fideism and warmed over neo-ultramontanism by these self-anointed "experts." All they do is provide fuel for the anti-Catholic caricatures of Catholics as intellectual infants who cannot think and blindly accept anything that is said by a curial representative -no matter how illogical and opposed to sound reasoning it happens to be. As Catholics we recognize that magisterial teachings require religious submission. This is a tall order and it should not be casually presumed without adequate warrant. I refuse to stand by, even by proxy, and watch a bunch of ignorant self-anointed "experts" lump every curial utterance into that category as a cheap expedient to shut off legitimate and necessary debate on various issues. This kind of crap has gone on for too long and it needed to be stopped yesterday.
My contribution of sorts{4} was to set forth a thesis to support an overarching theory properly-so-called --which is more than a mere hypothesis{5} I might add-- on why apologetics has gone the way it has and why more and more high profile apologists are falling by the wayside. Greg's piece (which my writing was intended to supplement) pointed out a flawed double standard in the way Catholics defend Catholics for antics that they condemn in non-Catholics. If you have a problem with these positions, by all means propose a counter-theory of your own. But to do that, it helps to know what we have said if you have any hope of doing justice to the discipline of the dialogue.
If this were apologetics writing, it would be a bad witness.
But presumably the arrogant drivel of Dale Vree (which is defended by a panopoly of prominent Catholic apologists either explicitly or by implication) is not a bad witness right??? Presumably the horrendous lack of sound logical thought and the deliberate obfuscation of what is magisterial and what is not by many of these "apologists" is not a bad witness right??? If much of what passes for apologetics writings on non-doctrinal issues is your definition of "good witness", then I will take the bad witness classification any day of the week as presumably would Greg.
Also, they should fire whoever told them to use color-coding as a way to distinguish quotations from multiple authors. Did these two never learn how to indent in HTML?
How does that work when you have about a dozen different people XX??? By all means, enlighten me on this. Seriously.
Notes:
{1} Such an assessment is the dictionary definition for the very kind of "pomposity" that you improperly ascribe to Greg and myself.
{2} Including geopolitical ones where there are often complex moral and ethical strands interconnected to one another.
{3} Either altogether or on certain pet subjects of theirs.
{4} To bringing this situation into the public for proper discussion.
{5} Hypothesis: An explanation of a subject, circumstance, or event which is advanced on tentative grounds by a proposed thesis or series of theses and is open to further examination or being potentially disproved before it reaches the stature of a viable theory. [Excerpt from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa August 22, 2006)]
(And Other Tidbits)
The post I referred to on integrity in Sunday's audiopost of miscellaneous notes is finished but I have to review it and make last minute adjustments before it is posted to this weblog. There is also the rest of the "miscellaneous threads" installment which has been delayed for weeks and which will be gotten to before the end of the week time-willing. And while I envision another installment in the "tracking the elusive so-called 'neo-con'" series being published in the next monthly cycle of blogging (August 22nd-September 21st), at the moment, it seems appropriate to respond to a public criticism of the weblog postings from August 5th of this year...this dip into the vault is of recent vintage albeit I have retouched slightly my original response in spots (including excerpting some of the text to put into footnotes). My interlocuter's words will be in dark orange font.
Rewrite. Rephrase. Cut. Cut. Cut.
Five pages by my standards is a cut XX. I was told by some friends that I needed to lengthen what I wrote because there was too much subject matter touched on.
Shawn and Greg are trying to say something,
No, we actually do say stuff XX.
but their horrible, pompous prose makes their essays impenetrable.
It would be better for you to say that what we wrote is impenetrable to you but do not presume that what you cannot comprehend is therefore objectively impenetrable.{1}
As Greg can speak for himself, I will confine these comments to my own writing except to note that the reason for the formatting is because there were multiple persons whose words were used.
Frankly, what I wrote is not a rubix cube. It is a theory properly understood and is intended to provoke logical thought and reasoned analysis. And as logical thought and reasoned analysis is quite rare in most circles (including "apologetics" ones), a degree of condescention is required to outline certain elementary factors that are required for that.
It is indeed unfortunate but after over seven years of observing this phenomenon of "Catholic apologetics" and seeing this problem manifest itself not only amongst the neophytes but to a larger extent the seasoned apologists, I am not about to stand by and pretend that the ship is not sinking when indeed it is. On making a positive contribution to the arena of ideas and influencing culture for the good, Catholic apologists are (as a whole) miserable failures!!! A key reason for this is that they presume a competence in certain issues{2} which they do not have.
Furthermore, as many of them evince either ignorance of (or an unwillingness to differentiate) between what is an authoritative Church pronouncement and what is not, they inevitably{3} throw everything into the same kettle and this is erroneous. It is also disingenuous to no small degree.
I am beyond tired of seeing illogical fideism and warmed over neo-ultramontanism by these self-anointed "experts." All they do is provide fuel for the anti-Catholic caricatures of Catholics as intellectual infants who cannot think and blindly accept anything that is said by a curial representative -no matter how illogical and opposed to sound reasoning it happens to be. As Catholics we recognize that magisterial teachings require religious submission. This is a tall order and it should not be casually presumed without adequate warrant. I refuse to stand by, even by proxy, and watch a bunch of ignorant self-anointed "experts" lump every curial utterance into that category as a cheap expedient to shut off legitimate and necessary debate on various issues. This kind of crap has gone on for too long and it needed to be stopped yesterday.
My contribution of sorts{4} was to set forth a thesis to support an overarching theory properly-so-called --which is more than a mere hypothesis{5} I might add-- on why apologetics has gone the way it has and why more and more high profile apologists are falling by the wayside. Greg's piece (which my writing was intended to supplement) pointed out a flawed double standard in the way Catholics defend Catholics for antics that they condemn in non-Catholics. If you have a problem with these positions, by all means propose a counter-theory of your own. But to do that, it helps to know what we have said if you have any hope of doing justice to the discipline of the dialogue.
If this were apologetics writing, it would be a bad witness.
But presumably the arrogant drivel of Dale Vree (which is defended by a panopoly of prominent Catholic apologists either explicitly or by implication) is not a bad witness right??? Presumably the horrendous lack of sound logical thought and the deliberate obfuscation of what is magisterial and what is not by many of these "apologists" is not a bad witness right??? If much of what passes for apologetics writings on non-doctrinal issues is your definition of "good witness", then I will take the bad witness classification any day of the week as presumably would Greg.
Also, they should fire whoever told them to use color-coding as a way to distinguish quotations from multiple authors. Did these two never learn how to indent in HTML?
How does that work when you have about a dozen different people XX??? By all means, enlighten me on this. Seriously.
Notes:
{1} Such an assessment is the dictionary definition for the very kind of "pomposity" that you improperly ascribe to Greg and myself.
{2} Including geopolitical ones where there are often complex moral and ethical strands interconnected to one another.
{3} Either altogether or on certain pet subjects of theirs.
{4} To bringing this situation into the public for proper discussion.
{5} Hypothesis: An explanation of a subject, circumstance, or event which is advanced on tentative grounds by a proposed thesis or series of theses and is open to further examination or being potentially disproved before it reaches the stature of a viable theory. [Excerpt from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa August 22, 2006)]
The Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG has been updated!!!
Once again, in the interest of facilitating rational thought and the proper utilization of logic, I have decided to define a term that I have used in the past and will in the future use with probably a greater frequency. It really bothers me that I have to be this elementary but as I get older, I find that a lot of things I take for granted in these areas are not well understood by a lot of people...including some who boast of "3.5 GPAs in college", various degrees, and all that jazz.
Anyway, the above link finishes a triptych of sorts of terms outlining the stages that go into formulating a potentially valid viewpoint of a particular event, circumstance, situation, etc. Furthermore, as with yesterday's posting, the above thread will now be utilized whenever I make reference to the term so defined in future postings to Rerum Novarum in perpetuity all things to the contrary notwithstanding.
Once again, in the interest of facilitating rational thought and the proper utilization of logic, I have decided to define a term that I have used in the past and will in the future use with probably a greater frequency. It really bothers me that I have to be this elementary but as I get older, I find that a lot of things I take for granted in these areas are not well understood by a lot of people...including some who boast of "3.5 GPAs in college", various degrees, and all that jazz.
Anyway, the above link finishes a triptych of sorts of terms outlining the stages that go into formulating a potentially valid viewpoint of a particular event, circumstance, situation, etc. Furthermore, as with yesterday's posting, the above thread will now be utilized whenever I make reference to the term so defined in future postings to Rerum Novarum in perpetuity all things to the contrary notwithstanding.
Monday, August 21, 2006
The Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG has been updated!!!
The terms of discourse dealt with in that thread are important ones which I have utilized often on this weblog but had not given concise definitions to. The above thread intends to do that and will now be utilized whenever I make reference to the terms so defined in future postings to Rerum Novarum in perpetuity all things to the contrary notwithstanding.
The terms of discourse dealt with in that thread are important ones which I have utilized often on this weblog but had not given concise definitions to. The above thread intends to do that and will now be utilized whenever I make reference to the terms so defined in future postings to Rerum Novarum in perpetuity all things to the contrary notwithstanding.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The Updating of Rerum Novarum:
This is a continuation of the update started back in mid July. There will be a final installment where the web articles part of this weblog is updated and that will conclude this process. However, enough on that for now and onto the purpose of this posting...
Weblog Special Reports, Commemorations, Retrospectives, Miscellaneous Stuff, Etc.
A Tribute to Albert King [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Texas Music and the Blues (Stevie Ray Vaughan) [>>>]
Guest Editorial on the Death of Zarqawi and the MSM's Coverage Thereof (Written by Henry Odom) [>>>]
My Political/Social Musings
On Political/Social Subjects in General
On the Fraud of "Global Warming" (With Greg Mockeridge and Kevin Tierney) [>>>]
Briefly on Public vs. Private Standards (With Kevin Tierney) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on One Man's Fear of the Future--An Audio Post of Gary Keller's Musings [>>>]
On Congressional Spending [>>>]
On The DaVinci Code and Movie Protests in General [>>>]
Musings on the "Dog Days of Summer" [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on the Death of Zarqawi and the Presence of WMD's in Iraq--An Audio Post [>>>]
Briefly on the New Holy See Secretary of State Appointment (With Kevin Tierney) [>>>]
On the US Constitution, the Fundamental Rights of Man, Etc.
Miscellaneous Musings on Illegal Immigration, Voting Issues, Audioblogger, Fundamental Rights, Activism, Distributivism, Valid Theories and the Criteria Thereof, Etc.--An Audio Post [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on Distributivism, Valid Theories and the Criteria Thereof, Illegal Immigration, Activism, Fundamental Rights, Etc.--A Continuation Audio Post [>>>]
On Illegal Immigration and Government Regulation [>>>]
On the Fourth Amendment, The Supreme Court, and Warrantless Searches [>>>]
More on the Bush Administration/FBI Constitutionality Question [>>>]
Rough Draft of an Upcoming Book Review of Charles Cerami's Young Patriots [>>>]
Miscellaneous Notes on the Supreme Court Decision on Military Tribunals--An Audio Post [>>>]
On Political Election Topics
On Third Parties and the 2008 Presidential Election (Parts I-II) [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on "Stolen Elections"--An Audio Post [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on Joe Lieberman, His Withdrawal From the Democratic Senate Primary, and Possible Wider 2006 Election Ramifications--An Audio Post [>>>]
On the Recent War and War in General
Points to Ponder on a Different Kind of War (Adolph Hitler) [>>>]
Revisiting the Flawed "Chickenhawk" Argument [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Freedoms and How They Are Both Earned and Preserved (Zell Miller) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on the Violent Death Rate in Iraq Compared to Many US Cities (Rush Limbaugh) [>>>]
Eric Johnson, Mark Shea, and Torture [>>>]
Points to Ponder on The Seriousness of the Threat To National Security Posed by Islamofascists (Senator Joseph Lieberman)[>>>]
Bridging Reason and Faith: My Philosophical/Ethical Musings
On Particular Philosophical/Ethical Subjects
On the Acton Institutes' Critique of Distributivism [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Human Capabilities--An Audio Post (William James) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on the Difficulty of the General Historian and the Whig Fallacy (Herbert Butterfield) [>>>]
A Proposed "Fair Solution" on Abortion (With Albert Cipriani) [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on Reason, Logic, and Their Proper Application Thereof--An Audio Post [>>>]
Responding to Another Accusation of Being "Afraid of Debate" [>>>]
Briefly on The Proper Way to Make and Present Arguments [>>>]
Guest Editorial on Taking Dale Vree and Certain Catholic Figures Who Defend Him On a Much Needed Trip to the Woodshed (Written by Greg Mockeridge) [>>>]
Some Core Problems With Apologetics Methodology [>>>]
Predictions on Probable Responses to The Above Threads By the "Usual Suspects" [>>>]
Core Problems With Apologetics Methodology Revisited (Dialogue With Apolonio Latar III) [>>>]
Of or Pertaining to 'Progressivist' Philosophies (Falsely So-Called)
More on the Delusions of Dale Vree (With Chris Blosser) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Revising Anew a Previously Revised Worldview ("Neo-Neo Con") [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Secular Religious Zealots (Ernesto "Che" Guevara) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Agenda Pundits and Their Problems With Objectivity (Mike Mentzer) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on "Open Minds" (Mike Mentzer) [>>>]
Marxists and Their Methodology Revisited [>>>]
Also added to the side margin is a new weblog roll which this site was enrolled in: the Reject the UN blogroll. Longtime readers of this humble weblog probably know of my ambivalence about the UN but inclusion in this webroll may provide some impetus to discuss these issues more in the future than I have in the past. As for the rest of the planned update, I hope to find the time in the next day or so to deal with the web articles part of this weblog. Other than that, this update is completed all things to the contrary notwithstanding.
This is a continuation of the update started back in mid July. There will be a final installment where the web articles part of this weblog is updated and that will conclude this process. However, enough on that for now and onto the purpose of this posting...
Weblog Special Reports, Commemorations, Retrospectives, Miscellaneous Stuff, Etc.
A Tribute to Albert King [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Texas Music and the Blues (Stevie Ray Vaughan) [>>>]
Guest Editorial on the Death of Zarqawi and the MSM's Coverage Thereof (Written by Henry Odom) [>>>]
My Political/Social Musings
On Political/Social Subjects in General
On the Fraud of "Global Warming" (With Greg Mockeridge and Kevin Tierney) [>>>]
Briefly on Public vs. Private Standards (With Kevin Tierney) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on One Man's Fear of the Future--An Audio Post of Gary Keller's Musings [>>>]
On Congressional Spending [>>>]
On The DaVinci Code and Movie Protests in General [>>>]
Musings on the "Dog Days of Summer" [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on the Death of Zarqawi and the Presence of WMD's in Iraq--An Audio Post [>>>]
Briefly on the New Holy See Secretary of State Appointment (With Kevin Tierney) [>>>]
On the US Constitution, the Fundamental Rights of Man, Etc.
Miscellaneous Musings on Illegal Immigration, Voting Issues, Audioblogger, Fundamental Rights, Activism, Distributivism, Valid Theories and the Criteria Thereof, Etc.--An Audio Post [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on Distributivism, Valid Theories and the Criteria Thereof, Illegal Immigration, Activism, Fundamental Rights, Etc.--A Continuation Audio Post [>>>]
On Illegal Immigration and Government Regulation [>>>]
On the Fourth Amendment, The Supreme Court, and Warrantless Searches [>>>]
More on the Bush Administration/FBI Constitutionality Question [>>>]
Rough Draft of an Upcoming Book Review of Charles Cerami's Young Patriots [>>>]
Miscellaneous Notes on the Supreme Court Decision on Military Tribunals--An Audio Post [>>>]
On Political Election Topics
On Third Parties and the 2008 Presidential Election (Parts I-II) [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on "Stolen Elections"--An Audio Post [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on Joe Lieberman, His Withdrawal From the Democratic Senate Primary, and Possible Wider 2006 Election Ramifications--An Audio Post [>>>]
On the Recent War and War in General
Points to Ponder on a Different Kind of War (Adolph Hitler) [>>>]
Revisiting the Flawed "Chickenhawk" Argument [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Freedoms and How They Are Both Earned and Preserved (Zell Miller) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on the Violent Death Rate in Iraq Compared to Many US Cities (Rush Limbaugh) [>>>]
Eric Johnson, Mark Shea, and Torture [>>>]
Points to Ponder on The Seriousness of the Threat To National Security Posed by Islamofascists (Senator Joseph Lieberman)[>>>]
Bridging Reason and Faith: My Philosophical/Ethical Musings
On Particular Philosophical/Ethical Subjects
On the Acton Institutes' Critique of Distributivism [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Human Capabilities--An Audio Post (William James) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on the Difficulty of the General Historian and the Whig Fallacy (Herbert Butterfield) [>>>]
A Proposed "Fair Solution" on Abortion (With Albert Cipriani) [>>>]
Miscellaneous Musings on Reason, Logic, and Their Proper Application Thereof--An Audio Post [>>>]
Responding to Another Accusation of Being "Afraid of Debate" [>>>]
Briefly on The Proper Way to Make and Present Arguments [>>>]
Guest Editorial on Taking Dale Vree and Certain Catholic Figures Who Defend Him On a Much Needed Trip to the Woodshed (Written by Greg Mockeridge) [>>>]
Some Core Problems With Apologetics Methodology [>>>]
Predictions on Probable Responses to The Above Threads By the "Usual Suspects" [>>>]
Core Problems With Apologetics Methodology Revisited (Dialogue With Apolonio Latar III) [>>>]
Of or Pertaining to 'Progressivist' Philosophies (Falsely So-Called)
More on the Delusions of Dale Vree (With Chris Blosser) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Revising Anew a Previously Revised Worldview ("Neo-Neo Con") [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Secular Religious Zealots (Ernesto "Che" Guevara) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on Agenda Pundits and Their Problems With Objectivity (Mike Mentzer) [>>>]
Points to Ponder on "Open Minds" (Mike Mentzer) [>>>]
Marxists and Their Methodology Revisited [>>>]
Also added to the side margin is a new weblog roll which this site was enrolled in: the Reject the UN blogroll. Longtime readers of this humble weblog probably know of my ambivalence about the UN but inclusion in this webroll may provide some impetus to discuss these issues more in the future than I have in the past. As for the rest of the planned update, I hope to find the time in the next day or so to deal with the web articles part of this weblog. Other than that, this update is completed all things to the contrary notwithstanding.
Setting the Record Straight on Old Controversies:
(Aka "For Preserving the Historical Record" Dept.)
Unfortunately, it is appropriate at times to combat historical revisionism and other forms of misrepresentation -particularly when said revisionism and misrepresentations involve events and circumstances to which your host was a first hand witness and/or participant of. That is the purpose of this thread and in it, the words of our provocateur Dave Armstrong will be in lime green font.
If Greg wants to get more than 30 or (like his good buddy and fellow polemicist Shawn McElhinney) all of 80 hits a day on their blogs and have more influence, then let them pay their dues like I have for ten years online, working like a dog and providing apologetic information for people who seek it, mostly for nothing, so they can get up to the 550-600 hits I get.
Dave appears to be considering number of hits to be the barometer of what is objectively superior. By that "logic", an album by Eminem is superior to any compilation of Gregorian Chant -having outsold the latter probably 20 or more to one. Likewise, Miles Davis is not the musician that P Ditty is since he sold nowhere near what the latter has in album sales or "hits" if you want to call it that. To touch on an ecclesial example, by Dave's logic the Vatican should throw Humanae Vitae into the trashcan since a lot more folks disagree than agree with it. I could go on and on but I trust the point being made here is reasonably evident from what is noted above.
My inclusion of a site counter was at the request of The Alliance moderators who want to construct a counterweight to Instapundit and for verification of success in that endeavour, a site counter is of assistance. It should also be noted that the gang at The Alliance has constant projects to enable bloggers in their circle to expand their viewership. There have probably been twenty or thirty of them since I joined that blogroll and I have (thus far) involved myself in exactly one of them. The reason was it was a subject that interested me and that is what I write on and always have: not anything and everything simply out of a desire to get readership.
Basically, Dave does not tell his readers that I have done next to nothing to expand my web readership until a few token approaches taken recently whereas (by stark contrast) Dave has had a website of his own for almost ten years and a lot of his blog readership is from people who find his site. Dave has actually taken it seems (from what I have been told) to driving readers from his site to his blog which is (I must admit) some good strategery. But there is more to it than just that of course.
In periodical writings, Dave is always looking for ways to get published whereas my only published works were done after I was basically dragged kicking and screaming to do it -and every time attempts were made to launch me, I withdrew from it in some form or another which effectively killed the momentum. Obviously periodical publishing also provides some impetus for greater readership and greater "hits" but guess what: I have once again done next to nothing to use that medium to expand my readership base. Dave by contrast has done the opposite of what I have in that area.{1}
There is also the fact that Dave has basically done everything he can to get readership including continually trying to manufacture conflicts as people are naturally drawn to them much as they are to a train wreck. Dave is also quite good at casting himself as the martyr. There will always be a certain large segment of humanity that is drawn to that sort of thing -even if only out of curiosity. And that is really all one needs to do to manufacture "hits" to a site.
Readers can feel free to peruse my archives and notice that I have rarely if ever done that -indeed unlike Dave's archives everything I have ever posted since this weblog was started can be found there. That point aside for a moment, the difference between him and I my friends is that I do not stake my livelihood on such things whereas Dave does. Remember that when you read the rest of what he has to say: I could cease writing tomorrow and it would not impact my lifestyle an iota. By contrast, if Dave quit and ceased trying to get as many people to his sites as he can, his income would diminish significantly.
Then they won't have to come here and run me down, so they can get more desperately-needed exposure for their controversy-mongering.
I doubt that prior to this post entry, you can find a combox entry from me at Dave's site for at least half a year. Once again Dave has made erroneous assertions but I suspect that he will either ignore these corrections or try to revise the historical record yet again.
But then again I am not (nor is Mark Shea) a "real Catholic" (as Greg said we needed to rise to the level of, in a private e-mail to both of us), so what do I know anyway?
What is said by Greg to Dave and Mark is between those three. I am left wondering why Dave is dragging me into this matter when it is not my concern.
For the record, though, I think Dale Vree has long gone into fringe territory, and I removed links to his magazine some years ago now.
That is (of course) a positive step taken. However, in light of what Dave is now about to say, astute readers will notice a significant violation of consistency in what Dave will now espouse.
Others can critique him. That's fine with me. I don't have to write about every idiotic statement made by someone in the Church.
Yet please note gentle readers what Dave seems to want me to do (later on in this thread we will get to that).
Why do I have to do everything?
Notice Dave's presumption that he has to do everything. For one thing, as a professional apologist, he has greater responsibility by virtue of that position. He cannot laud himself in that role and then run from the responsibilities it involves -some of which is policing others who are in the same sort of position he occupies.
So Greg won't call me a hypocrite? Wow; I'm shivering in my boots, I'm so afraid of his disapproval . . .
The point of Greg's article was that there is an absurd double standard in the way certain high profile apologists either let Vree's idiocies go without comment or how they marshal the troops to go after anyone who is critical of Vree's drivel.
Greg tried to whip up exposure for his article (and Shawn's, which tries to attack me on illegitimate grounds) first by writing to me privately, to get a rise out of me. That didn't work.
I noted Dave as one of a few examples of the problem with apologetics methodology. That legitimate point aside for a moment{2}, his whole schtick here about how Greg was "trying to whip up exposure" in light of the way he has spent years doing nothing differently on his websites and weblog is frankly laughable. I of course do not care how he chooses to go about getting exposure (as long as he does not villanize me to do it) but to criticize Greg for doing what Dave himself does is a violation of non-contradiction and is thus illogical.
Then they tried posting on the Theological Discussion Board. No one responded.
It was deleted from the board because of certain board protocol apparently. Nonetheless, it was up for about two days and there was little in the way of overall board activity those two days.{3}
Then they tried on the Planet Envoy boards. Last I checked, that was a big yawner too.
I am not responsible for whether or not people want to ignore what Greg and I pointed out Dave.
Mark Shea has apparently publicly ignored the letter to him (sent at the same time I received mine).
Is this the same Mark Shea whose handling of the torture subject last year was so embarrassing to watch???{4}
They're getting desperate to get into yet another controversy, so Greg decided to come here and put me down (without cause, as usual) on my own blog. But he has free speech, doesn't he?
If I am so desperate for controversy, then why am I not pushing this issue even a fiftieth of how much Dave has pushed any number of themes on his weblog that I could readily mention at length???
And at least I allow comments on my blog, unlike his friend Shawn.
I have of course explained my reasons for this and more than once at that.{5} But since Dave and Mark Shea both are known to delete comments where they are taken to task on legitimate issues, I would hardly trumpet Dave's claim to believe in free speech if I were him. It is better to not have comments boxes at all (and hold that position out of principle as I do) than to censor one's more trenchant critics while pretending to believe in free speech. I at least will occasionally (when I have time to do it) blog dialogues with emailers who raise challenging points or provide an interesting take on an issue.
I am even willing to let such people (if they can make a strong argument for a position) send me stuff to be posted in guest editorial format whether I agree with their positions or not. Dave by contrast never seems to post anything from others he cannot cut and splice seven ways to Sunday absent proper context. I prefer to allow my interlocuters to make their points in full as much as possible to allow for a proper assimilation of their views and thus a potentially fruitful response. This is what is called "authentic dialogue" and dialogue properly so-called has several principles involved as well as particular approaches which should be undertaken when publishing such things in written mediums.
Again, this is what people do when they get 30 and 80 hits a day (Shawn's exact number on his Site Meter today), but want to feel like their articles are earth-shatteringly important and must be responded to lest the sky fall down or the non-respondees become gross hypocrites.
By Dave's "reasoning", what is more popular is therefore right. By that standard, Christianity is false since by any numerical accounting standard, five out of six people in the world are not (or do not identify themselves as) Christians. This is yet another invocation of the appeal to popularity fallacy!!!
Speaking of personal attacks (and those which are, what did you say?: "vile and libelous"), I won't even get into the sort of things I have been called by Shawn (i.e., unless I am sufficiently provoked).
Dave simply wants to find any excuse he can to avoid the reality of how he came across last year on the whole bombings issue in (i) the lack of arguments he put forward to substantiate the opinions he sought to propound and (ii) various argumentation fallacies he utilized in the process.{6} That is why he decided to focus on my occasional use of the ad hominem in those writings while ignoring the distinction between using ad hominem in the context of making a valid argument and using ad hominem in the context of making no valid arguments (or any arguments) whatsoever. The latter is invalid and the former is valid usage much as the former was my modus opperandi and the latter was (and is) Dave's.
If we want to talk hypocrisy, there is plenty to go around indeed. But a lot of folks have an awfully short memory, it seems.
My memory is just fine. That is why in my dispute with Dave I had to a couple of times post some "preserving the historical record" threads, etc because Dave was trying to airbrush the historical record.
Shawn also stood by silently for years when Tim Enloe was trashing my name up and down (as he continues to do), and was even trying to say he was a good Catholic and I was a lousy one.
As I told more than a few people, Dave has had an obsession over the whole Tim Enloe thing for years. But notice readers how inconsistent Dave is. On the one hand, he claims that he is not responsible for dealing with every Catholic controversy or every critic, etc. and then he spends time whining that I did not (and do not) take to task everyone he thinks should be taken to task amongst his critics!!!{7}
When Ian and I did the whole joint rebuke thing in January of 2004 and Dave was publicly and privately kvetching about Tim, I attended two funerals in that month (one in Puyallup, Washington and one which was at Blessed Sacrament where Mark Shea and I attend mass btw). Yet somehow, I am supposed to put all of that aside (along with other projects I had been working on for quite some time and other subjects which were of far greater interest to me discussion-wise) to play playground referee between two guys who had been sniping back and forth at each other for years.
Considering that I thought most of the problem in the two years prior to that joint intervention was Dave trying to manufacture a controversy with Tim rather than an endeavour to try and make a proper effort to mend fences,{8} I am hardly going to say something publicly that I do not believe. The latter has never and will never be my approach to any issue. But to do what Dave wanted would have been for me to publicly go against what I viewed the issue to be. Furthermore, it was to perpetuate more of the "my dad can beat up your dad" style stuff that I was so sick of seeing amongst too many of those who call themselves apologists.
Death has a way of helping one see the trees in the forest with greater acuity. And in retrospect, it was probably a good thing that I had to go through what I did from 2000-2006 in this area even though I would never have wanted to see many of those who died pass on. But the process awakened me to how utterly stupid and childish so much of what people complain about actually is. However, as Dave was a friend as was Tim (though at the time Dave was a much closer friend to me than Tim admittedly), I did not want to in any way whatsoever contribute to that continuing public feud.
I sensed that Tim may well respond positively to what Ian and I discussed doing whereas if we had tried that same approach two years earlier, it would not have succeeded for various reasons I do not want to delve into right now. However, I also thought (and obviously mistakenly so) that Dave was capable of being the bigger man here particularly since he was about twice Tim's age. As it is, the younger man showed greater wisdom and the older man proved that with age does not necessarily come wisdom.
If Shawn had spoken out on that years ago, maybe it would have stopped and I wouldn't have to keep pointing out that Tim is lying about my viewpoints and methods (and also lying about other people like Cardinal Newman, as I also pointed out and got called a million other names by several who have nothing better to do). What is that saying: "evil prevails when good men do nothing about it"?
In all honesty, I am not so sure Tim was as mistaken as I used to presume. For one thing, he told me that Dave seemed incapable of functioning without making it a situation of him against some "unreasonable bigot to measure his own righteousness against." Last year before the bombing fiasco, I would have disagreed with that assessment of Dave. However, I cannot in truth say that I do anymore and that is a shame.
That's all fine and dandy. If I defend my name and reputation against scurrilous attacks and Cardinal Newman against same, that is viewed as a scandal by Shawn and Greg, because I didn't join in their latest article-campaign, which they can't get anyone to be interested in.
Of course Dave is quite good at provoking others and then claiming to be persecuted: something he does not like to have pointed out I am sure.
Who needs all that sort of nonsense? Like I said, I'm here to help people along in their Catholic faith, or to convince atheists that Christianity is reasonable; stuff like that: things that (by implication) Tim Enloe and Greg Krehbiel continually bash when they put down and mock the apologetic endeavor and make out that apologetics is mostly a bad and harmful thing.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of value to what Tim and Greg say on these matters. I do not agree with everything they say of course but it does seem that those of an apologist persuasion are incapable of seeing the damage that comes from going beyond what the Church teaches and wrapping their own private opinions (or the opinions of others) up as magisterial when they are not. This whole enterprise is a detriment to apologetics not an asset when those who call themselves apologists act in this manner.{9}
So I took them to task on it. That's not an "attack"; it is an intellectual critique. I link to Greg Krehbiel's blog and he responded to my criticisms in a classy way, as a gentleman.
"Attack" is what Greg Mockeridge and Shawn McElhinney do: by completely leaving the subject at hand and calling a bunch of names and making utter fools of themselves in the process.
This is of course not what happened and any reasonable review of what was said by all parties can easily establish that.{10} However, Dave has deleted some of the threads from his blog to try and avoid scrutiny from some of the more inexcusable things he sought previously to present to the public. By contrast, virtually every post I have ever written and posted for my weblog remains in the archives substantially as it read when it was first posted.{11}
Perhaps that is why they can't get more than 80 hits a day? Folks get tired of that after a while and want to read something edifying and helpful to them personally.
Of course folks never tire of any number of oft-repeated themes that Dave regularly beats into the ground on his blog like the proverbial dead horse.
Greg and Shawn got mad at me when we had a long, ultimately ugly debate on the nuclear bombings of Japan (I opposed them; they think they can be defended as moral by Catholic just war theory). They decided to go after me personally at a certain point.
Actually, Dave (i) violated the private forum and took a private discussion public without permission of the parties involved, (ii) evinced no evidence whatsoever that he actually had bothered to assimilate the arguments Greg and I made --thereby proving false the notion that he was actually interested in pursuing an authentic dialogue from the get-go. And (iii) he spent the entire time making almost no viable arguments whatsoever but instead reiterating one argumentation fallacy after another while ignoring or grossly caricaturing the arguments Greg and I made.
When Dave did those things, he lost all benefit of the doubt for he objectively cast himself in the same mould as the Steve Hays' of the world. Much as it would gall him to read that it is nonetheless true to type: on that issue, there was not a shred of difference whatsoever in what the latter sorts do and what Dave did.
I carefully explained my meanings and dealt with their misconceptions of alleged attacks upon them, and even made an apology and clarification that should have ended the growing personal (as opposed to ethical / topical) controversy in its tracks.
Dave continues to present a scenario that is at variance with well-documented reality. I say this because Dave admitted earlier this year that he was not even interested in engaging our arguments -which was something I had asserted all along (and which he had vigorously denied). To remind anyone who followed that sequence of what happened, pardon the present referencing of this humble weblog's well-preserved archives circa January of this year:
[Y]our claim to want to dialogue was a sham exactly as I said it was. You should have had the decency to have admitted to it publicly rather than try to pretend that you wanted to dialogue...I take dialogue and the discussion of ideas seriously and have no interest in wasting it with sophists who talk the talk and then fail to walk the walk. And on those issues Dave, that is what you were acting as. Now one can act like a sophist without necessarily being one so do not read into this anything more than what I noted above: that on THIS ISSUE that is how you came across. That does not mean it necessarily translates into other areas too; ergo my reason for this clarification up front...
No Dave, I made a very logical and factual analysis with many facets to the equation and backed up every bit of it with sound analysis and you treated it from the get-go without an ounce of respect. Furthermore, you have admitted now exactly what I said all along about not only dodging my arguments but refusing to dialogue properly. Thanks for vindicating me Dave even if only in private. [Excerpt from an Email Correspondence With Dave Armstrong and Some Others (circa January 19, 2005) as posted to Rerum Novarum (circa January 23, 2006)]
But to no avail.
Of course as long as Dave was going to continue the public spectacle, I was hardly going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I take logic and reason very seriously and always have. I have little patience for those who do not either in toto or on certain select issues where they show at times the serious lack of a logical argument.
One can only deal with that sort of thing for so long and then one can lose their temper (mea culpa!!!). I suffer from exalted ideals in some sense it seems because I expect a lot more from friends than what Dave has cared to show and my publicly manifested anger (whatever its merits or demerits, rightful application or overly excessive applications thereof) was because he fell so far short of what I expected from him.
It was ignored (even when reiterated later), and the spat kept getting worse and worse until Shawn launched a nuclear attack of his own against me (sort of the death blow of our friendship), with 17 or 18 distinct personal insults having nothing to do with the topic at all. It's all documented somewhere on my site, but I purposely made it so someone would have to dig to find it, at the end of the debate.
See my previous comments.
That's the background.
That is quite a selective portrayal of the actual events on Dave's part. Unfortunately, I am not surprised any longer by it.
At the time I also stated that Shawn was being a hypocrite over the Tim Enloe issue (Tim is a Reformed polemicist and harsh critic of mine online since 1999), because he was standing by, watching Tim say all these false accusations against me and doing nothing, even after I practically begged him to intervene and put in a good word on my behalf (since Tim respected him). But he didn't. The best he could do was a sort of "immoral equivalence" thing directed to both of us, as if we were basically equally at fault (which is not the case).
As I noted already, while originally Tim was the main protagonist of the two, over time Dave assumed that mantle himself. Based on what I observed from 2002 until early 2004, that is the case and no amount of Dave sending selectively edited tidbits absent proper context will change my view on that. Nor (for that matter) do I have any interest in revisiting that subject again in any shape at all except (when necessary) to explain why I have taken the approach on this that I have over the years. Tim has to his credit moved on from what I can discern with the exception of a few unfortunate instances.{12} But that is neither here nor there.
So in turn Shawn thinks that is the "real" reason behind our fight. It wasn't, directly, but it was a factor which caused harm to our friendship, because I am one who expects friends to say at least a word on my behalf if my character and motivations and methods are being publicly trashed (and those very friends being used by the party in question - a Protestant - as a supposed counter-example of a "good Catholic" over against my status as a "bad Catholic"). I do that for my friends and I did for Shawn in another context, but he would not reciprocate.
Dave presumes that the whole world is confined to apologetics. The latter has as a rule been a very small subsection of what I have done in my lifetime and in 2003, I gradually got sick of the whole enterprise. I could no longer stand seeing Catholics praise one another for savaging non-Catholics in a way that if the latter did it to them, they would complain bitterly about it. I saw this happen for a few years prior to that point and basically had enough. I will follow this posting at some point with a private correspondence from November of 2005 where I explained my mindset on these matters so that there is no stone unturned. But this post needs to be wrapped up.
I only write about any of this now because he is starting to do so (being unable to resist, I guess, getting in further shots at me).
Dave too often seems to take things personally. My interest in outlining what I did on apologetics methodology and its problems is no different than my approach with any subject I discuss or have ever discussed: to establish and advance viable theories and not blanket unsubstantiated presumptions as is the case for most people. On the issue in question, I touched on very briefly the degeneration of Catholic apologetics over the years and posited a theory (or at the very least, a hypothesis) for why this has happened.
There are many factors in the equation and in naming names, I mentioned Dave along with a couple of other people. On some of the factors I noted, he is better than most, on others he is worse. My main focus was on the argument itself and on bringing to peoples attention what the problems are so that they can be remedied before things get worse. Because they will if these continue to go unremedied.
He got mad that I pointed this out, along with the original nuclear issue. It's an ugly mess, but that is why they are angry at me, sniping at the moment, and presently writing articles which take me to task for imaginary shortcomings.
Dave claims they are imaginary but they are not. If I had more time, I could put together quite a dossier on the matter actually. However, I would rather point out the problem and see it corrected without resorting to that kind of tactic because I do not see how such a treatment like the latter can in any way edify.
I haven't written about either one of them, I believe, since that controversy.
Nor have I written on Dave up until mentioning him in brief on August 5th and in responding to Apolonio on August 14th. If not for the fact that the subject was apologetics, he would not have been mentioned at all since on the issues that are involved in the culture war and making a positive contribution in the arena of ideas, Dave (like most apologists) is seriously lacking in overall influence and thus not worth mentioning ordinarily. However, as he puts himself out there as an apologist for Catholicism, that makes the matter of apologetics something that to some extent would pertain to him.
Few seem to care about their articles about me and Mark, and another issue related to Dale Vree, which is why it looks like they are seeking out venues where many more people gather, so that they can get exposure for their unethical, factually-challenged blasts against myself and Mark Shea.
Oftentimes, significant events or serious problems are not of concern to people which (when they manifest themselves later on), people then lament that they did not read the tea leaves properly and see them for what they are. That is hardly out of the ordinary historically and Dave should know that.
As far as being unethical and factually-challenged, Dave should know that I am the last person he should tangle with since I can substantiate anything I say with generous source evidences coupled with sound logical/rational arguments. The reason for the debacle last year (and earlier this year) was because Dave apparently forgot about that and presumed that I would give him a free pass for how he acted. I would not do this for non-friends who tried such things and as taking reason and logic seriously means respecting the principle of consistency to no small degree, my approach to this required that I treat it as I did with friends as well however inconvenient it may be for parties involved.
What is wrong when non-friends do it is wrong when friends do it: indeed it is the failure to recognize this elementary principle amongst the Catholic apologists in general which is why I have refused the label "Catholic apologist" for over six years now. There are other reasons as well but what Greg noted in his expose on Dale Vree and the unacceptable way prominent Catholic apologists defend crap from him that they would never tolerate from non-Catholics is probably the most significant part in the equation.
I had seen that garbage go on for years not only uncorrected by the more prominent of the professional apologists but even encouraged by them. (Karl Keating's disgraceful defense of Dale Vree's absolutely disgraceful antics was essentially the last straw for me.) That sort of crap is a key reason why I have long refused to be called an "apologist" and little by little withdrew myself from those circles. Well, that and the recognition that such personages have had no significant influence whatsoever on the problems that we face in society these days and have no viable solutions (nor have any interest in considering proposed viable solutions) to address said problems. They can continue to complain bitterly in their own little ghettos all they want: I would rather expend my energies where they can have some positive influence.
Shawn is also one of those who is a critic of apologetics in general.
I am a critic of the way a lot of people do apologetics this is true. That is hardly the same thing as being critical of the enterprise of apologetics in general.
He's gone after Karl Keating in the past, too (complete with the obligatory personal innuendo).
Of course when Karl Keating has said factually inaccurate things I have on occasion been critical of him. Unlike those of an apologetics mindset, I hold Karl as accountable for such things as I would anyone else. Why should I give Karl a free pass for stuff I would never give a free pass for, say one of Karl's nemeses James White??? Or some of the radical self-styled "traditionalist" sorts???
But then again, as I am not one whose livelihood depends on things like paying gigs from Catholic Answers, I am therefore under no sense of obligation to defend anything Karl Keating says, no matter how inaccurate or inane. By stark contrast, Dave is compromised since if he criticizes Karl publicly, Karl may well not allow any of Dave's stuff to be published in his periodicals anymore. That my friends is the difference and that is why I can speak the truth on these matters and professional apologists are to some extent compromised.
So I'm proud to be bashed alongside my two friends: Karl and Mark.
There is irony in Dave saying that folks. For Karl Keating and Mark Shea have manifested an almost reverse jingiosm towards America and now Dave seems to be taking a "my friends Karl and Mark, right or wrong" attitude. But enough has been said on this stuff already. Hopefully this post sets the record straight on not a few of Dave Armstrong's errors, misrepresentations, and blatant caricatures of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum and what his intention is in writing on any subject at any time -be it past, present, or future.
I have been completely consistent over the years in the principles I espouse and how they are applied. (That does not mean I have always been right of course but consistency in one's principles --if the latter are sound ones and mine are-- will result in being right the lions share of the time.) By contrast, my estranged friend Dave has been all over the map. It is my hope that in time Dave can put aside the personal issues and insults and consider prayerfully what I noted in my blog posting from August 5th of this year. If these problems are tended to, then there would be little if anything to criticize amongst apologist sorts in principle. But until they are (and until people like Dave, Karl, Mark, Jimmy [Akin], and others actually admit that these glaring problems are actually real and endeavour to do something about them), nothing will change and things will unfortunately only get worse. And that is the bottom line really.
[Update: It was recently pointed out to me by a few people that the tonality of this posting detracted from the substance of the points I was making. I do not deny that I was in an irritable mood when I drafted it and my mood was hardly unjustified. However, that does not mean that the manner whereby I responded is automatically appropriate or without deficiency in prudence. So with that in mind, I decided to revisit this posting from 2006 where invective so suffused the arguments I made as to render them far less persuasive to casual readers than they otherwise could have been.
To potentially render this enterprise more fruitful, I asked someone to act as a third party editor of sorts to review the postings and make suggestions of areas to be revised and others to be removed. (This person had no part whatsoever in the original controversy and to my knowledge is on good terms with all parties involved.) They agreed to review this post and made a number of suggested corrections. In every suggestion they made, I promptly made revisions where recommended and removed material that was recommended to be removed and resubmitted the proposed adjustments to them for follow-up critique, etc. This process continued until areas originally found problematical were adjusted to their satisfaction at which time I made the adjustments to the posting itself and republished it.
The revised posting before you is far more focused on my original arguments and hopefully provides much more light than heat unlike what was written previously. And though I stand by the substance of my original critiques, I do nonetheless profoundly regret letting my anger get the better of me in how I originally responded to Dave Armstrong in this post and extend to him through this effort as well as in words a most sincere apology. -SM 10/2/13]
Notes:
{1} I am hardly going to claim that there is anything wrong with such approaches in and of themselves of course. However, I explained more than once (including recently) what my motivations are for any attempts I make to garner additional publicity.
{2} Unlike a lot of folks, I actually substantiate my assertions btw.
{3} This is information that Dave failed to disclose voluntarily to his readers.
{4} I like Mark a lot and this is therefore not something I like having to say; however, it is what it is.
{5} A Brief Revisiting of the Comments Box Subject (circa June 6, 2005)
{6} This is another flaw in the apologist methodology: when they get thoroughly refuted after they have spouted off on issues where they have admitted previously to having a lack of substantial knowledge about. They are incapable of conceding because they have equated so closely their opinions with the magisterium's view that to concede their own defeat is to (in their eyes) claim that there was error in the magisterium. Oh and as I noted in my post from August 5th, this is not a problem unique to Catholics but indeed everyone who relies on any authority whatsoever can fall into the trap of treating that authority in like manner.
{7} And while I am hesitant to say anything about it on this thread for how some people will interpret it, Dave ignores the fact that I had to deal with twenty-three deaths of family and friends in the past six years!!! Even since Dave and I had the falling out over the bombing issue, there were five deaths in the period from August of 2005-April of 2006 -including my oldest childhood friend whom I knew since I was five years old (may he rest in peace).
But all of that likely seems an excuse I am sure. There are more important issues on the table like resurrecting the quarreling that Dave has relayed over and over again the past few years under the pretext that it has to be Tim's fault because (after all), Dave can dialogue with anyone who has ever lived and therefore, any snafus in the process are not his and cannot be his fault!!! Sorry but I do not buy this notion for an instant.
{8} Whereas from 1998-2002 I saw the main culprit in their fracas as Tim.
{9} And (of course) not all who consider themselves "apologists" do that. However, my writing on problems with apologetics methodology was not intended to deal with those whom I see as exercising that discipline properly (and why).
{10} As it is, I will post one of them now as an example and simply note that it is representative of the argumentation fallacies and poor excuses for sound reason and logical thought that Dave manifested throughout that whole sad circumstance.
{11} Sometimes, I have fixed grammatical glitches, spelling mistakes, broken HTML links, or moved material from the body of the piece into footnotes for easier separation. However, nothing of substance has been deleted. Unlike Dave, I am not afraid of the positions I have taken over the years -even on the rare occasions when I have changed my mind.
{12} Tim did admit to being goaded by Dave into backsliding but I am not about to blame him for that since I was similarly goaded back in January to revisit the whole bombings subject against my better judgment. To say that I was less than irenic in doing so would be an understatement but Dave engaged in provocation and then complained because I did not "play nice" in revisiting those issues yet again.
That factor aside, the reader can feel free to read anything Dave wrote on the whole ad homimen stuff and note that his whole attempt to claim that I engaged in the ad hominem fallacy showed in spades that he does not know the difference between legitimate and fallacious usage of ad hominem. But again, to make the proper distinction here would mean having to exercise ones thinking mechanism rather than mindlessly reacting to something.
(Aka "For Preserving the Historical Record" Dept.)
Unfortunately, it is appropriate at times to combat historical revisionism and other forms of misrepresentation -particularly when said revisionism and misrepresentations involve events and circumstances to which your host was a first hand witness and/or participant of. That is the purpose of this thread and in it, the words of our provocateur Dave Armstrong will be in lime green font.
If Greg wants to get more than 30 or (like his good buddy and fellow polemicist Shawn McElhinney) all of 80 hits a day on their blogs and have more influence, then let them pay their dues like I have for ten years online, working like a dog and providing apologetic information for people who seek it, mostly for nothing, so they can get up to the 550-600 hits I get.
Dave appears to be considering number of hits to be the barometer of what is objectively superior. By that "logic", an album by Eminem is superior to any compilation of Gregorian Chant -having outsold the latter probably 20 or more to one. Likewise, Miles Davis is not the musician that P Ditty is since he sold nowhere near what the latter has in album sales or "hits" if you want to call it that. To touch on an ecclesial example, by Dave's logic the Vatican should throw Humanae Vitae into the trashcan since a lot more folks disagree than agree with it. I could go on and on but I trust the point being made here is reasonably evident from what is noted above.
My inclusion of a site counter was at the request of The Alliance moderators who want to construct a counterweight to Instapundit and for verification of success in that endeavour, a site counter is of assistance. It should also be noted that the gang at The Alliance has constant projects to enable bloggers in their circle to expand their viewership. There have probably been twenty or thirty of them since I joined that blogroll and I have (thus far) involved myself in exactly one of them. The reason was it was a subject that interested me and that is what I write on and always have: not anything and everything simply out of a desire to get readership.
Basically, Dave does not tell his readers that I have done next to nothing to expand my web readership until a few token approaches taken recently whereas (by stark contrast) Dave has had a website of his own for almost ten years and a lot of his blog readership is from people who find his site. Dave has actually taken it seems (from what I have been told) to driving readers from his site to his blog which is (I must admit) some good strategery. But there is more to it than just that of course.
In periodical writings, Dave is always looking for ways to get published whereas my only published works were done after I was basically dragged kicking and screaming to do it -and every time attempts were made to launch me, I withdrew from it in some form or another which effectively killed the momentum. Obviously periodical publishing also provides some impetus for greater readership and greater "hits" but guess what: I have once again done next to nothing to use that medium to expand my readership base. Dave by contrast has done the opposite of what I have in that area.{1}
There is also the fact that Dave has basically done everything he can to get readership including continually trying to manufacture conflicts as people are naturally drawn to them much as they are to a train wreck. Dave is also quite good at casting himself as the martyr. There will always be a certain large segment of humanity that is drawn to that sort of thing -even if only out of curiosity. And that is really all one needs to do to manufacture "hits" to a site.
Readers can feel free to peruse my archives and notice that I have rarely if ever done that -indeed unlike Dave's archives everything I have ever posted since this weblog was started can be found there. That point aside for a moment, the difference between him and I my friends is that I do not stake my livelihood on such things whereas Dave does. Remember that when you read the rest of what he has to say: I could cease writing tomorrow and it would not impact my lifestyle an iota. By contrast, if Dave quit and ceased trying to get as many people to his sites as he can, his income would diminish significantly.
Then they won't have to come here and run me down, so they can get more desperately-needed exposure for their controversy-mongering.
I doubt that prior to this post entry, you can find a combox entry from me at Dave's site for at least half a year. Once again Dave has made erroneous assertions but I suspect that he will either ignore these corrections or try to revise the historical record yet again.
But then again I am not (nor is Mark Shea) a "real Catholic" (as Greg said we needed to rise to the level of, in a private e-mail to both of us), so what do I know anyway?
What is said by Greg to Dave and Mark is between those three. I am left wondering why Dave is dragging me into this matter when it is not my concern.
For the record, though, I think Dale Vree has long gone into fringe territory, and I removed links to his magazine some years ago now.
That is (of course) a positive step taken. However, in light of what Dave is now about to say, astute readers will notice a significant violation of consistency in what Dave will now espouse.
Others can critique him. That's fine with me. I don't have to write about every idiotic statement made by someone in the Church.
Yet please note gentle readers what Dave seems to want me to do (later on in this thread we will get to that).
Why do I have to do everything?
Notice Dave's presumption that he has to do everything. For one thing, as a professional apologist, he has greater responsibility by virtue of that position. He cannot laud himself in that role and then run from the responsibilities it involves -some of which is policing others who are in the same sort of position he occupies.
So Greg won't call me a hypocrite? Wow; I'm shivering in my boots, I'm so afraid of his disapproval . . .
The point of Greg's article was that there is an absurd double standard in the way certain high profile apologists either let Vree's idiocies go without comment or how they marshal the troops to go after anyone who is critical of Vree's drivel.
Greg tried to whip up exposure for his article (and Shawn's, which tries to attack me on illegitimate grounds) first by writing to me privately, to get a rise out of me. That didn't work.
I noted Dave as one of a few examples of the problem with apologetics methodology. That legitimate point aside for a moment{2}, his whole schtick here about how Greg was "trying to whip up exposure" in light of the way he has spent years doing nothing differently on his websites and weblog is frankly laughable. I of course do not care how he chooses to go about getting exposure (as long as he does not villanize me to do it) but to criticize Greg for doing what Dave himself does is a violation of non-contradiction and is thus illogical.
Then they tried posting on the Theological Discussion Board. No one responded.
It was deleted from the board because of certain board protocol apparently. Nonetheless, it was up for about two days and there was little in the way of overall board activity those two days.{3}
Then they tried on the Planet Envoy boards. Last I checked, that was a big yawner too.
I am not responsible for whether or not people want to ignore what Greg and I pointed out Dave.
Mark Shea has apparently publicly ignored the letter to him (sent at the same time I received mine).
Is this the same Mark Shea whose handling of the torture subject last year was so embarrassing to watch???{4}
They're getting desperate to get into yet another controversy, so Greg decided to come here and put me down (without cause, as usual) on my own blog. But he has free speech, doesn't he?
If I am so desperate for controversy, then why am I not pushing this issue even a fiftieth of how much Dave has pushed any number of themes on his weblog that I could readily mention at length???
And at least I allow comments on my blog, unlike his friend Shawn.
I have of course explained my reasons for this and more than once at that.{5} But since Dave and Mark Shea both are known to delete comments where they are taken to task on legitimate issues, I would hardly trumpet Dave's claim to believe in free speech if I were him. It is better to not have comments boxes at all (and hold that position out of principle as I do) than to censor one's more trenchant critics while pretending to believe in free speech. I at least will occasionally (when I have time to do it) blog dialogues with emailers who raise challenging points or provide an interesting take on an issue.
I am even willing to let such people (if they can make a strong argument for a position) send me stuff to be posted in guest editorial format whether I agree with their positions or not. Dave by contrast never seems to post anything from others he cannot cut and splice seven ways to Sunday absent proper context. I prefer to allow my interlocuters to make their points in full as much as possible to allow for a proper assimilation of their views and thus a potentially fruitful response. This is what is called "authentic dialogue" and dialogue properly so-called has several principles involved as well as particular approaches which should be undertaken when publishing such things in written mediums.
Again, this is what people do when they get 30 and 80 hits a day (Shawn's exact number on his Site Meter today), but want to feel like their articles are earth-shatteringly important and must be responded to lest the sky fall down or the non-respondees become gross hypocrites.
By Dave's "reasoning", what is more popular is therefore right. By that standard, Christianity is false since by any numerical accounting standard, five out of six people in the world are not (or do not identify themselves as) Christians. This is yet another invocation of the appeal to popularity fallacy!!!
Speaking of personal attacks (and those which are, what did you say?: "vile and libelous"), I won't even get into the sort of things I have been called by Shawn (i.e., unless I am sufficiently provoked).
Dave simply wants to find any excuse he can to avoid the reality of how he came across last year on the whole bombings issue in (i) the lack of arguments he put forward to substantiate the opinions he sought to propound and (ii) various argumentation fallacies he utilized in the process.{6} That is why he decided to focus on my occasional use of the ad hominem in those writings while ignoring the distinction between using ad hominem in the context of making a valid argument and using ad hominem in the context of making no valid arguments (or any arguments) whatsoever. The latter is invalid and the former is valid usage much as the former was my modus opperandi and the latter was (and is) Dave's.
If we want to talk hypocrisy, there is plenty to go around indeed. But a lot of folks have an awfully short memory, it seems.
My memory is just fine. That is why in my dispute with Dave I had to a couple of times post some "preserving the historical record" threads, etc because Dave was trying to airbrush the historical record.
Shawn also stood by silently for years when Tim Enloe was trashing my name up and down (as he continues to do), and was even trying to say he was a good Catholic and I was a lousy one.
As I told more than a few people, Dave has had an obsession over the whole Tim Enloe thing for years. But notice readers how inconsistent Dave is. On the one hand, he claims that he is not responsible for dealing with every Catholic controversy or every critic, etc. and then he spends time whining that I did not (and do not) take to task everyone he thinks should be taken to task amongst his critics!!!{7}
When Ian and I did the whole joint rebuke thing in January of 2004 and Dave was publicly and privately kvetching about Tim, I attended two funerals in that month (one in Puyallup, Washington and one which was at Blessed Sacrament where Mark Shea and I attend mass btw). Yet somehow, I am supposed to put all of that aside (along with other projects I had been working on for quite some time and other subjects which were of far greater interest to me discussion-wise) to play playground referee between two guys who had been sniping back and forth at each other for years.
Considering that I thought most of the problem in the two years prior to that joint intervention was Dave trying to manufacture a controversy with Tim rather than an endeavour to try and make a proper effort to mend fences,{8} I am hardly going to say something publicly that I do not believe. The latter has never and will never be my approach to any issue. But to do what Dave wanted would have been for me to publicly go against what I viewed the issue to be. Furthermore, it was to perpetuate more of the "my dad can beat up your dad" style stuff that I was so sick of seeing amongst too many of those who call themselves apologists.
Death has a way of helping one see the trees in the forest with greater acuity. And in retrospect, it was probably a good thing that I had to go through what I did from 2000-2006 in this area even though I would never have wanted to see many of those who died pass on. But the process awakened me to how utterly stupid and childish so much of what people complain about actually is. However, as Dave was a friend as was Tim (though at the time Dave was a much closer friend to me than Tim admittedly), I did not want to in any way whatsoever contribute to that continuing public feud.
I sensed that Tim may well respond positively to what Ian and I discussed doing whereas if we had tried that same approach two years earlier, it would not have succeeded for various reasons I do not want to delve into right now. However, I also thought (and obviously mistakenly so) that Dave was capable of being the bigger man here particularly since he was about twice Tim's age. As it is, the younger man showed greater wisdom and the older man proved that with age does not necessarily come wisdom.
If Shawn had spoken out on that years ago, maybe it would have stopped and I wouldn't have to keep pointing out that Tim is lying about my viewpoints and methods (and also lying about other people like Cardinal Newman, as I also pointed out and got called a million other names by several who have nothing better to do). What is that saying: "evil prevails when good men do nothing about it"?
In all honesty, I am not so sure Tim was as mistaken as I used to presume. For one thing, he told me that Dave seemed incapable of functioning without making it a situation of him against some "unreasonable bigot to measure his own righteousness against." Last year before the bombing fiasco, I would have disagreed with that assessment of Dave. However, I cannot in truth say that I do anymore and that is a shame.
That's all fine and dandy. If I defend my name and reputation against scurrilous attacks and Cardinal Newman against same, that is viewed as a scandal by Shawn and Greg, because I didn't join in their latest article-campaign, which they can't get anyone to be interested in.
Of course Dave is quite good at provoking others and then claiming to be persecuted: something he does not like to have pointed out I am sure.
Who needs all that sort of nonsense? Like I said, I'm here to help people along in their Catholic faith, or to convince atheists that Christianity is reasonable; stuff like that: things that (by implication) Tim Enloe and Greg Krehbiel continually bash when they put down and mock the apologetic endeavor and make out that apologetics is mostly a bad and harmful thing.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of value to what Tim and Greg say on these matters. I do not agree with everything they say of course but it does seem that those of an apologist persuasion are incapable of seeing the damage that comes from going beyond what the Church teaches and wrapping their own private opinions (or the opinions of others) up as magisterial when they are not. This whole enterprise is a detriment to apologetics not an asset when those who call themselves apologists act in this manner.{9}
So I took them to task on it. That's not an "attack"; it is an intellectual critique. I link to Greg Krehbiel's blog and he responded to my criticisms in a classy way, as a gentleman.
"Attack" is what Greg Mockeridge and Shawn McElhinney do: by completely leaving the subject at hand and calling a bunch of names and making utter fools of themselves in the process.
This is of course not what happened and any reasonable review of what was said by all parties can easily establish that.{10} However, Dave has deleted some of the threads from his blog to try and avoid scrutiny from some of the more inexcusable things he sought previously to present to the public. By contrast, virtually every post I have ever written and posted for my weblog remains in the archives substantially as it read when it was first posted.{11}
Perhaps that is why they can't get more than 80 hits a day? Folks get tired of that after a while and want to read something edifying and helpful to them personally.
Of course folks never tire of any number of oft-repeated themes that Dave regularly beats into the ground on his blog like the proverbial dead horse.
Greg and Shawn got mad at me when we had a long, ultimately ugly debate on the nuclear bombings of Japan (I opposed them; they think they can be defended as moral by Catholic just war theory). They decided to go after me personally at a certain point.
Actually, Dave (i) violated the private forum and took a private discussion public without permission of the parties involved, (ii) evinced no evidence whatsoever that he actually had bothered to assimilate the arguments Greg and I made --thereby proving false the notion that he was actually interested in pursuing an authentic dialogue from the get-go. And (iii) he spent the entire time making almost no viable arguments whatsoever but instead reiterating one argumentation fallacy after another while ignoring or grossly caricaturing the arguments Greg and I made.
When Dave did those things, he lost all benefit of the doubt for he objectively cast himself in the same mould as the Steve Hays' of the world. Much as it would gall him to read that it is nonetheless true to type: on that issue, there was not a shred of difference whatsoever in what the latter sorts do and what Dave did.
I carefully explained my meanings and dealt with their misconceptions of alleged attacks upon them, and even made an apology and clarification that should have ended the growing personal (as opposed to ethical / topical) controversy in its tracks.
Dave continues to present a scenario that is at variance with well-documented reality. I say this because Dave admitted earlier this year that he was not even interested in engaging our arguments -which was something I had asserted all along (and which he had vigorously denied). To remind anyone who followed that sequence of what happened, pardon the present referencing of this humble weblog's well-preserved archives circa January of this year:
[Y]our claim to want to dialogue was a sham exactly as I said it was. You should have had the decency to have admitted to it publicly rather than try to pretend that you wanted to dialogue...I take dialogue and the discussion of ideas seriously and have no interest in wasting it with sophists who talk the talk and then fail to walk the walk. And on those issues Dave, that is what you were acting as. Now one can act like a sophist without necessarily being one so do not read into this anything more than what I noted above: that on THIS ISSUE that is how you came across. That does not mean it necessarily translates into other areas too; ergo my reason for this clarification up front...
No Dave, I made a very logical and factual analysis with many facets to the equation and backed up every bit of it with sound analysis and you treated it from the get-go without an ounce of respect. Furthermore, you have admitted now exactly what I said all along about not only dodging my arguments but refusing to dialogue properly. Thanks for vindicating me Dave even if only in private. [Excerpt from an Email Correspondence With Dave Armstrong and Some Others (circa January 19, 2005) as posted to Rerum Novarum (circa January 23, 2006)]
But to no avail.
Of course as long as Dave was going to continue the public spectacle, I was hardly going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I take logic and reason very seriously and always have. I have little patience for those who do not either in toto or on certain select issues where they show at times the serious lack of a logical argument.
One can only deal with that sort of thing for so long and then one can lose their temper (mea culpa!!!). I suffer from exalted ideals in some sense it seems because I expect a lot more from friends than what Dave has cared to show and my publicly manifested anger (whatever its merits or demerits, rightful application or overly excessive applications thereof) was because he fell so far short of what I expected from him.
It was ignored (even when reiterated later), and the spat kept getting worse and worse until Shawn launched a nuclear attack of his own against me (sort of the death blow of our friendship), with 17 or 18 distinct personal insults having nothing to do with the topic at all. It's all documented somewhere on my site, but I purposely made it so someone would have to dig to find it, at the end of the debate.
See my previous comments.
That's the background.
That is quite a selective portrayal of the actual events on Dave's part. Unfortunately, I am not surprised any longer by it.
At the time I also stated that Shawn was being a hypocrite over the Tim Enloe issue (Tim is a Reformed polemicist and harsh critic of mine online since 1999), because he was standing by, watching Tim say all these false accusations against me and doing nothing, even after I practically begged him to intervene and put in a good word on my behalf (since Tim respected him). But he didn't. The best he could do was a sort of "immoral equivalence" thing directed to both of us, as if we were basically equally at fault (which is not the case).
As I noted already, while originally Tim was the main protagonist of the two, over time Dave assumed that mantle himself. Based on what I observed from 2002 until early 2004, that is the case and no amount of Dave sending selectively edited tidbits absent proper context will change my view on that. Nor (for that matter) do I have any interest in revisiting that subject again in any shape at all except (when necessary) to explain why I have taken the approach on this that I have over the years. Tim has to his credit moved on from what I can discern with the exception of a few unfortunate instances.{12} But that is neither here nor there.
So in turn Shawn thinks that is the "real" reason behind our fight. It wasn't, directly, but it was a factor which caused harm to our friendship, because I am one who expects friends to say at least a word on my behalf if my character and motivations and methods are being publicly trashed (and those very friends being used by the party in question - a Protestant - as a supposed counter-example of a "good Catholic" over against my status as a "bad Catholic"). I do that for my friends and I did for Shawn in another context, but he would not reciprocate.
Dave presumes that the whole world is confined to apologetics. The latter has as a rule been a very small subsection of what I have done in my lifetime and in 2003, I gradually got sick of the whole enterprise. I could no longer stand seeing Catholics praise one another for savaging non-Catholics in a way that if the latter did it to them, they would complain bitterly about it. I saw this happen for a few years prior to that point and basically had enough. I will follow this posting at some point with a private correspondence from November of 2005 where I explained my mindset on these matters so that there is no stone unturned. But this post needs to be wrapped up.
I only write about any of this now because he is starting to do so (being unable to resist, I guess, getting in further shots at me).
Dave too often seems to take things personally. My interest in outlining what I did on apologetics methodology and its problems is no different than my approach with any subject I discuss or have ever discussed: to establish and advance viable theories and not blanket unsubstantiated presumptions as is the case for most people. On the issue in question, I touched on very briefly the degeneration of Catholic apologetics over the years and posited a theory (or at the very least, a hypothesis) for why this has happened.
There are many factors in the equation and in naming names, I mentioned Dave along with a couple of other people. On some of the factors I noted, he is better than most, on others he is worse. My main focus was on the argument itself and on bringing to peoples attention what the problems are so that they can be remedied before things get worse. Because they will if these continue to go unremedied.
He got mad that I pointed this out, along with the original nuclear issue. It's an ugly mess, but that is why they are angry at me, sniping at the moment, and presently writing articles which take me to task for imaginary shortcomings.
Dave claims they are imaginary but they are not. If I had more time, I could put together quite a dossier on the matter actually. However, I would rather point out the problem and see it corrected without resorting to that kind of tactic because I do not see how such a treatment like the latter can in any way edify.
I haven't written about either one of them, I believe, since that controversy.
Nor have I written on Dave up until mentioning him in brief on August 5th and in responding to Apolonio on August 14th. If not for the fact that the subject was apologetics, he would not have been mentioned at all since on the issues that are involved in the culture war and making a positive contribution in the arena of ideas, Dave (like most apologists) is seriously lacking in overall influence and thus not worth mentioning ordinarily. However, as he puts himself out there as an apologist for Catholicism, that makes the matter of apologetics something that to some extent would pertain to him.
Few seem to care about their articles about me and Mark, and another issue related to Dale Vree, which is why it looks like they are seeking out venues where many more people gather, so that they can get exposure for their unethical, factually-challenged blasts against myself and Mark Shea.
Oftentimes, significant events or serious problems are not of concern to people which (when they manifest themselves later on), people then lament that they did not read the tea leaves properly and see them for what they are. That is hardly out of the ordinary historically and Dave should know that.
As far as being unethical and factually-challenged, Dave should know that I am the last person he should tangle with since I can substantiate anything I say with generous source evidences coupled with sound logical/rational arguments. The reason for the debacle last year (and earlier this year) was because Dave apparently forgot about that and presumed that I would give him a free pass for how he acted. I would not do this for non-friends who tried such things and as taking reason and logic seriously means respecting the principle of consistency to no small degree, my approach to this required that I treat it as I did with friends as well however inconvenient it may be for parties involved.
What is wrong when non-friends do it is wrong when friends do it: indeed it is the failure to recognize this elementary principle amongst the Catholic apologists in general which is why I have refused the label "Catholic apologist" for over six years now. There are other reasons as well but what Greg noted in his expose on Dale Vree and the unacceptable way prominent Catholic apologists defend crap from him that they would never tolerate from non-Catholics is probably the most significant part in the equation.
I had seen that garbage go on for years not only uncorrected by the more prominent of the professional apologists but even encouraged by them. (Karl Keating's disgraceful defense of Dale Vree's absolutely disgraceful antics was essentially the last straw for me.) That sort of crap is a key reason why I have long refused to be called an "apologist" and little by little withdrew myself from those circles. Well, that and the recognition that such personages have had no significant influence whatsoever on the problems that we face in society these days and have no viable solutions (nor have any interest in considering proposed viable solutions) to address said problems. They can continue to complain bitterly in their own little ghettos all they want: I would rather expend my energies where they can have some positive influence.
Shawn is also one of those who is a critic of apologetics in general.
I am a critic of the way a lot of people do apologetics this is true. That is hardly the same thing as being critical of the enterprise of apologetics in general.
He's gone after Karl Keating in the past, too (complete with the obligatory personal innuendo).
Of course when Karl Keating has said factually inaccurate things I have on occasion been critical of him. Unlike those of an apologetics mindset, I hold Karl as accountable for such things as I would anyone else. Why should I give Karl a free pass for stuff I would never give a free pass for, say one of Karl's nemeses James White??? Or some of the radical self-styled "traditionalist" sorts???
But then again, as I am not one whose livelihood depends on things like paying gigs from Catholic Answers, I am therefore under no sense of obligation to defend anything Karl Keating says, no matter how inaccurate or inane. By stark contrast, Dave is compromised since if he criticizes Karl publicly, Karl may well not allow any of Dave's stuff to be published in his periodicals anymore. That my friends is the difference and that is why I can speak the truth on these matters and professional apologists are to some extent compromised.
So I'm proud to be bashed alongside my two friends: Karl and Mark.
There is irony in Dave saying that folks. For Karl Keating and Mark Shea have manifested an almost reverse jingiosm towards America and now Dave seems to be taking a "my friends Karl and Mark, right or wrong" attitude. But enough has been said on this stuff already. Hopefully this post sets the record straight on not a few of Dave Armstrong's errors, misrepresentations, and blatant caricatures of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum and what his intention is in writing on any subject at any time -be it past, present, or future.
I have been completely consistent over the years in the principles I espouse and how they are applied. (That does not mean I have always been right of course but consistency in one's principles --if the latter are sound ones and mine are-- will result in being right the lions share of the time.) By contrast, my estranged friend Dave has been all over the map. It is my hope that in time Dave can put aside the personal issues and insults and consider prayerfully what I noted in my blog posting from August 5th of this year. If these problems are tended to, then there would be little if anything to criticize amongst apologist sorts in principle. But until they are (and until people like Dave, Karl, Mark, Jimmy [Akin], and others actually admit that these glaring problems are actually real and endeavour to do something about them), nothing will change and things will unfortunately only get worse. And that is the bottom line really.
[Update: It was recently pointed out to me by a few people that the tonality of this posting detracted from the substance of the points I was making. I do not deny that I was in an irritable mood when I drafted it and my mood was hardly unjustified. However, that does not mean that the manner whereby I responded is automatically appropriate or without deficiency in prudence. So with that in mind, I decided to revisit this posting from 2006 where invective so suffused the arguments I made as to render them far less persuasive to casual readers than they otherwise could have been.
To potentially render this enterprise more fruitful, I asked someone to act as a third party editor of sorts to review the postings and make suggestions of areas to be revised and others to be removed. (This person had no part whatsoever in the original controversy and to my knowledge is on good terms with all parties involved.) They agreed to review this post and made a number of suggested corrections. In every suggestion they made, I promptly made revisions where recommended and removed material that was recommended to be removed and resubmitted the proposed adjustments to them for follow-up critique, etc. This process continued until areas originally found problematical were adjusted to their satisfaction at which time I made the adjustments to the posting itself and republished it.
The revised posting before you is far more focused on my original arguments and hopefully provides much more light than heat unlike what was written previously. And though I stand by the substance of my original critiques, I do nonetheless profoundly regret letting my anger get the better of me in how I originally responded to Dave Armstrong in this post and extend to him through this effort as well as in words a most sincere apology. -SM 10/2/13]
Notes:
{1} I am hardly going to claim that there is anything wrong with such approaches in and of themselves of course. However, I explained more than once (including recently) what my motivations are for any attempts I make to garner additional publicity.
{2} Unlike a lot of folks, I actually substantiate my assertions btw.
{3} This is information that Dave failed to disclose voluntarily to his readers.
{4} I like Mark a lot and this is therefore not something I like having to say; however, it is what it is.
{5} A Brief Revisiting of the Comments Box Subject (circa June 6, 2005)
{6} This is another flaw in the apologist methodology: when they get thoroughly refuted after they have spouted off on issues where they have admitted previously to having a lack of substantial knowledge about. They are incapable of conceding because they have equated so closely their opinions with the magisterium's view that to concede their own defeat is to (in their eyes) claim that there was error in the magisterium. Oh and as I noted in my post from August 5th, this is not a problem unique to Catholics but indeed everyone who relies on any authority whatsoever can fall into the trap of treating that authority in like manner.
{7} And while I am hesitant to say anything about it on this thread for how some people will interpret it, Dave ignores the fact that I had to deal with twenty-three deaths of family and friends in the past six years!!! Even since Dave and I had the falling out over the bombing issue, there were five deaths in the period from August of 2005-April of 2006 -including my oldest childhood friend whom I knew since I was five years old (may he rest in peace).
But all of that likely seems an excuse I am sure. There are more important issues on the table like resurrecting the quarreling that Dave has relayed over and over again the past few years under the pretext that it has to be Tim's fault because (after all), Dave can dialogue with anyone who has ever lived and therefore, any snafus in the process are not his and cannot be his fault!!! Sorry but I do not buy this notion for an instant.
{8} Whereas from 1998-2002 I saw the main culprit in their fracas as Tim.
{9} And (of course) not all who consider themselves "apologists" do that. However, my writing on problems with apologetics methodology was not intended to deal with those whom I see as exercising that discipline properly (and why).
{10} As it is, I will post one of them now as an example and simply note that it is representative of the argumentation fallacies and poor excuses for sound reason and logical thought that Dave manifested throughout that whole sad circumstance.
{11} Sometimes, I have fixed grammatical glitches, spelling mistakes, broken HTML links, or moved material from the body of the piece into footnotes for easier separation. However, nothing of substance has been deleted. Unlike Dave, I am not afraid of the positions I have taken over the years -even on the rare occasions when I have changed my mind.
{12} Tim did admit to being goaded by Dave into backsliding but I am not about to blame him for that since I was similarly goaded back in January to revisit the whole bombings subject against my better judgment. To say that I was less than irenic in doing so would be an understatement but Dave engaged in provocation and then complained because I did not "play nice" in revisiting those issues yet again.
That factor aside, the reader can feel free to read anything Dave wrote on the whole ad homimen stuff and note that his whole attempt to claim that I engaged in the ad hominem fallacy showed in spades that he does not know the difference between legitimate and fallacious usage of ad hominem. But again, to make the proper distinction here would mean having to exercise ones thinking mechanism rather than mindlessly reacting to something.
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