Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 16:08:48 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Rooney <rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu>
Subject: New Year, Same Old Crap




On Sun, 3 Jan 1999 Unleesh-AT-aol.com wrote:

> it is arrogant, if certain people are telling us they are NOT USING FILTERS,
> for us to say "yes they are" because somehow we "know", because some theory
> says so, or somehow we feel we have some privileged knowledge, or because
> reasoning clearly indicates, etc.

What's so arrogant about it?  If reasoning indicates
that what someone says is wrong, then what s/he said
was wrong.  E.g.: if someone tells us that smoking
cigarettes is cool and healthy, what's so terribly
arrogant about pointing out their folly?  Likewise, 
if someone babbles about being a mystic elf, it is
hardly presumptive to dismiss s/he as a fool.


> This woman at the Pow Wow indicated to me that she turns off her filters and
> there are others in that circuit who do so. I have no reason to doubt her ;
> and the intensity of the encounter seems to so indicate.

As a filter is something which separates things, a
lack of filters would imply no effort to separate
anything.  As being able to speak to you in English
entails the separation of syllables, words, and
sentences, she is evidently using some filters.
Thus, there is abundant reason to doubt her.


> The point is she was pointing to communal ways of being together in silence.

I guess libraries are a trope depasse'.


> I don't really have a problem with the idea of filters or even wanting to
> develop new, flexible, creative ways of filtering or even envisioning
> filtering ; I just want to be able to take people who are sincere explorers
> and voyants on their word.

Whatever.  Give my regards to the pixies and hobbits.

ObRef: Harry Frankfurt, "Sincerity Is Bullshit"


Cordially,

M.