File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0110, message 158


From: "Stuart Elden" <stuart.elden-AT-clara.co.uk>
Subject: RE: Shakespeare
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 08:24:14 -0000


Once again the point and your message miss each other by a mile.
Congratulations, once again you have turned a criticism of you into a
supposed generalised piece of offence. I am particularly impressed that you
have managed to suggest that my message may have offended people 'from other
lands' as well.

You manage to suggest that I am 'insensitive' and that I would benefit from
a 'little more thought'. I did not say that I had studied Shakespeare 'years
ago' but 'long before' I studied Heidegger. There is an important
difference. The point was - as I sense you well know - that I did not need
to have been a Heideggerian to have seen those lines as perfectly adequate
alone, without a need to add 'alive' to each 'to be'. And now you suggest
that putting 'explained' in quotes is the matter of offence. That seems
needlessly sensitive. As, again, I sense you well know, the point was not to
say that I did not need it explained to me (i.e. some suggestion of my
'superior' knowledge, which I don't claim), and not that the line did not
need to be interpreted, but that it did not need to have an explanation
which required it to have 'alive' added in. It was a criticism of you, and
nothing more. It was not that it did not need to be explained, but that your
'explanation' was not needed. Your point was that Shakespeare needed to have
this poetic ellipsis spelled out, mine was that that was not necessary, that
there was nothing missing. A criticism of you, and you alone. Naturally that
will offend you, as you go into the wounded dog routine again, but it was
not a generalised post, and your attempt to turn it into one is disingenous.

If I were to dwell over the words I wrote and to consider the fragility of
your ego anymore than I already do, then I would be wasting further time. It
is of some comfort that this kind of response is not solely directed at me.
It is of more comfort that in my dealings with others on this list, and on
other lists elsewhere, I don't seem to cause as much offence as I do to you.
I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, the dust had settled enough for a decent
dialogue. But no, once again I have realised that it is better to tolerate,
to not get involved, to shut up. Ken, of course, is right.

I said in the last response that it was a shame you'd taken it the way you
did. It was and it is. My apologies to the general list for the way this has
descended again. I hope I can restrain myself from getting involved and that
this will be my last word on this topic.

Stuart



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