From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-I: Nietzsche and re... On condemning unread books
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 07:15:10 -0600 (CST)


    Scott calls it kneejerk, etc. to condemn a book without reading or
intending to read it. Scott must know better than this. I believe this
is the topic that provoked the first posting I ever made on this list.

    Unless we can condemn unread books and unexamined positions, not
only intellectual life but human life in general becomes simply
impossible. In the given case, I don't know enough about any of
the figures involved to judge, but abstractly it must be in principle
correct to refuse to read 10s of thousands of unread books and concemn
out of hand thousands of unexamined "worldviews." We don't live
forever.
        Carrol Cox



>
>
> This is extraordinary.  JPM says that the author of a book *he
> has not read, knows nothing whatsoever about, and intends never to read*
> managed to "set new standards in intellectual dishonesty."  Gratifying as> 
> it may be to have colorful opinions about a writer and express them
> passionately, that is no substitute for knowing what the hell you
> are talking about.   
>
> (Sorry for all the quotes-of-quotes, but you really need them to get the
> full impact of the knee as it jerks).
>
>
>
> On Fri, 7 Feb 1997, Jo=E3o Paulo Monteiro wrote:
>
> > Doug Henwood wrote:
> > >
> > > At 5:49 PM +0000 2/6/97, Jo=93o Paulo Monteiro wrote:
> > >
> > > >I'm hardly an admirer of Foucault and I have never read James Miller's
> > > >book but it is very generally regarded here, among european left
> > > >inteligentsia, as a piece of trash, by an oportunist, reaccionary,
> > > >patetically homophobic, castrated jackal.
> > >
> > > Uh, that's not exactly my impression. It does talk about sex and drugs,>  but
> > > I don't see anything -phobic about it. Of course, I haven't read it all>  yet
> > > - but then you've never read any of it. Was anything I quoted inaccurat> e?
> > >
> >
> > Well, I haven't detected any factual innacuracies and I haven't the time
> > to look for them. I'm told there are plenty on the book, and hardly
> > innocent. The problem is the whole approach that sounds a bit like:
> > "Look at these foreign morons with their pants down, that's where all
> > their bloody nonsense originates." To make that point, the author seems
> > to have set new standards in intellectual dishonesty (and I don't mean
> > just plain innacuracies). But then again I haven't read the book and I
> > don't intend too.
> >
> >
> > Jo=E3o
> >
> >
> >
> >      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >
>
> =09
>
>
>
>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>



     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---