I once worked as a mail handler at the huge Terminal Annex postal facility in downtown Los Angeles. I was twenty or twenty one. An old black man, thinking to instruct me in the ways of the world, once said to me, "Beell, dey is basically two kahnds a people in dis world, the fuckahs and the fuckees, and you gon’ have to decide which side you gon’ be on."
This morning I found the thought expressed with a bit more elegance by Giacomo Leopardi (1798- 1837) in his Pensieri:
The human race, from the individual on up, is split into two camps: the bullies and the bullied. Neither law nor force of any kind, nor advancement in civilization and philosophy, can prevent men now or in the future from belonging to one of these two camps. So, he who can choose, must choose. Although not everyone is able, nor is the choice always available. (Pensieri [Thoughts], tr. Di Piero, Louisiana State University Press, 1981, p. 69)
Am I endorsing the alternative? No. I am merely presenting it for your consideration. My posts are not all of the same type. Some are just notes to myself, records of what I am reading and thinking about. Others are meant to draw the reader's attention to this or that for his edification or delectation. Some carefully argue a thesis I believe to be true. Others merely assert a thesis I believe to be true. Some are sloppy and impressionistic. In others, the rigor mentis approaches rigor mortis.
Some posts are aphoristic. But don't assume that an aphorism cannot have deep and rigorous and systematic thought at its origin.
Some posts are polemical. There are people who do not occupy the space of reasons so that attempting to engage them in that space is a fool's errand. They are in need of defeat or perhaps therapy, not rational persuasion.
The uses of blogging are manifold.
I've always thought there were indeed two kinds of people in the world - those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don't.
I haven't been participating much lately - sorry. The discussion of possible worlds has been very interesting. I'm also interested to see you taking on Dennett once again. Have you read either of his books about free will ("Elbow Room" and "Freedom Evolves")? they are very good, I think, and I'd be curious to know what you think of them.
The question of how tightly the possible wraps the actual is rather hard to pin down, it seems. Are you familiar with "Austin's Putt"?
I knew someone would reach for that old canard.
No need to apologize. You work for a living, with two kids in college or about to be, scratching out an existence in the mean streets of Gotham. I am amazed that you also find time to maintain a weblog and comment on other people's blogs. You are always welcome here to agree or disagree as is your wont and as your time permits.
I read Elbow Room years ago and published a paper on it. I have Freedom Evolves but haven't read it yet. It is on my agenda.
Austin's Putt -- is that a Dennett conceit from Freedom Evolves?
By the way, I owe you some moves and a reply to your PubSub e-mail. Sorry to be so lax, but I think I warned you months ago that I am not very efficient.
Do you really have to Alanyze everything? [grin]
"Austin's Putt" is apparently a famous example from 1961, by John Austin. He misses an easy putt, and the question is: "Could I have made it?"
No the paper is not on-line. But it is listed in this bibliography of articles about Dennett.
2. Disallowing comments from a particular person, or deleting an offensive, off-topic, or otherwise substandard comment, has nothing to do with censorship. People who think otherwise confuse censorship with lack of sponsorship. I am under an obligation not to interfere with anyone's exercise of legitimate free speech rights. But I am not under any obligation to aid and abet anyone's exercise of free speech rights, legitimate or illegitimate.
3. The Comments area is not an open forum for anyone to say anything about any topic. As the name implies, it is primarily for commenting on the author(s)' posts. But to comment on them, one must have read them. And if I have spent three hours on a post, a reader will not understand it in thirty seconds. Secondarily, the Comments area is to facilitate civil discussion between and among commenters as long as the discussion remains on-topic.
4. Some undesirables: The skimmers, those who cannot read but only read-in. The sophists who, abusing argument, argue for the sake of argument. The ideologues, those who are out for power, not truth. The uncivil. The illogical. The politically correct. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who exemplify the anti-Socratic property: those who think they know what they don't know. If Socrates was famous for his learned ignorance, these types are marked by their ignorant unlearnededness.