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Here Peter Staudenmaier continues to sidestep
the issue of what his own writing means.
To: <anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com>
References: <20040303044934.17920.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: Morality and Racism
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 18:22:27 -0500
HI Daniel, you wrote:
"This seems incredibly disrespectful of anthroposophists."
Peter Staudenmaier:
I think perhaps we disagree about what counts as respectful
discourse. I know absolutely nothing about calculus, for example.
You show me no disrespect whatever if you point out that fact.
Daniel responds:
Well, your counterexample nicely sidesteps my original accusation.
Of course I would show you no disrespect if I were to accuse
you of ignorance of calculus and knew this to be true (As
a side note, I must say, mathematics in general and calculus
specifically is a wonderful training in clear, logical thinking;
among other things, in math the answer is right or wrong,
and you can't argue over how to apply an exponent to a variable
or whether a negative sign really applies to the entire expression).
Your original accusation did not accuse a specific person
of ignorance. You accused an entire group of thousands of
individuals of ignorance, in a case where you are in a position
to know that in at least a few cases the accusation is not
true (and I grant you, it may have been inadvertent, and thus
not technically a "lie"). This type of generalization
is what I termed disrespectful. If I were to accuse all Waldorf
Critics of being unable to think logically and consistently,
that too would be disrespectful. Among other things, I have
no way of knowing whether my accusation really applies to
all such critics or just the ones I have come in contact with
so far. In making such a gross generalization, I would just
be shooting off my mouth.
Peter Staudenmaier did not respond to this post.
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