[Buddha-l] Re: Gog and Magog

[Richard Hayes]

On Mon Sep 17 22:57:19 MDT 2007, Dr Lusthaus said (with reference to my claim 
that his reaction to Joanna Kirkpatrick's message was predictable):

> Predictable because every word was true and obvious. 

There is an important distinction between something being obvious to impartial 
observers and something to which a person is so committed as to be blind to 
alternative explanations. There was nothing more obvious about what you said 
in your reaction to Joanna than what Joanna said in the first place. The 
issue is one on which there are different perspectives, each with its 
legitimacy but neither without its shortcomings. To say that only your own 
perspective has legitimacy in this matter is as tragic as it is ludicrous.

> And no less 
> predictable than you taking the tact of offering a pseudo-refutation by
> impugning something about me the person rather than addressing the merits
> of the statements.

I see you are still struggling to understand what ad hominem argumentation 
consists in. As I understand it, ad hominem argumentation consists in evading 
the substance of a claim by attacking the character of the person making it. 
There was nothing in what I said that that was in any way an attempt to 
impugn your character. Indeed, the only thing I said was that your reaction 
to Joanna was predictable and came a little later than I thought it would. It 
left my computer as a friendly and affectionate roast. Somehow along the way 
it seems to have been transformed so dramatically that it arrived in your 
mailbox as a failed attempt at character assassination. Such are the hazards 
of electronic communication.

> As for Buddhist content, I consider every act of correcting
> mithyaa-d.r.s.ti an expression of Buddhism.

If you were indeed correcting mithyaa-d.r.s.ti, I would agree that you were 
doing something admirably Buddhistic. But what you were doing in this case 
was to accuse a view of being false and simply acclaiming that your view was 
true by offering "evidence" that is every bit as biased as the conclusion it 
was meant to support. You were trading in views no less than the person to 
whom you were responding. From your perspective, her view seemed false, but 
from her perspective yours seems just as false. Simply to stipulate that 
someone else's views are false is hardly an instance of becoming disentangled 
from views. And as I understand the texts I have read, it is complete 
disentanglement from all views that is the Buddhist project. (You might want 
to review the last chapter of Naagaarjuna's MMK. But beware of the many 
fallacious arguments he uses in defending his conclusions.)

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes