Word: argument
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Mostly I want to say that Jedediah Purdy is a funny name. And also that his argument that irony is poisoning our culture is really stupid. That's the kind of argument we ironists use. We also use idiot and scalawag. But ironically...
...Bookbinder, Nicolaus Notabene and Constantin Constantius. In the world of 19th century Christian philosophy, this is sidesplitting stuff, trust me. In the book, Kierkegaard wrote, "Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it but loved by those who do." When I ran Kierkegaard's argument by Purdy, he said, "Kierkegaard is very neat...
...Lemann's argument, to be fair, is not that Americans should be judged by character in college admissions, but rather that college admissions should not be the defining test in a person's life. But here, again, he runs into problems. If, as Lemann suggests, we take the extreme view that people should always be judged by performance rather than potential, we must provide everyone with precisely the same opportunity to perform. But providing everyone in the nation with exactly the same education would be a disservice both to those who would benefit from more rigorous academic training...
Hodge has not read Purdy carefully enough to express himself coherently on the topic, but one senses that Hodge's criticism is built upon umbrage at the fact that For Common Things, at its heart, is not about intellectual arguments but rather about Jedediah Purdy's passionate hopes. The instance of an idealist is offensive and risible to the ironic mind that can not stand to see ideals expressed or fulfilled: "our being human," writes Purdy, "has become a strong argument against cleaving to demanding values, or respecting them in others." One can sense in Hodge the resentfulness born...
...common perception of human responsibility.The environmentalist's have believed that, ultimately, it is not logical consideration that brings people to hopeless irony, and that redemption too will be effected not through logic but through passion and commitment.The use of the exemplary self is the attempt to convince not through argument but through moral suasion: if I can act this way or believe these things, the speaker suggests, so can you. And aphorism does not necessarily proceed through channels of reason but rather through inspiring an emotional response of identification, an instinctual rather than an intellectual...