Thursday, September 12, 2013

Umpired Umbathy, Pathic and Pathological, Part XIII

I want to discuss difficult subjects and what I need to realize is this cannot be done with ease.

At the same time, I cannot allow the discussion of difficult subjects to itself become difficult; I cannot allow the discussion to be by its very nature a barrier to discussion.

What degree of difficulty is reasonable and appropriate to expect??? What level of effort must I demand from myself or my interlocutors?  The answer cannot be no effort if the subjects to be discussed are indeed difficult.

I cannot offer compensations or incentives to anyone taking the other side of a discussion with me, and I am aware of the risk to others of seeing their time and efforts utterly wasted absent these.

Is their a way of freeing thought and discussion from a certain puritanical exclusiveness, orthodoxy, and censoriousness without excusing thought and discussion from the real difficulties thought and discussion must encounter to be worthy of the names " thought and discussion" ? If so, how?

What are the material conditions of productive discussion, collaboration?