Re: General Observation

[Scott Hays <shays@ccwebster.net>]

On Jun 7, 2006, at 3:20 AM, "Horn, James" <jhorn@monmouth.edu> wrote:

> I agree.  Keeping Burke around eliminates the need for any nuanced  
> discussion of policy, assessment, curriculum or anything else.  He  
> is a dependable and easy foil, pinata, and shameless idiot fool all  
> rolled into one.  For those who engage him, it offers a semblance  
> of moving a point forward, when, in fact, any possible movement has  
> been blocked by an unremitting refusal to even see the beginning  
> point. You are right, Scott--this would be a very different list if  
> he were booted, a fate he has earned many times over.

Jim ... you misunderstood.  I do not advocate ... nor was I asking  
that ... Art be "booted" from this list (or, as he so eloquently put  
it, "silenced").  I actually was not suggesting a course of action,  
at all, which is why the subject line identified my comments as a  
"general observation".  I am perturbed by the politicization of  
everything and, in the case of this list, specifically of education.   
I am bothered that voices of "experts" ... whose expertise often is  
in anything but education ... carry more weight than do those of  
practitioners; and because no one listens anymore, the voices of  
reason and experience are lost.  I concluded my "observations" by  
stating we cannot ignore the criticisms directed at us ... I wish  
they would be elevated to something beyond selective daggers aimed at  
short passages taken from a broader context (my pet peeve with Art is  
that he ignores the whole fabric of an argument and focuses on a  
single inconsistency that he thinks he has seized) ... and would add  
now that maybe responses to such criticisms can help us refine our  
argument.  I don't know ... I'm currently reading about Lincoln and  
maybe just in a funk about polar extremes of leadership between what  
we have had and what we now have.

All men having power ought to be mistrusted
-- James Madison