We don't need no water, let the mother fucker burn
There is a school of thought, regrettably common among some Americans, that there are two equally valid positions to every argument, and selecting a third position somewhere in the middle makes you a moderate.
This is, quite obviously, complete and utter horseshit.
If I tell you, "The floor upstairs is on fire, we should evacuate the building," and someone else says, "No, I was upstairs a week ago Thursday, and it wasn't on fire," these are not two equally valid positions. The other person is clearly insane. If you throw up your hands and say, "Well, you're telling me two different things, I'm not sure what to think," then you, too, are clearly insane, and I assure you I'll be going through your desk looking for valuables before taking the stairs out of the building.
Clearly, this analogy doesn't hold for every sitch either. In fact, you should be wary of every sentence that uses the modifier "every," including the one you're reading right this instant.
Heh. Never get tired of that gag.
Seriously, when I was banging on in my OCD fashion about rejecting dualism a few months back, that's part of what I meant. Sometimes, there ain't "two equally valid positions," and the trick is knowing when.
My suggestion is, if one of these positions is coming from a right-winger, that's probably the clearly insane one, but that's me. I'm biased.
Comments
that's pretty much a shades of gray thing, isn't it? there are short sided/no sided/tunnelvision fools that only see in all black or all white. as a matter of fact, it's not even shades of gray; its derivations of color. that's what people at each end and, perhaps, in the middle don't understand. you can never see what someone else is seeing or experience what they've experienced. you will never completely see or understand their viewpoint. if i stood in your shoes, exactly where you have stood, and looked out through your minds eye at exactly what you are seeing, and then decipher it with your life experiences, perhaps then i would (or anyone) get it. thus, every subject can have countless positions. the intelligent just find common ground on which to agree, sit, recline, watch the idiot show (aka c-span, cnbc, msnbc, etc), and pray the ptb don't f up anymore than necessary. i swear it seems like people in this country have forgotten how to think for themselves. almost everyone has a pod. i don't care what anyone says.
using your example, just because i run down the fire stairs, well ahead of your thievin' ass i might add (just grab someone's handbag-not mine-or coat-not mine either-and roll brutha), doesn't mean i agree with everything you say and disagree with fool. it just means that in that self preservation is a muthafukka, especially in that instance. lady in a wheelchair what? timmy's in a well who? negro pls. my beige ass does not do crispy.
Posted by: Enigma | March 30, 2004 6:02 PM
Wow.
I mean, you managed to not only miss the entire point -- that this isn't a shades of gray thing, that implies this is between "black" and "white" when it's more like between "black" and "alfalfa sprouts," the supposed other side is total non sequitur -- but were pretty offensive in the process.
That's almost impressive, in a way.
Oh, and try getting a keyboard with a shift key. Better to have one stuck in lower case than all caps, but not that much better.
Posted by: Aaron | March 31, 2004 7:58 AM
I got it from jump, Aaron.
But while I resigned myself awhile ago that on some things that we wouldn't see eye-to-eye (and I'm OK with that; life would be pretty damn boring if you agreed with everyone!), I've got no clue as to where Enigma was going...
Posted by: mhking | March 31, 2004 10:16 AM