RE: misc responses

Well, maybe it is. Maybe it's just Personal Truth too, though. We'll never
know, though, unless we get it out in the open.
Jim

Here is a post from another list, I think JD will be around, the critics
will too but...

One has to wonder how meaningful it is when critics so marginalize
themselves from common sense as the deconstructionists seem to have
done. Are we to take them seriously? Is it really some kind of
discovery that language can be interpreted in many ways and distorted
beyond all recognition if one is determined enough? The wonder is that
we can communicate at all , or that language is as stable as it is.
Those who work in trying to make machines recognize natural language (I
work on the periphery of that in that my research interests involve
making precise sense of natural language requirements documents) run
into problems of immense proportions. It is really quite remarkable
that we communicate so well. The deconstructionists seem on the side of
further miring us in confusion, which is hardly helpful. Luckily since
no one can figure out what they are saying, it seems safe enough to
conclude that they aren't saying anything very important and ignore
them.

The problem is that they are spreading this stuff like an infection.
Young people are inclined to seize upon the new as significant since
chronological snobbery is the order of the day. Lewis was quite
concerned by the decline in liberal education in the 1950's and
expressed his concerns fairly often, often in terms of education as a
ticket to a job and thereby reducing education to vocational training.
I find that students automatically assume that things that are old are
not good or useful, at least ideas.

But of course the real question is whether something is true, not
whether it is new. It is easy to create new things, but it is also
interesting to see how few of the new things prove to be any good. Some
are of course, but the vast majority are not. So it is almost always
safe to ignore them for a while until they prove of enduring value. It
also keeps your stomach more settled.

Blessings, Ray

--
Ray Schneider,PE,Ph.D.
On the Search for the PERFECT Tomato
Come See Me at
http://users.adelphia.net/~schneirj/
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