Re: <nettime> The insult of the 1 percent: "Art-history majors"

["Sascha D. Freudenheim" <sascha@sascha.com>]

Wow, Brian! Nothing like an ad hominem attack to take the discussion to 
the next level of intellectual heft and seriousness. With my middle 
initial included no less!

I think your conclusions are absurd, both of my position(s) and about 
the environment you're supposedly examining so clearly. Yes, I did 
(apropos "Occupy Student Debt") argue against that movement. I don't 
think it's a "moral obligation" for spoiled kids to pay for their 
expensive educations. I think people have a moral obligation to pay 
their debts and not just walk away from them because they've 
intellectualized a rationale for why they shouldn't have to owe the debt 
any more. Nor do I think there isn't a problem in (higher) education--I 
just don't think that abandoning debt is the answer to that problem. 
It's pretending that Robin Hood-ism is the same thing as actual social 
change.

But that's the last battle. In this one, I'm not neutral. Far from it. I 
just find some of the attitudes and positions articulated here and 
elsewhere to be a whole lot of intellectual wankery--more words than 
actual action to help the people who really need help. It's a lot easier 
to attack verbally people like Conard than it is to close the laptop and 
go out and find someone who needs help and actually help them.

Sascha


Sascha D. Freudenheim
Doubt is humanity's best friend.
http://www.thetruthasiseeit.com/
http://www.sascha.com/

On 5/4/12 11:15 AM, Brian Holmes wrote:

> On 05/03/2012 04:40 PM, Sascha D. Freudenheim wrote:
> > My point is that I don't think over-generalizing from Conard's absurd
> > comments is necessarily very helpful. He's one guy. He's entitled to his
> > opinions, however ignorant we think they are. But there are people with
> > significantly more complex relationships to the world(s) of ideas, art,
> > culture, and wealth. Koch is one of them. I don't agree with most of his
> > political views, but he is evidence that there are people whose
> > motivations as part of the 1% are not as simple-minded as Conard's--and
> > not as simple as the rest of us often assume.
>
> You know, Sascha, I am afraid you are the very example of the person
> whose opinions should no longer count in intellectual debates. Because
> you are unable to take a stand. You are unable to even see the ground
> you are standing on.
<...>


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