From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Question for Ruth
Date: 12 Nov 92 22:23:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Nov12.172310.17384
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Nov12.132339.434@news.wesleyan.edu>
RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg) writes:

>I will not grace Mr. Zeleny's response with a reply, since he has already set
>himself outside of my philosophical community by proclaiming himself to be
>*opposed* to civil discourse.  One of the distinct pleasures of academic
>philosophy is getting to choose from among one's critics those to whom one will
>reply.  I reply only to those who converse in good faith, and with reasonably
>good manners, which criteria Mr. Zeleny fails to meet.

My good faith is an issue between me and my maker, Dr Ruth; as for whether
or not it is to be found in my conversation, your interpretation may vary
according as you take it to be representative of honesty or sincerity.
(On this latter choice, I suspect that you would be found on the side of
self-regarding sincerity, both because of your Rortean appeals to the
nebulous powers of community, and because your disingenuous objections to
allegedly uninformed Philosophical Sneers evidently do not commit you to
abstaining from self-professedly uninformed Philosophical Endorsement.)
Concerning your strenuous objections to my manners, which strangely enough
did not interfere with your questioning my deliberate insult of your
position statement, only to give you an excuse for not responding to a
detailed, and, -- dare I say it, -- civil criticism of your argument, I am
sufficiently vain to conclude that in this case it is only your own loss.

RG:
>However I must correct one factual error which, if left uncontroverted, would
>give a false impression.

In <1992Nov12.042127.17368@husc3.harvard.edu> 
zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu writes:

MZ:
>> edifice with a meta-phenomenological redescription of her own.  Now, how
>> could the NEH dare to look askance at such selfless devotion to the
>> scholarly ideal?  Well, never mind their comfortable predispositions, for
>> I can, have, and will continue to do so.

RG:
>The NEH has no "comfortable predispositions" to fund my, or any other feminist
>scholars' research.  You must have missed the recent expose in THE CHRONICLE OF
>HIGHER EDUCATION in which Lynne Cheney (head of NEH) was criticized for bias
>*against* humanities projects related to gender or feminism.  Indeed, the
>criticism was that there are certain "death-words" -- if they appear anywhere
>in your grant proposal, it gets an automatic turn-down.  Some of these
>blacklisted words allegedly include "feminist", "feminism", "gender", and
>"multiculturalism".  In all fairness to Ms. Cheney, she denies these
>allegations.  But the investigative reporters from the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER
>EDUCATION stood by their story, despite her denial. At any rate, Mr. Zeleny is
>in error in asserting that the NEH has "comfortable predispositions" in favor
>of funding feminist research.  If anything, it is suspected of bias in the
>other direction.

Duh.  Learn to read, Dr Ruth.  The comfortable predispositions of the NEH
are not at all limited to feminist scholarship, but encompass all sorts of
self-serving drivel.  By the way, your little confession of a pillow fight
with Charles Taylor in the NEH Summer Ethics Institute seems to give lie
to your current insinuation of blacklisting "multiculturalism", seeing how
your valiant opponent has fashioned himself into the prophet of "the
politics of recognition".

>------------------------
>Ruth Ginzberg <rginzberg@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
>Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Un de mes plus grands plaisirs est de jurer Dieu quand je bande."