Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Ain't This America What is distinctive about American art and letters

Actually, you completely missed the point. In reality it was a subtle and extended metaphor on the snobbery of the faux intellectual. They are easy to spot and an easy and cheap source of low humor, whether they be effete Europeans angered at their impotence, ex-pats from somewhere else trying to rationalize their coming here to make a living, or ex-pat Americans trying desperately to appear worthy of a reserved table at some Left Bank hangout for wannabes.

I imagine that Socrates would have been put off at your hubris and sophocles or Euripides would have made you the butt of Olympian vengeance.

A couple points for your consideration Numan:
1. We are not here to be taught, so pedagogical methods are inappropriate. We are here to discuss and yes, learn from one another. But to assume a pedagogical stance is insulting to the rest of us for it assumes you know something we should learn and have consented to that relationship. It may come as news, but in all the many postings here I have very seldom seen anything you said that was a fact that none of the rest of us knew. It is all opinion, and that is not a part of the pedagogical method.

2. Questioning any and all assumptions is valuable. But that is not what you do. You claim to express truth, I suppose in your mind "truth to power" which is not a challenge to accepted knowledge but a claim of knowledge. Again, almost never do you state facts, and even rarer is your backing up your claims with links to background or source material, as is urged by our guidelines. Where are your reasoned, thought through suggestions for making change in your former home?

3. This assertion of a unique view of knowledge lacks all semblance of humility and is thrown in, you now apparently admit, merely to incite "Americans." That is an argumentative stance that is offensive and merely riles people up, not inform or seek truth.

Everyone on this board knows that the U.S. is a terribly, maybe even fatally flawed nation. But that knowledge is coupled with a desire and in most a commitment to find ways to improve those flaws. I do not see that in your post. As a matter of fact, you have fled the U.S. and now seek to demonize over 300 million people.

You know you could have stayed here and helped out rather than run away and take pot shots at us. I truly hope you are happier where you are and that your new home allows you to flourish.

But if you aren't part of the solution -- and I mean more than bloviating -- then you are part of the problem no matter how you try to paint things as "pedagogical."

So, simply put, you need a lesson in humility.

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Americans are so cute when they get angry.

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I think of myself as a kind of vaccine that confers resistance to the disease of Americanism.


You are too kind.

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I'm wondering how you got that infection and what happened that filled you with such hate against America. Were you in prison? Beat up by a motorcycle gang? Kicked out of college for being too ... smart?

It seems to be my fate to be always teaching the lessons in humility.

Oh dear, oh dear! Americans are so "either--or"!

I'm wondering what scarred you so that you see mild criticism as hate?

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It was not an either-or statement. It was a question you don't seem to want to answer.

Too bad; that is your loss.

Aristotle was asked how the educated differed from the uneducated. He replied, "As the living from the dead."

That pretty well sums it up.

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It is almost the essence of the disease of Americanism that they are so quick to take offense.

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