Sand wrote:
That's a very good observation. The protocol for this forum is that we may criticize ideas but not protagonists. Just how you disentangle the two is something I have yet to figure out. I try to step cautiously and consider that some ideas can only be produced by rather oddly constituted minds but the path is difficult. As you noted I find ruveyn a very well informed and bright guy but his orientation is very congruent to that of his ethnic Jewish culture which has been horribly and unjustifiably persecuted for centuries and it has, to my eyes, perverted his personality into an arrogant and violently defensive posture. All of his posts reveal this unfortunate attitude which is displayed openly by the Zionist movement in Israel to justify the frightful policies against the local Palestinians and the general sense that they must reply by overwhelming force to Arab response to the totally insensitive brutality by the Israel military forces. I do not deny that many of the Arabs are equally brutal and insensitive but there are justifications on both sides that must be faced and accepted before any sensible resolution to the problem is possible. Ruveyn is quite in line with this ultimate force policy and he has, several times, advocated using ultimate nuclear force against all Muslims and I find this rather unacceptably insane. This, to get back to the original comment, is a judgment of ruveyn as a person and I see no way to get around it except to indicate it is a rather personal viewpoint and I have no way of knowing if it is acceptable to the forum to object to the obliteration of a major portion of humanity on ethnic grounds.
I might note that my ancestry is also Jewish but I have discovered no validity in myself or my Jewish friends to justify the type of arrogant superiority that ruveyn extemporizes on insofar as being ethnically Jewish is concerned.
The difference between the two can be difficult to extract from one's personal perspective, but the method for doing so does have some process to it. Instead of addressing your issues and arguments to "you" as the other person, simply address them to "your ideas" instead. There is immense difference between attacking the person on the basis of their beliefs, and pursuing the ideas they postulate - the contrast between "You are insane" and "I find your ideas on religious persecution and resolution to be extremist, unreasonable and unjustifiable." Is it black and white? Not as much as we might like, but it does help to keep things civil instead of combative.
M.
_________________
My thanks to all the wonderful members here; I will miss the opportunity to continue to learn and work with you.
For those who seek an alternative, it is coming.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
05 Oct 2009, 9:42 am
