[Membroj] Mort-al Foot in Mouth

Thu Oct 30 22:16:16 EDT 2008

If Ralph is bigoted about anything, he may have a slight bigotry against conservatism, which in the European tradition (much less in the American) has been linked to antisemitism. I don't see that Ralph sees Catholicism and antisemitism as inseperable (as Daniel J. Goldhagen, for instance, seems to), but he is simply aware of Catholicism's very dodgy history on the matter. I wasn't aware this was a particularly controversial matter.

As for Adler, I wonder whether this co-founder of the Great Books of the Western World was simply expressing his preference for works from Europe and America over the great Semitic writings, the Bible and the Quran. Maybe he really did mean anti-Semitism (as opposed to antisemitism, a form of Jew-hatred), opposition to the cultures found together with the Semitic languages....
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: William A. Cubbedge 
  To: Charles R.L. Power 
  Sent: Thursday, 30 October 2008 10:46 AM
  Subject: Re: [Membroj] Mort-al Foot in Mouth

  Mr. Power,

  Yours is a reasonable argument based on the presentation of evidence, and I have no problem with that.  I have a problem more with what Mr. Dumain did not offer (a basis for his screed or a logical exposition of his proposition that Catholicism is so closely connected with Antisemitism as to be inseparable) than what he did offer (which isn't much more than the same old bunk and moonshine I've been given by most anti-Catholics in my life.)  I  tolerate the company of reasoning people, whether or not they agree with me.  I cannot tolorate a bigot, be he an anti-Catholic bigot, an anti-Semitic bigot, an athiestic bigot, or elsewise.  

  And the Pope to whom you refer was St. Pius X, but his syllybus was not a list of general maxims, rather, it was a list of previosu condemnations of the underlying anti-religous suppositions that supported acts of revolutionary regimes in certain European countries (France in particular) that denied the rights of the Church and the rights of concious of Catholics.  The Syllabus should not be read or interperated outside of this context as it was by the Protestant barnburners in the United States when it was published against Catholic participation in democracy.

  Yorus Truly,
  Will Cubbedge

  On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Charles R.L. Power <vze3m7md at verizon.net> wrote:

    I'd say that yes, we tolerate anti-religious rhetoric. Ralph is a very opinionated guy and also one of the most knowledgeable about intellectual history I've ever known. Religions are collections of ideas, and ideas can be good or bad. Some of the ideas the Catholic Church has held through its long history are now recognized as not completely correct nor even very decent. For example, what one pope called the Syllabus of Errors is largely a collection of core beliefs of a tolerant, democratic society. Personally, as an unbeliever born into the Catholic Church, I have mixed feelings about its history. My feelings are relatively unmixed about another religion, Islam, and I wouldn't rule out the idea of a lecture in Esperanto sometime about why I consider Islam to be a dangerous religion for a tolerant society, though others would be free to tell me I'm full of it as well. This is the sense in which I think toleration is good -- tolerating ideas with which we disagree. 

    On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at  9:38 AM, William A. Cubbedge wrote:

    I know enough about history to make the following two statements with reasonable certitude: 

    1) The rash generalizations and ad hominem "arguments" you have made are a sure sign that I am being baited by a bigot.  This fallacious tact is also employed by the Anti-Semites I've run accross as a duckblind for their ignorance. and, ironically, by you for what I assume to be the same reason.  I will not engage in an argument with a bigot, nor a wall, nor a cow, nor any other unreasoning thing. 

    2) Esperanto was founded to increase understanding among disperate peoples.  You have brought a sectarian religous debate into a forum for Esperanto, and in so doing, you have appropriated this little corner of the movement to serve your selfish pursuit of rectitude.  

    Perhaps I got the Washington society all wrong.  Perhaps this sort of anti-religious rhetoric is tolorated, or even encoruaged, by the membership. I am an Esperanto neophyte, and you have sucsesfully chased me away from the Washington society.  I have no interest in spending my free time in the company of someone who lacks the self-control to put aside his anti-Catholic partisanship for the sake of attracting others to Esperanto. 

    Will Cubbedge 

    On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 1:43 AM, Ralph Dumain < rdumain at autodidactproject.org> wrote: 
    You quite obviously know nothing of history, for example of the period in which Adler was active.  The Catholic Church's historic crimes against the Jews (not to mention others) are well-known, so deal with it.  Secondly, it's one thing to be born into something and make the best of it, but conversion is entirely another matter.  A Jew converting to Catholicism, that is, to defect to his persecutors, is a turn to authoritarianism and the right.  A conversion to a more conservative and authoritarian denomination of the same religion might be comparable.  For example, a secular Jew turning orthodox.  Or a liberal Catholic joining the fascist Opus Dei.  That Esperanto is the creation of a member of a persecuted people is no accident, and if you can't be honest about history, you need to refrain from engaging in major discourse. 

    On another note, there have been several critiques of the Great Books program.  I can't put my finger on more than one. I recall only the first I ever read: 

    Macdonald, Dwight. "The Book-of-the-Millennium Club," in Against the American Grain: Essays on the Effects of Mass Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1965), pp. 243-261. 

    There is a body of literature on intellectual popularization in the first half of the 20th century. I don't recall whether this book addresses the Great Books program, but here's an important reference: 

    Rubin, Joan Shelley. The Making of Middlebrow Culture . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. 

    I do not recall whether this noted author addresses the Great Books at all: 

    Cotkin, George. "Middle-Ground Pragmatists: The Popularization of Philosophy in American Culture," Journal of the History of Ideas , vol. 55, no. 2, April 1994, 283-302. 

    At 10:38 PM 10/29/2008, Will Cubbedge wrote: 
    Your gutter language and your association of my Catholic fath with anti-semitism on a public Esperanto email list does not help the language any more than Adler's dumb use of the word Esperanto.  

    -- 
    William A. Cubbedge, J.D. 
    301-328-7761 

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  William A. Cubbedge, J.D.
  301-328-7761

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