On 25 Oct 1995, Eccy de Jonge wrote:
> Oh what daring naivete, lets preach ethics and go out and rape women,
> since that seems to be OK justifiable behaviour for the likes of Jan
> and NIk, who cares if noone practices what they preach, or if
> everyone is a hypocrite. AS long as our WRITING is P.C lets go fuck
> small kiddies, right NIk??
This looks to me like the type of snotty personal attack that belongs on
the usenet lists rather than on this one. So, as someone who's been on
this list since its beginning, and who has thus seen the Heidegger's
Nazism football get kicked around many times, I would like to express my
concern.
I've never understood why this kind of "alt.flame.fuckyou" writing shows
up on the Heidegger list, usually around the Nazi issue. It is never
present on the Kant or Levinas lists, or on several other lists that I
subscribe to. But it shows up here -- usually when new people come onto
the list, or when somebody feels the need to come out of lurking and
straighten the rest of us out. I think it degrades the subject matter
and diverts the real intellectual intent of most people who subscribe and
contribute to the list.
We all feel passionately about this issue -- otherwise we wouldn't bother
with the list at all. But our personal passions aren't really what the
list is about -- all I can see from the post above is one writer's desire
to impose his ego onto others, and that kind of energy is distracting
and, uh, anti-intellectual. If there's a reasoned argument -- and I'm
sure this writer is convinced of his reasoning, as he is of his
self-righteousness -- it is obscured by the fulsome rhetoric and abusive
treatment of other people who are pretty much only trying to work through
the same issue themselves.
I like this list and don't want to see it degenerate. Let's try to cool
out these personal attacks.
Michael Harrawood
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