It's difficult to come up with a reply to that which doesn't mostly consist of "arrgh!" and beating my head against the monitor. I specifically said I didn't wish to penalise stupidity and that I have nothing against people who are unfortunately unable to do serious stuff with their brains. What could I have done to make this even clearer?
Perhaps you're inferring this "suggestion" from the fact that I said "every human being's birthright is" a functioning brain, and deducing that if a functioning brain is not the birthright of some person in particular then by contraposition I must think that person is not human? (I have to guess at this, because you didn't show your working.) If so, I would say that (a) that's taking a piece of grandiose and imprecise rhetoric rather more literally than its manufacturer intended; (b) if you must consider that sentence literally in light of brain-functioning-disadvantaged people, I would say that for the purposes of that statement a functioning brain is their birthright but they have been unfairly deprived of it by an unfortunate accident (in particular, if medical science could fix it we would have the same moral duty to do so as we do with any other ill or injured person); and (c) if all else fails I will simply reiterate here, in case anyone is still in doubt, that I'm more than happy to agree that such people are fully human.
I specifically said I didn't wish to penalise stupidity and that I have nothing against people who are unfortunately unable to do serious stuff with their brains. What could I have done to make this even clearer?
Omitted the phrase 'at any particular moment'? It seemed to me that you were deliberately distinguishing between the temporarily stupid and the permanently stupid.
(a) that's taking a piece of grandiose and imprecise rhetoric rather more literally than its manufacturer intended;
Quite possibly. I know I have a tendency to take things literally when I shouldn't.
Someone from Speakability (http://www.speakability.org.uk/), a charity that helps people with aphasia, came to speak at my church a fortnight ago, and showed us a video that included an interview with a woman with moderate aphasia, who used to have very severe aphasia, and who spoke about how upsetting (and untrue) she found it when people make gradiose and imprecise rhetoric about language being what separates us from the animals, so I resolved to challenge that kind of sentiment whenever I saw it. Sorry if I was too quick to decide your post came into that category.
'at any particular moment' may of course mean that at nearly every particular moment you're unable to do serious stuff with your brain. It's a continuum, innit?
Omitted the phrase 'at any particular moment'? It seemed to me that you were deliberately distinguishing between the temporarily stupid and the permanently stupid.
Ah, I see. In fact that was intended to have precisely the opposite effect: I intended it inclusively, because if I'd just said "people being [...] too stupid to think" I thought it would look as if I only meant the permanently stupid. So I added "at any particular moment" to include the momentarily or temporarily stupid as well, and my maths background must have got the better of me for just long enough to overlook the fact that not everybody would instinctively consider this to be a generalisation which included the case "at every moment".
So, sorry about the misunderstanding, and about my lack of patience in my previous reply.
It's difficult to come up with a reply to that which doesn't mostly consist of "arrgh!" and beating my head against the monitor.
Much sympathy. I've often wrestled with the idea of trying to get a post concentrating on one topic, and not getting sucked into a nearby messy topic.
(And do you ever read Raymond Chen's blog? His nitpicker's corner is similar, although more about the little questions than the big ones)
Alas, it seems that making bigger disclaimers often don't help. Partly from a natural desire to explore any interesting question raised -- even in a "Hey, I know you didn't want to talk about FOO, but you really should have mentioned BAR if you mentioned FOO". And simply that having the disclaimer draw attention.
I'm slowly coming to the idea that it's better to say less and hope no-one notices the messy question, or at most throwing in an aside ("of course, there's a lot to say abot FOO I haven't")
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Perhaps you're inferring this "suggestion" from the fact that I said "every human being's birthright is" a functioning brain, and deducing that if a functioning brain is not the birthright of some person in particular then by contraposition I must think that person is not human? (I have to guess at this, because you didn't show your working.) If so, I would say that (a) that's taking a piece of grandiose and imprecise rhetoric rather more literally than its manufacturer intended; (b) if you must consider that sentence literally in light of brain-functioning-disadvantaged people, I would say that for the purposes of that statement a functioning brain is their birthright but they have been unfairly deprived of it by an unfortunate accident (in particular, if medical science could fix it we would have the same moral duty to do so as we do with any other ill or injured person); and (c) if all else fails I will simply reiterate here, in case anyone is still in doubt, that I'm more than happy to agree that such people are fully human.
Omitted the phrase 'at any particular moment'? It seemed to me that you were deliberately distinguishing between the temporarily stupid and the permanently stupid.
(a) that's taking a piece of grandiose and imprecise rhetoric rather more literally than its manufacturer intended;
Quite possibly. I know I have a tendency to take things literally when I shouldn't.
Someone from Speakability (http://www.speakability.org.uk/), a charity that helps people with aphasia, came to speak at my church a fortnight ago, and showed us a video that included an interview with a woman with moderate aphasia, who used to have very severe aphasia, and who spoke about how upsetting (and untrue) she found it when people make gradiose and imprecise rhetoric about language being what separates us from the animals, so I resolved to challenge that kind of sentiment whenever I saw it. Sorry if I was too quick to decide your post came into that category.
Ah, I see. In fact that was intended to have precisely the opposite effect: I intended it inclusively, because if I'd just said "people being [...] too stupid to think" I thought it would look as if I only meant the permanently stupid. So I added "at any particular moment" to include the momentarily or temporarily stupid as well, and my maths background must have got the better of me for just long enough to overlook the fact that not everybody would instinctively consider this to be a generalisation which included the case "at every moment".
So, sorry about the misunderstanding, and about my lack of patience in my previous reply.
Much sympathy. I've often wrestled with the idea of trying to get a post concentrating on one topic, and not getting sucked into a nearby messy topic.
(And do you ever read Raymond Chen's blog? His nitpicker's corner is similar, although more about the little questions than the big ones)
Alas, it seems that making bigger disclaimers often don't help. Partly from a natural desire to explore any interesting question raised -- even in a "Hey, I know you didn't want to talk about FOO, but you really should have mentioned BAR if you mentioned FOO". And simply that having the disclaimer draw attention.
I'm slowly coming to the idea that it's better to say less and hope no-one notices the messy question, or at most throwing in an aside ("of course, there's a lot to say abot FOO I haven't")