Since I have done my Pecha-Kecha I have once against flip-flopped on what subject I would like to dedicate myself to on my Big One. At first I thought of doing something purely philosophical, and later I changed my mind to wanting to do something about economics, but now I wish to do something in regards to nutrition. All of the aforementioned subjects, of course, incorporate epistemology in some way.

A budding interest of mine as of current is the practice of cooking and the studying of nutrition. Last summer I took steps to better take care of my health by trying to better adhere to the Standard American Diet (SAD), but then I read a portion of Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories* and was shocked to find out that conventional nutritional wisdom is corrupt and wrong, and so from there took to exerting an effort to discover what composes a truly healthy diet. As a result of those efforts I have found myself enjoying the act of cooking and baking more and more since I started really enjoying the flavor of my food (I hated eating when I was on the SAD).

*(The book is so informationally dense that I have yet to finish it.)

If I dedicate myself to this subject field I will easily be able to focus on my issue from an epistemological perspective. I have already done so on a smaller scale at my intellectually-dedicated blog Benpercent in my post titled The Power of Epistemology: The Fat Controversy where I explained briefly how bad epistemology is responsible for today's erogenous conventional wisdom. I am thinking about dedicating myself to this same topic again, only being more elaborative on the epistemological mistakes being made and what tragedies they have led to (in this case, how an improper rejection of certain nutritional sources has lead to popular advocation of anti-nutritional practices and sources).

I already have some sources lined up: the book mentioned above, the book The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson, and the movie Fat Head by Tom Naughton. As for further resources, I will pursue them by looking at the cited sources in the above works.

What I hope to accomplish with this subject is to show how bad epistemology ultimately leads to disaster, which in the case of nutrition means suffering, disease, and death. By seeing what horrors bad epistemology brings I hope to encourage people to take seriously a study of good epistemology.

More updates (and hopefully not flip-flops) soon.

I did my Pecha-Kecha (pah-kashs-scah) presentation today – I was the first one to go. Surprisingly, it went better than I thought it would, as during my mental rehearsal I kept erring on keeping up with the slides, while during the presentation I did perfectly fine, though I did speak too quickly on the last slide and ran out of things to say before the final twenty seconds were up. I attribute this success to my speaking skills, but what else is involved?

This is quite an interesting experience for me. I am not well-practiced in giving speeches in public or anything, and yet there I was giving a speech virtually free of fear and seldom stumbling over my words. Do I have an innate knack for this kind of thing, or have I done something to bring forth this mentality? In a way I have to admit I would like to do more presentations, as they not only help me practice with my speaking and being in front of crowds they also help me build courage on speaking openly on my convictions. I believe that comfort in expressing the essence of one’s being to be one of the most important psychological traits for a person to have, if he intends try and change his environment to fit his worldview. Perhaps in the future I would do well to select more classes that would involve giving multiple presentations.

But anyhow, my PK presentation was still far from perfect. I would have done better if I had scripted out my speech word-for-word, therefore allowing me to keep pace perfectly with the slides, but I instead relied on speaker’s notes (which I did not need to read at all it turns out). I also think that my use of images may have been a little bit obscure to the audience since I did not verbally explain the images’ relation to the content of the speech except for the slide with the dominos. How terrible it is to have made all these realizations after the fact! At least for consolation I know now that I know better.

I wonder how my presentation will affect the others. I noticed in the two that went after me the people were so bashful that they stayed focused on their script. To this I say people should make an effort to overcome their anxieties in an effort to self-improve. Given enough effort desensitization will come naturally and the gawks of the crowd will cease to be a problem.

Well, I guess I’ll have to wait and see what comes next.

Well, I finished the three assigned articles and I must say I do not have much to say about the first two articles, What Plagiarism Looks Like and Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices. The former one is disturbing in how such a terrible case of plagiarism that has been endorsed by a portion of academia -- which should make us take unseriously the offender and his advocates -- and the latter one seemed to be too directed at college professors that are already employed, thereby failing to engage my intellectual faculties.

The article The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism, however, did manage to set off a few thought processes. I did have some severe disagreements with the author about several of his points that I am sure would entertain you to read, but such would be much more appropriate for a much longer essay than I am willing to commit to at this point. The lasting and most important impression the article left on me after finishing is whether or not I should rethink my premise that all artwork should be totally original. After pointing out how several art works did borrow elements and whatnot from other earlier works and how various popular culture phenomenons (such as the Flintstones) were often derivative of other creations I said in my mind that I disrespected such a practice, but now when I examine my memory for the things I like I realize inherent in those too are influences and borrowed elements from various other works, so now I have come to be confused: should I too shun these works, or is my original premise mistaken in some way?

Creativity, broadly, involves the act of rearranging various elements in reality to form a new combination that would not otherwise occur on its own; for instance, the colors on the canvas coming together to form the Mona Lisa. While nature may have made the model who posed for the painting, one cannot simply go out in the wild and pick Mona Lisa's off a tree: that is the way in which being creative brings together things that otherwise would not get together. But in rethinking my original premise I realize now that there are only so many possible combinations of various elements available to us, so does that mean borrowing from other works is inevitable? I am still not convinced of this: when the author said that the Flintstones depended on the Honeymooners in order to come into existence he neglected to point out on which influences the latter depends on for its own existence, for if you say that every creative product is in some way a plagiarism of another (I am not sure if the author adheres to this view) you unavoidably run into an infinite regression of influences.

All I can really say is I do not know right now. This will be something to think about for a while.    

[The first part of Pop-up Scholarship cannot be posted due to copyright restriction. It is prohibited that the article be reproduced in full on the internet, but since I am a subscriber I have the right to print out as many hard copies as I want and distribute them, so my marked-up article will be handed in via physical copy. For those curious, the article I am using is Objective Moral Values by Craig Biddle, and the opening paragraphs are available here for free to non-subscribers.]

After reflecting upon this piece I still hold steadfast onto my view -- which I presented during my group facilitation -- that academic writing should be grammatical, concise, and clear above all other considerations, and this article is a wonderful demonstration of those principles: it is properly structured, says no more than it needs to say, and avoids using overly complicated words when simpler ones are available (unlike those who abuse their thesaurus). This is in stark contrast to those who make their writing nearly incomprehensible by forgoing grammar, thereby obscuring meaning; forgoing brevity, thereby making it difficult for the mind to concentrate; and forgoing clarity, thereby reducing the likelihood that the reader will even comprehend what they are saying; which all defeats the purpose of writing to begin with. To consider good academic writing as successfully engaging others in conversation (as They Say I Say does) is to neglect the more fundamental issues and allows at best a sloppy stumbling around.    

The one thing that strikes me about this article that makes it different from other academic pieces I have read is how explicitly systematic it is. The author does not merely depend on a previous context for understanding each of his ideas; he uses explicit transitions and repetitions to show how each idea builds and depends on one another, thereby allowing the reader to form a cohesive unit in his mind rather than a series of disconnected propositions. This aids a lot in my ability to comprehend, understand, and mentally retain what I am reading here. In other pieces I have observed that not only do I usually find myself burdened with context-building myself, but I also have to work much harder at connecting the dots and comprehending in general, as some authors seem not to take awareness of how their ideas attach to each other and have systematic consequences. If all academic writers made more effort to adopt this practice reading would become a much more intellectually fruitful task and would attract a greater readership. (Of course, those who deal in fallacies would have their errors more thoroughly exposed if they were to adopt this practice, so we cannot count on such evasive writers as those to adopt this practice.)

This leads me to conclude that academic writing is troubled by unnecessary problems, like those indicated above, due to accepting bad principles. By accepting these bad principles they make the writing process harder to go through than it should be and make for quality products to come forth more infrequently. The notion (from TSIS) that good academic writing entails successfully engaging others in conversation/argument, for instance, skips a few steps and causes writers to consider things out of order and creates difficulty. It can be plainly seen that many students in the context of today have not yet mastered grammar -- whether it be by inadequate training, young age, or slothfulness -- so to be concerned with conversations and arguments comes too soon when there is such a serious absence of knowledge and skills at this point.

Writers are not only encouraged to take certain considerations out of order but are also taught to take on certain practices before they have even established the appropriate knowledge to begin to comprehend what they are. I noted previously on this blog that it was comical that TSIS states that it does not deal in teaching logical reasoning or formal fallacies when some of the authors' own reasoning is fallacious, but I did not realize the full extent of the comedy. If this text is meant for first-year writing students, then it is absurd to have them engaging in arguments when they have not yet taken their first logic (formal or informal) course nor have any teachings of logic inherent within their writing course. By encouraging them to engage in arguing at this point it will result in making them abstain from the process (you cannot do what you cannot do), making them become adverse to the process, or making them incompetently flail around if they should choose to engage. In short, students should not be encouraged to undertake logical reasoning before they even know what logical reasoning even is. Teachers should take it upon themselves to correct this error of educational discourse by incorporating an explicit hierarchy in their lesson plans.

But as for my own feelings in regards to academic writing as it applies to my practices, little needs to be pointed out -- repeated actually -- here. Academic writing is in actuality my preferred writing format, and such can be observed from the personal blog links that are posted on my profile page. I did at one point engage in fictional writing when I dreamed of becoming a fiction writer as my lifelong career, but I have since lost that desire, stopped writing fiction, and, after a somewhat long period of only sporadic writing, settled into writing for my own mental benefit (to improve my thinking and knowledge) and for cultural activism. Writing is still a personal value to me, only now I wish to engage in almost nothing but intellectual discourse, and in the future that means I will be doing more to perfect myself through practice rather than adopting a new mode of expression. This would not be a change to my habits, but rather an intensifying of them.

As for which principles I would like to adopt: certainly the ones that are apparent in the article linked above (clarity, brevity, usage of uncomplicated terminology, etc.). Given how easy the article is to read one may have the reflective response that it is not mainstream academia, but I have never bother to avoid running against the grain, have I?

In my last post I mentioned a thesis I may possibly write my research paper on. Now I will take it upon myself to explain in more detail what topics I am thinking of. I am not dedicated at this point, so I still have more thinking to do and would appreciate some feedback. Let us attack things in the manner of a list. Possible essay topics include:

1.) Indulgence in base emotions as the root of all evil.

Philosophy is one of the greatest intellectual interests in my life: I practice it and think about it every single day. Explicitly, I consider myself a student of Objectivism. (I consider myself a student rather than a full-blown Objectivist since my knowledge is not complete, therefore I cannot apply the principles of the system to practice consistently as of yet.)

One thing I had been in great disagreement with Ayn Rand over, however, is the notion that Immanuel Kant is the most evil philosopher that ever lived. That seemed like an unjust accusation considering she was condemning him for his ideas, not his actions. I wondered why this should be: could he not be innocently mistaken about his views? Rand herself admitted that men are not omniscience and can commit errors of knowledge, so could we not just consider Kant as having held onto erroneous conclusions all his life? Surely he is not to be condemned for that!

But then I started reading Leonard Peikoff's work The Ominous Parallels and came upon a disturbing passage* in which Kant blatantly admits that his system of ethics is not supported by any evidence whatsoever, whether it be within the supernatural or natural realm. I was shocked; this is as close as anyone could come to admitting he is making up his theory. Prior to and after this passage Dr. Peikoff details Kant's ethics as being based on causeless and unchosen "duties" which have a moral status that can be affected by what emotions one feels when performing them. That is right: Kant gives moral weight to the mere experiencing of emotions, stating that positive emotions (such as an actual desire to do your duty) by fact of their existence make one's actions amoral while negative emotions (such as those experienced by those who suffer in doing their duty) transform one's actions into virtues. In short, Kant states that the more you suffer the more virtuous you are, but he also admits there is no evidence anywhere to support this.

Now I fully comprehend why Rand called Kant evil: he developed a system of ethics based on suffering while at the same time being fully aware that it was completely arbitrary. To go so far with the acknowledged absence of evidence can only mean that Kant was indulging in base emotions while constructing his ideology. From this I started noticing that in my everyday life there are people who issue moral dictates and claims to knowledge when they are really just trying to disguise the fact that they want to act on their emotions. Take, for example, the man who justifies his unwillingness to change his bad habits of acting by claiming he cannot change. Or the aged person who wants to forgo the effort of thinking by claiming his age has rendered him fully developed and unable to learn further. And so on. 

If I write my essay on this topic I will go into Kant's system in more detail and explain by what criterion I judge that a person is indulging in emotional "vibrations" rather than putting forth a serious effort to identify truth.

2.) Why manipulated alternatives are not valid.

I have actually already written an essay on this topic over at my personal blog, but I think I could do a better job and make it more concise. Simply put, this topic is about how some people will coerce a certain set of alternatives onto a person, force him to choose between them, and then hold him absolutely responsible for his decision as if the alternatives were not forced on him. The logic that coerced alternatives can be treated as valid is everywhere. I conclude and clarify with an example from my extensive post Slavery or the Highway: Volunteerism:

Person X is enjoying an afternoon stroll with his daughter in the park when suddenly person Y jumps out at him and pulls out a gun. Y demands that X either give up his daughter or Y will shoot him dead. X refuses to give up his daughter, and so Y shoots him dead. A police officer sees that Y has committed a murder, and so restrains him, calls an ambulance, and begins questioning the criminal. Surprisingly, Y is surprised that he is arrested. When asked, here is the exchange that occurs:

Y: But I did no wrong! I am entirely moral!
Police: What are you talking about?! I just saw you murder a man right in front of me!
Y: I did not murder him! He chose to be killed!
P: What?!
Y: I offered him a choice. He was to either give me his daughter or he was to be killed by me. Since he chose not to give me his daughter, he chose death. I merely carried out his wish. 

3.) Why it is easy to be a health nut.

While this may appear out of place with the prior topics, still such a subject is a value to me. Ever since I changed my diet and adopted explicit nutritional views I have been amazed with the results I have achieved with my health, and am dismayed that the whole subject of eating healthy is often met with images of working out for hours and eating a single leaf salad for dinner, so my purpose on writing on this subject would be to dispel the myths by pointing out how conventional nutritional views are wrong and how being healthy can be a very pleasurable experience.

----------------------

Anyhow, these are the topics I am considering for right now. I may add more, but I think most favorably of these alternatives. Number two sounds most tempting. 

* The copyright restrictions in the book prohibit reproduction in any part, so I cannot quote it. Check out the book (published by Meridian); the passage is the last sentence on page 74, continuing onto 75.  

I am greatly disappointed, but I agree with the authors of TSIS on metacommentary. Luckily I still have more to say other than just mere agreement, for something struck me as rather odd. In the last paragraph of page 125 the authors state that one of the reasons we should employ metacommentary is so that we can "generate more text," meaning that we can make our college papers longer than we may usually find the ability for.

Now I have to say this sounds to me almost as if it were a bribe. "Employ our teachings to write longer papers!" This is so superficial that it is hardly worth mentioning, and to mention it seems inappropriate for a book which has the purpose of educating. To teach us college students how to merely fulfill the technical requirements of a course comes off as a bureaucratic concern when we really should be more concerned with our minds. Again I find my respect for the authors dwindles a bit more, for this is not very professional. What is next? They tell us to make our periods one font size bigger than the words so that we may generate longer papers without generating more text?

But all in all, I am glad that this is the final TSIS reading assignment and that we only have one more assigned reading homework after this. Now I should find myself more able to flavor this blog by having virtual free reign on commenting on whatever reading I choose to, presupposing its relevancy to my writing assignments. Given my disappointment with TSIS as a college text -- I do not think it is much of a college text given its lack of difficulty and small page length -- I am ready to up the ante in intellectual content. Self-improvement can only come about through struggle, and while an easy work to read may amount to an easy grade it does not amount to any worthwhile value in reality separate from the course. Certainly it may be pleasurable to the brains of some to idle and not be challenged by the environment, but we must fight that temptation and put ourselves through intellectual pain if we hope to reap spiritual and financial rewards for it later on.

I do not know on what topics I would like to write my lengthier course assignments on, but in my preliminary thinking I am tempted to write on my thesis that indulgence in base emotions is the root of all evil. Stay tuned for updates.

[TSIS exercise 1, page 131]

1.) In making a case for the use of medical marijuana, I am not saying it should be legalized so that cancer patients will be able to deal with dangerous drug dealers in dark alleys without interference from the law, but rather that medical marijuana be legalized so that we can avoid such situations from ever occurring.

2.) But my argument will do more than prove that one particular industrial chemical has certain toxic properties. In this article, I will also demonstrate that government regulations drove companies to utilizing that chemical and that politicians were too ignorant to realize the nature of their regulations in regards to this consequence.

3.) My point about the national obsessions with sports reinforces the belief held by many sports fans that in our present day culture very few people find intellectual pursuits to be emotionally pleasurable.

4.) I believe, therefore, that the war is completely justified. But let me back up and explain how I arrived at this conclusion. Curious about what justifications have been given as to why certain things are to be considered right or wrong, I took to my library and studied the various ethical systems put forth by the multitude of philosophers, and came to accept John Rawls' teachings. In this way, I came to believe that this war is a big mistake.

Metacommentary on these exercises on metacommentary: What is up with number 4? In the first sentence the author states that he believes that the war is justified, but in the final sentence he contradicts himself.

I finished reading chapters eight and nine in TSIS, and to our pleasure I have more disagreements to pose. I almost wish the instructor had been provocative and gave us deliberately objectionable reading for us to respond to, for I find in those cases I have the most interesting things to say and at the same time learn better what my own position is. Again, when you agree with something what else can you say except "I agree"?

This time in particular my concern is in chapter nine, about mixing colloquial (casual) and formal terminology in academic writing. For the most part I do agree with the authors: it is acceptable to mix tones given the proper audience and context, meaning that this is not a principle that applies in all instances. However, I disagree with a particular idea advocated by the authors.

My concern begins with page 119, starting with the second paragraph and ending with the first paragraph on page 120. In particular, I am discomforted by this statement which advocates Geneva Smitherman's (the author quoted on page 119) political statement:

Although some scholars might object to these unconventional practices, this is precisely Smitherman's point: that our habitual language practices need to be opened up, and that the number of participants in the academic conversation needs to be expanded.

Keep in mind the authors are talking about expanding the academic conversation to people who speak like this:

In Black America, the oral tradition has served as a fundamental vehicle for gittin ovuh. ["Getting over"?]

Blacks are quick to ridicule "educated fools," people who done gone to school and read all dem books and still don't know nothin!

...it is a socially approved verbal strategy for black rappers to talk about how bad they is. [Omission in original.] [Quoted on page 119.]

Also keep in mind that we are not talking about a form of slang used by persons who are innocently ignorant of the rules of English and speak this way as a result, but rather persons who are aware of the rules and deliberately flout them as a matter of nihilism, of rejecting standards for the sake of rejection. Such slang -- and this includes all similar slang (I am not knowledgeable as to how many specific kinds exist) -- is nothing more than an attempt to take a swipe at values by glorifying their antithesis; in this case, broken English is deliberately upheld in order to snub the standards of standard English. 

Nihilism can manifest itself in many concrete forms other than language usage. For example, in the world of art we have those painters who literally splash their canvas with paint, ending up with a canvas of nothing but blots, and yet expect their art to be taken as seriously as Leonardo's Mona Lisa or Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In constructing such effortless thrash they take a shot at the skilled works of art of the greats, and when gallery owners choose to showcase such work they succeed in muddying up the vision of greatness inherent in skilled works of art by stating that "abstract" art deserves its fair share of greatness as well.

The consistent goal of nihilism is to bring down the good by upholding the bad in comparison, but the nihilists cannot succeed on their own; they must be brought up by the good. The abstract artist, for instance, will not become prestigious unless gallery owners choose to show his work. It is by this sanction that nihilists siphon their power, power they cannot conjure on their own.  

By calling for academic conversation to be opened to nihilists like those who flout the standards of English for the sake of flouting standards, Smitherman and authors of TSIS will assist them in achieving their aim and be responsible for damaging the standards by which something is to be judged academic, thereby raising the mark of intelligence to that which rejects intelligence.

Even outside considerations of nihilism the three authors' position is absolutely absurd: they suggest opening up academic conversation to those who reject and deliberately disrespect the academic. They are seriously encouraging us to expand our standards to include those who reject standards, to give serious intellectual consideration to those who purposely present themselves as ignorant and foolish; to give the time of day, those who live a life of mind, to those who live mindlessly. 

A quote comes to mind, from the main villain in the book The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey:

Kill man's sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can't be ruled. We don't want any great men. Don't deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept -- and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection.... Don't set out to raze all shrines -- you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity -- and the shrines are razed.

[TSIS Exercise 2, page 114]

Link to original piece. Titled "Buying Local", links and original formatting dropped. Bold added to attract attention to underlining.

It has recently come to attention that the UAW, at least in Michigan, prohibits cars of foreign make from parking in union hall parking lots and that any violators of the rule are to be towed away. Such sentiments are not limited to the UAW: in the past few weeks I have noticed that the editorials continuously call for people to purchase goods and services produced only within the local economy. The premise underlying all of this, of course, is that keeping money within the local economy improves the local economy.

This, however, fails to establish the context. While so many are quick to condemn businesses for daring to outsource work and to import foreign materials, none ask the most important question: why are these businesses choosing to outsource? By not answering this question we risk merely making the economy worse, so let us examine the possible reasons.

I am not aware of any explicit reasons as to why the companies based in Michigan would want to outsource (e.g. harmful legislation, favorable conditions overseas, et cetera), but we can conclude that their reason(s) fall within two categories: 1.) the cost of running business is cheaper in particular foreign locales, and/or 2.) the quality of production is greater in particular foreign locales. Few businesses uproot their operations "just because".

Michigan editorials are calling for either people to purchase things only locally or for companies to relocate their operations locally, but by not answering the question above, what do we risk losing? If businesses are relocating because the cost of business is cheaper elsewhere, then we will have to face higher prices than we otherwise would have to pay; if businesses are relocating because the quality of production is greater elsewhere, then we lose that superior quality. If it is a combination of both factors, then we have lost much.

The point is that we must have in mind the full context before choosing to take a course of action. If we do not, then we are merely making guesses, even if educated ones.

"Buying local" as a principle does no good or harm; it is meaningless without the context of appropriate factors. People, for instance, bought locally in The Great Depression. The Smoot-Hawley tariff mostly, if not entirely, cut off U.S. trade with other countries. "Buying local" improved the economy none since people were subject to such excruciatingly high taxes back then in order to fund New Deal programs.

When thinking about these issues we must chant the mantra context, context, context within our minds.

 

Rereading this I see that I depend on "pointing words" most often; that is, words that gain meaning by connecting to the established context (e.g. pronouns such as "he" or "she"). This post is almost entirely clear and I cannot think of any way to revise it other than minor grammar and punctuation. The only error of clarity I made is establishing the fourth bold/underlined phrase as a pointing term. WHAT editorials am I talking about at that point? If I had mentioned at that point that I had been reading my local (Michigan) editorials then it would have been fine to use that phrasing since it would have been clear as to which locality I am referring to, but since I had not yet at that point it has no previous context from which to establish its meaning.

[TSIS Exercise 2, page 122]

Comical this exercise should be brought up at the time I actually begin the practice of incorporating made-up words into my text ("refutement" in that piece). (Though I am careful to construct only words which are understandable.) But I am actually in a different situation than what the authors would expect me to be in: my formal writing IS, for the most part, my casual voice. Incorporating street slang is what would actually violate my "everyday" style. For me the essential difference between a casual tone and an academic one is that of using or prohibiting contractions. I may use colloquial terms here and there, but not often enough to have then be considered a part of my everyday speaking. 

To provide proof, sample the consistent tone on my personal, non-class blogs Benpercent and Musing Aloud.

For a refreshing change of pace I have another objection to air about the textbook. Really I wish I had more things to object to, for it allows me to have more of worth to say. (With that which you agree, what else is there to say except you agree?) The passage I speak about in particular is in the chapter titled Skeptics May Object, on page 84, with this quote: "Often the best way to overcome an objection is not to try to refute it completely, but to agree with certain parts while challenging only those you dispute."

But what if the thing one is objecting to has no agreeable parts, leaving few options than to pursue absolute refutement? For example, in my post Platonists in the House? over at Musing Aloud I detail Plato's metaphysics and his view of human beings. Since no evidence exists in reality to support his theory none of it is agreeable, so I reject it absolutely and with little effort. Sure, if one wanted to be very logically strict one could say Plato and I agree on certain matters such as the usage of the words "human being" and "reflection," but such an agreement would be so trivial as to not be worthy of being brought up. No concessions can be made, therefore the steadfast route must be taken. To make any concessions would be to deny that his theory is absolutely arbitrary.

I, however, think that the authors of They Say I Say have another thought in mind when discouraging writers from being absolutely firm in their positions. I believe that the authors are, in a way, being cowardly and are suggesting that one must not go through the discomfort of holding absolutely to one's position lest other people disapprove of it. Only to the person who gives significance to what other people think does such a thought matter, for it is he who compromises on his ideology in order to please other people. He worries about whether or not his stance is too pointed and might offend somebody, so his pats his opponent on the back and tries to concede on certain points in order to make parts of his own position palatable.

To be clear, I am not talking about situations in which one may appropriately concede certain points to one's opponent (e.g. in the TSIS exercise about the war on drugs supporters and opponents alike of drug laws may both agree that doing drugs is harmful to one's health), I am talking about positions in which it is entirely inappropriate to make concessions at all. To make a concession in that circumstance is to surrender entirely the meaning of one's stance, a surrender which might actually defeat one's stance in the long run. If I were to make some concessions that parts of Plato's metaphysics are correct, for instance, then I would be defeating my stance entirely by lending justifiability to the notion that it is appropriate to come construct, defend, and argue with arbitrary ideas, something I am entirely against (I believe the appropriate action to take epistemologically is to dismiss arbitrary ideas offhand). 

Of course, it all depends on the context. "Context" should be the one mantra applicable to all situations.