Intelligent Manifestos

[ewe2]

Carolyn (with similar caveats):

> To vaguely drag this back to Harry Potter, I do think this is a major area
> where different cultural sensitivities can trip people up in their
> interpretation of the books. We get much exercised about what Faith really
> thinks (I mean Faith as a metaphor for authorial intent here, of course),
> but people like LL forget that she's British, and this stuff is just not
> such a hot issue in our cultural environment as it is in the US (though it
> exists, of course). I suppose he'd just say she needs converting...

Sean, wildy throwing caveats like roses into the air:

I didn't mean to start a thread on ID, although the revelations it produced
profoundly disturb me. My aim was to illustrate how a person/group with a
specific agenda can attempt to change the dialogue on a subject to conform to
parameters they prefer, and ID seemed to me an apt analogy. I'm sure everyone
can think of others along such lines. My use of the word manifesto is
deliberate: these days, such documents are shielded from public view, much
like Amway manuals because manifestos = agendas, and are thus exposed to
attack. (No really, I've seen Amway manuals, they're the scariest
MarketSpeak you'll come across).

The idea of a culture war has implications for this; like it or not, there are
people who regard anything as fair game for their arguments, it doesn't
require cultural sensitivity (but makes a fine shield) and normally I would
simply ignore them, but in this case I think they need serious laughing at.
They should not be allowed to attempt to impose their idea of a moral agenda
(by constant repetition until they get the desired results), and there are
healthy signs that this won't happen.

Halfway through this rant^H^Hepistle and I see that Kneasy has already
anticipated me on several points :) So I will be more productive and less
controversial.

It's beginning to sound like rival gangs though :)

-- 
When all you have are foxes, everything looks like a henhouse.