Richard, it’s the process of elucidating your reasons why a theory or idea is bollocks that gives an idea worth since, if you force yourself to consider it objectively and clearly, you can clarify and improve your understanding of your own position (if yours isn’t bollocks too) to yourself and to others. You learn nothing if you’re not open to being wrong and to thinking critically of your own positions and theories.”

Nah, some stuff, like most of Dale’s blogs on Thought Leader, is such self-evident bollocks that one need not even elucidate reasons why – it just speaks for itself.

““You clearly have respect for Ayn Rand’s scribblings.”

Yes, they provoke thought. Whether I agree with them or not is not relevant.”

Hitler’s Mein Kampf also provokes thought. On that basis, do you also respect that book?

““…spittle-flecked rantings of some nutter on the street corner,”

This accurately describes your own vicious and bitter tone, so should we all disregard your words?”

Oh dear, have I upset you then?

““…cannot expect me to be nice to any argument which rests on Ms Rand’s theories.”

As I recall, it was a saying regarding resentment of others’ success, not a theory, and was not used to support the argument, just to illustrate it. The saying doesn’t gain credibility BECAUSE Ayn Rand said it, it was used because it is a truism that was elegantly put by Ayn Rand.”

Mind if I find some choice quotes from Mein Kampf then and defend it as a truism?

to be continued …

“One does not “grow and learn” from superficial feelgood platitudes such as those spouted by Dale, or deranged rantings such as those scrawled by Ms Rand.”

Whether one agrees with these “feelgood platitudes” or “deranged rantings” or not, one CAN grow and learn by explaining and motivating your points of disagreemennt with them. Anything less is just noise.

“If that makes me appear a bully, then so be it.”

You said it, not me.

“…I fully accept that people who vote for the ANC need to be persuaded from the self-destructive lunacy of their political affiliations,…”

Yet you clearly are not willing to take the time to do so yourself; it seems you’d rather spend that time shouting people down.

“…but I do not post here in order to make nice. I feel nothing but contempt for the ANC, and am quite happy simply to express that.”

To what end? Expressing the contempt you feel (which is shared by many of us too) without attempting to motivate it clearly can best be described by that wonderful cliche “pissing into the wind”… if you want to, that’s fine, but please don’t expect anybody to take any notice of it.

“You clearly have respect for Ayn Rand’s scribblings.”

Yes, they provoke thought. Whether I agree with them or not is not relevant.

“…spittle-flecked rantings of some nutter on the street corner,”

This accurately describes your own vicious and bitter tone, so should we all disregard your words?

“…cannot expect me to be nice to any argument which rests on Ms Rand’s theories.”

As I recall, it was a saying regarding resentment of others’ success, not a theory, and was not used to support the argument, just to illustrate it. The saying doesn’t gain credibility BECAUSE Ayn Rand said it, it was used because it is a truism that was elegantly put by Ayn Rand.

“…seem to regard all ideas, concepts, theories, etc of intrinsically equal worth and deserving of equal respect, even if some are complete bollocks.”

Richard, it’s the process of elucidating your reasons why a theory or idea is bollocks that gives an idea worth since, if you force yourself to consider it objectively and clearly, you can clarify and improve your understanding of your own position (if yours isn’t bollocks too) to yourself and to others. You learn nothing if you’re not open to being wrong and to thinking critically of your own positions and theories.

“I’d just like to see the coaching in action, constructive engagement. Probably good practice.”

Coaching is the thing Dale does to earn his crust, ironically.

Rest assured, I do not post here to be liked.

You clearly have respect for Ayn Rand’s scribblings.

I have none.

They were nothing more than a self-regarding axe-grinding polemic with absolutely no literary merit or ideas of any worth.

I pay them no more regard than I would the spittle-flecked rantings of some nutter on the street corner, so you cannot expect me to be nice to any argument which rests on Ms Rand’s theories.

You, like dear Dale, appear to regard all ideas, concepts, theories, etc of intrinsically equal worth and deserving of equal respect, even if some are complete bollocks.

I don’t. One does not “grow and learn” from superficial feelgood platitudes such as those spouted by Dale, or deranged rantings such as those scrawled by Ms Rand.

If that makes me appear a bully, then so be it.

As for the SA guvmint, I fully accept that people who vote for the ANC need to be persuaded from the self-destructive lunacy of their political affiliations, but I do not post here in order to make nice. I feel nothing but contempt for the ANC, and am quite happy simply to express that.

As for me, I don’t even make so much as a monetary contribution to SA. I pay UK taxes, you see

Here you are off topic. I won’t dispute anything you say about the government… in fact I agree with most of it. Nor do I dispute your right to express a view. However, if we wish to disabuse our government of the illusion of their “God given right to govern until the second coming”, we need to persuade those with the power to remove the government (i.e. the voters) of the need to do so.

In order to persuade people, we must give reasoned argument. To simply shout someone down without voicing your reasoning or motivation (“Intellectual Vandalism” as described in the article) accomplishes nothing, and produces nothing but animosity among those whose minds you want to change.

Further, I don’t dispute the importance of your monetary contribution, I simply point out that you have no control over what it accomplishes. Reasoned argument however might just change somebody’s mind… one more vote in your favour, one less for the government. And if they in turn can reason with, and persuade, just one other person (and so on down the chain), before long your ideas may find some real impetus.

Remember that big things are accomplished one small step at a time… and though it IS better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, nobody is stopping you from doing both .

There’s just otherwise a degeneration into this amusing classroom construct with a flustered teacher merely shouting louder and louder and there being the kids who are just busy wrecking the classroom because they know the teacher just can’t hold it all together and they’d probably learn more outside, and the teacher himself getting stressed about the whole thing and the couple of kids at the front busy trying to get attention going ‘Look at us, we’re behaving so nicely. Can we carry your bags later?’

Now I know that’s a crass analogy and no one behaves exactly like that, but I’m trying to convince myself of the merits of one or the other of these. (a) Slouching at the back and enjoying the entertainment or (b) deciding that another class would be a more useful way to spend time.

So I figured I’d offer some constructive (if ill-constructed) random comment first. Can I carry your bags?

Whilst I do not necessarily espouse Dale’s thoughts, I do not disagree with them. In his reality those are his beliefs. In your reality Richard, you have your own (however lacking in Creativity they may be).

RichardP, I figured Dale should be able to be a bit more non-traditional maybe than fingerwagging?

The entire Zuma/Zille debate became as discussionless as Dale’s commentary may be becoming because the initial kneejerk reaction is never superseded by anything else. First reactions, people take their positions and then just start sandbagging them-unless you drag them out.

Maybe this is just me, maybe everyone else is happy with repeating these positions ad infinitum and ‘proving’ their own rightness, but I’d say that this series of two-sided monologues with no interaction needs some morphing into a real discussion. I’d just like to see the coaching in action, constructive engagement. Probably good practice.

So given that we can’t do Kamp Staaldraad for Thought Leader (yawn), a series of articles that genuinely challenge perspective, not just a mere transparent analogy saying exactly the same thing. Now perhaps it wasn’t meant to say the same thing; the line-up of comments says it’s perceived to, sandbags are lined up in the same places). And an admission that there’s no such thing as correct/incorrect for one person being the same as everyone else (personally I found that piece that started this extraordinarily prescriptive). More open-ended, not so obviously linked (is your depersonalised position the same as when you’re automatically defending personal, real-life choices?).

Maybe that’s just a dreamworld, huh?