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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!clyde!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!grunwald
From: grunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Flag Waver Speaks Out - (nf)
Message-ID: <4420@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 10-Dec-83 22:28:56 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4420
Posted: Sat Dec 10 22:28:56 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Dec-83 02:23:55 EST
Lines: 18

#R:pyuxa:-41600:uiuccsb:7600074:000:890
uiuccsb!grunwald    Dec 10 17:10:00 1983

  One thing that the T.C. Wheeler person forgets to realise is that the use of
symbols serves to minimize the amount of thought that one expends on an
issue. If one can reduce it to a set of interactions among symbols, the issue
can be dispensed with since you already have your views set in terms of what
the valid interactions between symbols are.

  E.g. If declare that it is reasonable that someone read a socialist
magizine like In These Times, and someone brands me as a commie gook, they
dispense with having to be critical about the content of my assertion. This
is the inherient problem behind symbols. This ability to classify and reduce
is useful at times, but taken to an extreme, it is harmful. Political symbols
are often very extreme.

  Also, I really dislike your referring to the person you are critizing as
"the Genji person." I'm sure (s)he has a name. Why not use it.