29-07-2013, 04:29 AM
Charles Drago Wrote:If I'm reading your subtext accurately, you (unlike Noam Chomsky) seem to be endorsing modes of inquiry that, far from being entrapped in the A or B frame, encourage and utilize the search for so-called "third alternatives"
Or as the other Marx might have put it: Sometimes, but not always, a cigar is just a cigar.
Yes, that is a fair assessment, Charles. In terms of what we call the "human sciences", I've always had a certain reluctance to embrace theoretical absolutisms; this was particularly true when I used to practice literary interpretation, many moons ago.
To inject a little levity here. A professor of Old French I knew years ago, who was a young boy in Poland during the war, once told this anecdote. Being so young and not knowing much about the real significance of the events he was witnessing, but with the glories of Roman history placed in his head from the schoolroom, saw one day a column of Italian tanks on their way through his town as they headed to the Russian front. Inspired to greet them with what little Italian he could muster, he yelled out, "Vittoria o morte!" [Victory or Death]. To which, a soldier riding on the turret of the passing tank, wagging his finger at him, replied, "C'e` sempre una terza via" [There's always a third alternative.]