No, you don't cut off discussion and analysis of someone's life and character just because they're dead. If you did, there would be no value to history. Good manners requires that you give the survivors the grace of a month or so before castigating the dead, and I'm sure that Miss Manners would be happy to extend that to six months or even a year, but in the case of someone who explicitly removed himself from the category of 'private person' there is good reason to give no more than the month. In other words, I agree that they should lay off, but I don't think there's anything shameful after the body is suitably cold in the ground, scattered, in the urn, or whatever method is used to dispose of the unwanted leftover bit. I also think it would be shameful for nobody to counter the slanderous bits.
I have no quibble with saying that skill at writing and argumentation do not make anyone right, conservative or otherwise, except where that skill is used to facilitate the reasoned analysis and to present the supporting information for a stance.
My point is that these can be used to overwhelm a valid argument from a weak rhetoritician despite a faulty counter-argument, and that they can be used to buttress and reinforce an otherwise specious argument, and I assert that I saw Buckley using them in that way. In no way does this require or imply that the speaker is ungracious or rude, and in fact, it's part of the skill to deliver the riposte in such a way that the victim smiles, nods, and shakes your hand with gratitude for being so neatly skewered.
Testimonials are nice things. As the Wizard said to the Tin Man, "None of these people has a big heart, but what they do have is a big testimonial."
I did observe, once or twice, that Buckley was somewhat dismissive, ignored or genteelly sneered away the point being made by his opposition, and in at least one instance, by simply ignoring the man. That _was_ in the Nixon and Ford time-frame though.
Recognizing that Buckley was not a "neocon" does not reduce his influence in creating the conservative groundwork on which they built, and still there is little of his reasoned approach in their doctrine, which seems to be more one of using the values of conservatism to justify profound, sociopathic selfishness.
Still, I find his statement that Bush suffered "the absence of effective conservative ideology" to be a peculiar observation for two reasons: first, his own contributions are claimed (falsely? stolen gravitas?) by the neocon and dominionist crowd that used Bush; second, saying that there could be "effective" conservative ideology suggests there would be "ineffective" conservative ideology, and that leads to the question, "So, what makes a given ideology effective, why, and how?" and that leads to the question, which I wish he'd answered, "what differentiates a 'true' conservative from a 'false' conservative?"
Though I suspect the answer would be subjected to the same degree and kind of frenzied dispute as the question "What differentiates a 'true' Christian from a 'false' Christian?"
And of course he could be claiming that "effective conservative ideology" is the same as saying "effective ideology" or "conservatism" ... which would be so hubristic as to confirm the critics, and I don't believe it.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-03-02 06:58 pm (UTC)I have no quibble with saying that skill at writing and argumentation do not make anyone right, conservative or otherwise, except where that skill is used to facilitate the reasoned analysis and to present the supporting information for a stance.
My point is that these can be used to overwhelm a valid argument from a weak rhetoritician despite a faulty counter-argument, and that they can be used to buttress and reinforce an otherwise specious argument, and I assert that I saw Buckley using them in that way.
In no way does this require or imply that the speaker is ungracious or rude, and in fact, it's part of the skill to deliver the riposte in such a way that the victim smiles, nods, and shakes your hand with gratitude for being so neatly skewered.
Testimonials are nice things. As the Wizard said to the Tin Man, "None of these people has a big heart, but what they do have is a big testimonial."
I did observe, once or twice, that Buckley was somewhat dismissive, ignored or genteelly sneered away the point being made by his opposition, and in at least one instance, by simply ignoring the man. That _was_ in the Nixon and Ford time-frame though.
Recognizing that Buckley was not a "neocon" does not reduce his influence in creating the conservative groundwork on which they built, and still there is little of his reasoned approach in their doctrine, which seems to be more one of using the values of conservatism to justify profound, sociopathic selfishness.
Still, I find his statement that Bush suffered "the absence of effective conservative ideology" to be a peculiar observation for two reasons: first, his own contributions are claimed (falsely? stolen gravitas?) by the neocon and dominionist crowd that used Bush; second, saying that there could be "effective" conservative ideology suggests there would be "ineffective" conservative ideology, and that leads to the question, "So, what makes a given ideology effective, why, and how?" and that leads to the question, which I wish he'd answered, "what differentiates a 'true' conservative from a 'false' conservative?"
Though I suspect the answer would be subjected to the same degree and kind of frenzied dispute as the question "What differentiates a 'true' Christian from a 'false' Christian?"
And of course he could be claiming that "effective conservative ideology" is the same as saying "effective ideology" or "conservatism" ... which would be so hubristic as to confirm the critics, and I don't believe it.